Employee Records
Part of Employee records and HR data
Finding duplicate employee profiles before migration
Identify and review possible duplicate employee profiles before migration while preserving distinct people and employment history.
Find suspected duplicate profiles before migration by comparing identifiers and employment history. An authorised owner then decides whether the records describe one person. A matching name is a lead, not proof: an automatic merge can attach pay, leave or other information to the wrong employee.
Key facts about duplicate employee profiles in migration
- Risk of automatic merge errorsCan attach pay, leave or other data to the wrong employee
- Time saved by automated toolsPlauti helped Pro Juventute save 5 hours per week on staff directory maintenance
Build a candidate list without merging records
Work from a protected extract of the systems in scope. Include each source system and profile ID, available payroll or internal IDs, name variants, employment dates, status and other fields the organisation is authorised to use for matching. Limit access to the review team.
Preserve original values so a decision can be traced to each source record.
Start with stronger candidates, such as profiles sharing an internal person identifier within the same identifier scheme. Confirm how each system assigns IDs before comparing them across systems: identical values can refer to different people when schemes differ or IDs have been reused.
Then look for combinations of weaker clues, such as similar names and employment dates, a former profile followed by a possible rehire, or two active profiles pointing to one payroll record. An email address or phone number is not a permanent identity key. Use sensitive identifiers only where their use for this task is justified and controlled.
| Candidate pattern | Review question |
|---|---|
| Same person ID, different profile IDs | Do the IDs share a scheme, and was the person copied or created twice? |
| Same name, different person IDs | Are these different people with similar details? |
| Former and current profiles | Is this a rehire with distinct employment periods? |
| One profile with conflicting dates | Is there a duplicate, an entry error or a legitimate later change? |
Decide what each candidate represents
Give each candidate a disposition: same person with duplicate profiles, same person with separate employment periods, different people, or unresolved. Have an authorised HR or payroll owner inspect the underlying employment evidence before confirming a match. Where identifiers or other source records conflict, investigate before merging. A similarity score should not overrule contradictory evidence.
For a confirmed duplicate, choose the target person record and map every source profile ID to it. Keep employment periods, approved changes and required records distinguishable.
Do not discard a source profile simply because its current fields look older. It may hold evidence of a previous pay arrangement, leave transaction or correction. Preserve required employment records and their retention, even if the destination displays one current profile.
Check the mapping and imported result
For a sample of confirmed matches, compare the source profiles with the proposed destination record: person identity, each employment period, dates, current value, earlier changes and linked documents. Check that the mapping will neither duplicate a transaction nor leave a required record unattached. Keep unresolved pairs separate until an owner decides how to handle them.
Record source IDs, evidence considered, disposition, reviewer, date and destination ID. After import, use that decision log to locate each source record and check that it reached the right person without erasing history or combining two different employees.
