Employee communication across multiple HRIS: how to reach everyone from one place

Employee communication across multiple HRIS is the job of reaching every employee from one place when their records sit in more than one HR system. It’s common after a merger, or in groups where each company kept its own HRIS. Every all-staff message turns into exporting two or three lists, merging them in a spreadsheet and hoping nobody changed jobs since last week. Someone always gets missed.

This playbook shows how to replace those manual lists with one live audience. For background on why hand-built lists break, read our explainer on distribution list management.

Why is employee communication hard with more than one HRIS?

Employee communication breaks with more than one HRIS because no single list holds everyone, and every hand-built list starts going out of date the day it’s made.

• Manual merges. Someone exports each system and joins them in a spreadsheet before every big send.
• Fields don’t match. One system says “Location”, another says “Site”, and job titles follow different rules.
• Starters and leavers slip through. New hires miss messages, and people who left still get them.
• No single report. Results come back per system, so nobody can say how well the whole company was reached.
• Security worries. Spreadsheets of employee data get emailed around, which IT rightly dislikes.

What does good employee communication across multiple HRIS look like?

It looks like one company: one audience that updates itself, one send and one report, whichever HRIS a person sits in.

• Every HRIS feeds the same audience automatically, with no exports.
• Fields like site, department, manager and language mean the same thing everywhere.
• Each person is tagged by entity or legacy company, so you can target or report by it.
• Starters are added and leavers drop out without anyone editing a list.
• Results for every channel come back in one report you can split by entity.
• IT approved every connection, and nobody emails spreadsheets of employee data.

The 6 steps to one audience across every HRIS

Run these steps in order. The field mapping in step 2 takes the most time, so start it early.

Step 1 (week 1): List every system that holds employee data

Write down each HRIS, payroll system and directory, which entity it covers and who owns it. Include Active Directory or your identity provider, since it often holds email addresses the HRIS doesn’t.

Step 2 (weeks 1 to 2): Agree one set of field names

Decide what “site”, “department”, “manager”, “employment type” and “language” mean across every system, and map each system’s fields to them. Add an entity field so every person carries their company of origin.

Step 3 (week 2): Get IT to approve each connection

Bring IT the security documents, the fields you’ll sync and who can see them. A direct, governed connection is usually easier for IT to approve than spreadsheets passed around by email.

Step 4 (weeks 2 to 3): Connect each HRIS to one comms platform

Connect the systems in turn and check the counts against each HRIS. Where a system can’t connect yet, import a file for now and plan the connection. The ChangeEngine integrations directory lists the HRIS and payroll systems it connects to.

Step 5 (week 3): Test with a real send

Send a low-stakes message, such as a calendar reminder, to the full audience. Check delivery and reads by entity, and fix any group that’s missing or duplicated.

Step 6 (ongoing): Retire the manual lists

Once the live audience matches reality, stop maintaining exported lists and old distribution groups. Tell every sender where the one audience lives.

Which fields should you map across HRIS systems?

Map the fields you target and report on most: entity, site, department, manager, employment type, start date and language.

• Do pick one name and one set of values for each field. Don’t keep “NYC”, “New York” and “NY Office” as three sites.
• Do add an entity or legacy company field. Don’t rely on email domains to tell companies apart.
• Do include mobile numbers for staff without a work email. Don’t assume everyone is in the email directory.
• Do limit synced fields to what comms needs. Don’t pull salary or other sensitive data you’ll never use.

How do you prove one audience is working?

One audience is working when your send counts match HR’s headcount, and every send reports back by entity without a spreadsheet.

Compare the audience total with each HRIS headcount every month. Track how many hours you used to spend merging lists before each send, and how many you spend now. Report reach and reads by entity and site, so leadership can see whether every company in the group is hearing the same thing.

Common worries, and what to do about them

“Connecting several HR systems will take months.”

Start with the largest system, import the rest from a file while their connections are set up, and add each system as it’s ready.

“IT won’t approve sending employee data to another tool.”

Bring the certifications, data residency details and field list to the first meeting. Syncing only the fields comms needs, over approved connections, is often a smaller risk than today’s spreadsheets.

“We’re moving to one HRIS next year anyway.”

Your comms can’t wait a year. A comms platform that reads from whichever HRIS each person sits in keeps working through the move, and you update the connection when the old system retires.

Send to everyone, whichever HRIS they sit in

ChangeEngine connects to 75+ HRIS and payroll systems, plus Active Directory, and turns the fields they hold into audiences that update as people join, move and leave.

After a merger, both workforces can come in from either HRIS or from a file, and be segmented by legacy company, site and role. If a system isn’t on the list, ChangeEngine’s forward deployed engineers can build the connection with your IT team.

The Communication Orchestrator sends one message across email, Slack, Teams and SMS to that audience, and every read and click rolls up by team, site and manager in one report. Most teams are live with HRIS and SSO in about two weeks. For the wider merger work, see M&A employee communications.

For IT and security: SOC 2 and ISO 27001 certified, GDPR compliant, SSO over SAML or OAuth, SCIM provisioning and US, EU or Canadian data residency.