A new global study reports that fragmented talent data carries a measurable financial cost. Korn Ferry says its 2026 Global Talent Analytics Survey found that fragmented workforce data is undermining talent decisions, with 99% of leaders reporting a negative financial impact, more than 80% estimating costs of at least 3% of total payroll.
However, there is another layer that makes this finding harder to dismiss. More than one in four leaders say it can take weeks to access connected talent insights. By the time an HR leader can assemble the numbers needed to flag a problem, the drain is often already built into the quarter.
The survey, which drew responses from 1,600 C-suite and senior HR leaders across 10 countries, points to workforce underutilization as a primary driver of the financial impact. Thirty-one percent of leaders report that more than a quarter of their workforce is underutilized, identifying employees who are not deployed in ways that match their full capability.
However, underutilization rarely surfaces as a line item. It shows up in productivity gaps, inconsistent performance and high-potential employees who leave for roles that use more of what they can do.
“When workers’ potential is missed, the business loses out,” said Matias Spinetta, senior vice president of North America Commercial at Korn Ferry, in the report. “They end up buying what they might not need or missing innovations that could lead to growth. And their staff turnover rises, too, as those people get bored and look to spread their wings elsewhere.”
Often, data to catch those patterns exists somewhere inside the organization, but it doesn’t connect in a way that lets leaders act on it.
‘Too late to do something about it’
Across most organizations, the talent information needed to make workforce decisions sits across multiple platforms that aren’t designed to work together. The Korn Ferry survey found that 84% of leaders operate between three and 10 different talent platforms, yet just 5% have fully connected systems. Sixty-eight percent operate with only partial or minimal data integration.
The result is a workflow that looks less like analysis and more like an assembly line. Before an HR leader can surface a workforce insight, they often have to pull data from multiple systems and reconcile it manually. For more than a quarter of leaders, according to the report, that process takes weeks. Unfortunately, workforce decisions tied to reorganizations, market shifts or leadership changes don’t pause while HR waits on reports. When insights arrive late, leaders make calls without them.
“As an executive, if you don’t have a clear picture of your own workforce, that should keep you up at night,” said Jan Machtelinckx, growth leader for digital assessment, succession and development at Korn Ferry EMEA, in the report. “It might be too late to do something about it when decisions need to be made.”
The credibility cost when talent data can’t be trusted
There’s a secondary consequence that HR leaders may feel more directly. When data is slow or inconsistent, the function that produces it loses standing. The survey found that 55% of leaders say they rely less on HR for decisions when they don’t trust the talent data. Fragmented insights erode confidence in HR’s analysis, and eroded confidence means HR may be consulted less when high-stakes decisions are being made.
“The business doesn’t believe HR because they don’t believe the data can be trusted,” said Roger Philby, global lead of the People Strategy and Performance Practice at Korn Ferry U.K., as part of the report. “And that’s because HR isn’t always great at being data practitioners and communicators.”
The research does offer a point of contrast. Among organizations that have integrated their talent data, confidence in workforce decision-making rises from 4% to 55%. Those organizations also report gains in productivity, faster hiring and stronger employee engagement.
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