HR Digitalisation: Where to Start When Everything Is Still in Excel

“We want to digitalise HR, but everything is still in Excel.” That is the most common starting point — and contrary to what you will be told, the first step is not choosing an HR information system.

Why HRIS projects fail

The dominant cause is not technical. An HR system fails when it is deployed onto processes that were never defined. The tool does not create the process: it freezes it. Digitalising a vague process produces a vague tool, plus the licence cost and the fatigue of change.

The classic symptom: six months after go-live, managers still keep their own spreadsheet “because it is quicker”. That is not resistance to change; it is an accurate assessment of the tool.

Step zero: what to do before any tool

1. Name the objects. What counts as “headcount” here? Do temporary staff count? Interns? At what cut-off date? Without a shared definition, two departments produce two numbers and neither is wrong.
2. Write down the real processes. Not the official procedure: what actually happens. The gap between the two is most of the work.
3. Decide who owns each data item. Data without an owner is never up to date. One owner per item, no exceptions.
4. Choose five indicators, not thirty. A dashboard nobody looks at is a cost with no return.

This is the work of an organisational diagnostic. It takes a few weeks and determines whether the tooling project will succeed.

The sequence that works

Digitalising in the wrong order is expensive. The order that holds:

• 1. The people record. A single reliable source, with joiners and leavers. Everything else depends on it.
• 2. Payroll and time. This is where errors carry immediate cost and compliance risk.
• 3. The competency framework. Essential before any mobility, training or appraisal module.
• 4. Recruitment. An applicant-tracking system deployed without a competency framework reduces to an improved inbox.
• 5. Development and appraisal. Last, because they assume the first four are reliable.

Workforce planning sits at step three: it produces the framework the later modules depend on.

Five indicators to make reliable first

Compliance: law 09-08 and your HR data

An HR digitalisation project processes personal data within the meaning of law 09-08, under the oversight of the CNDP. Three points come up in every audit.

Where the data sits. A SaaS HR system often stores your data outside Morocco. That is not prohibited, but it must be known, documented and its conditions verified.

Retention periods. Unsuccessful applications cannot be kept indefinitely. A CV database accumulated over ten years is a liability, not an asset.

Access rights. The question to ask: can a manager view salary data for a team that is not theirs? In most poorly configured deployments, the answer is yes.