Introduction
In the new age, technology seems to be the answer to everything. This response has been generated over time based on the implementation of the methods that information technology advocated. HRIS was a product of summing up the theoretical principles of Human Resource Management with the new age methodologies of Information Technology hence giving us the term Human Resource Information Systems. Based on the evolved HRIS, all applications and practices of Human Resource Management are made through a composite of considerable techniques of Information technology and HRM. In organizations, initially, HRM was carried out in a very limited and simple manner primarily focused on individual employee files and individual records which had no specific plan and Employee career development, also it ignored the fact that the employee can be used as a resource in a particularly different field. The utilization of resources in different fields has always been very important and the efficiency of the utilization is accounted for almost everywhere. As the need rose, separate accounts were shifted over to the new technology for mostly record-keeping and making processes smoother which have slowly and inevitably smoothed down ways for the new tool we term as HRIS. HRIS in most circles might only refer to certain software for ERP which is no doubt the basic crux of the topic. The overall ideology is to integrate the HRIS in the organization so that a complete set of activities can be devised to utilize resources and to plan for the attainment of better performance of the organization as a whole. In addition, the complete information system guides the organization heads to plan as per the organization’s strengths and weaknesses that are accounted for and recognized by HRIS. The proposed Information system has now not only enveloped the regular HR activities but has proven to be successful in different other areas as well which is directly relevant to the workforce of the organization, such as Payrolls, Rewards and Benefits, Training and Development, Management Information Systems and Performance records (McAdams, 2009). The complexity of the organizations as times have changed have been completely adjusted and taken to the next level with the HRIS solutions.
Developing and implanting and HRIS
Organizations differ like business and the respective nature of business has helped organizations to shape themselves organically. Fortune 500 Inc. has the same structure that has helped it over the years in the market. Converting data into knowledge requires extensive planning to acquire the relative data and use it to the benefit of the organization. Fortune 500 Inc. must be able to identify eh need for which the HRIS system can provide a higher rate of success and assistance. Primarily, The organization needs have to be sorted out in different segments so that the needs can address the relative area of interest. The needs can be divided into:
- Critical needs
- Chief elements
- Significantly attainable
Secondly, an HRIS has to be profitable and the cost to benefit ratio has to be analyzed before implementing it in the organization. Fortune 500 Inc. must take into consideration the analysis between the cost and benefit. The business plan is the next step which has the most relative information that can be used for the HRIS implementation. The business plan encompasses the relative goals that have to be achieved and they are to be aligned with the HRIS.
Once the above-mentioned analyses are done, the possible picture of what needs to be installed will become quite clear. Fortune 500 Inc. will make sure that the needs are addressed with the relative organizational goals. The features and the releases present in the market will be charged against the cost and the implementation costs will be spread over a period of time not more than a year so that the profitability can be mapped. The system which will be bought must be profitable through its potential life which is why the cost will be spread. This implies that all the areas which need the implementation will be added in this final cost structure and the relative performance attributes will be accounted for. HRIS also helps out in the relationship building with existing stakeholders and comparatively new ones. The hired services are accounted under the same head, also to keep a track of performance from the significant heads. Business relationships with vendors and other accounts must be integrated into the system. The partners of business have to be equally prioritized.
System costs and the implementation of such systems to produce relative benchmarks have to be strategically reviewed and the benefit to be achieved from the systems has to be realized validly. This constitutes the budget plan allocated for such systems to make the HRIS a success all over the organization.
Fortune 500 Inc. is focused on achieving profits by saving money on operations so that the costs are less. The HR processes have to be cost-efficient and have a need of relaying information with high quality but in a less costly manner. The complex set of HR activities to be represented by the system will be done only if the data is clean and easily managed to be accurate. Periodic data scrubbing is important to make sure that the data is in perfect shape. Duplicates, Omitted information, and relevant legal capacities have to be installed and corrected promptly to keep the sanctity of the data is intact. Creation of rules and categories for employee levels, management levels, hired services and vendors must be processed at all times, especially while implementing. Calendar events like payrolls and benefits have to be automatically aligned with the performance scales. To make this possible, Fortune 500 Inc. will disseminate a handbook for the usage of the relative terminals of the system so that the terminal can be easily managed and used for the benefit of the employees and the organization alike. Implementation of the system might use various resources but the business partners and their involvement can make the implementation process a less complicated process since the data will be populated. The primary question is to identify if the current system needs to be upgraded or a new system needs to be implemented. If the current system is old; then it is time to implement a new HRIS system with a diverse set of features. Most organizations use the system as an effective method of prioritizing the activities, scheduling and developing business strategies using the present information.
Material for weeks 2—6
Week #2 – E-Recruiting
For E-recruiting, SAP can be used as an important HR solution. SAP stands for Standard Assessment Procedure. SAP provides an E-recruiting solution that is different from other SAP services. SAP E-recruiting is probably the most innovative solution available in the market and the same can be used to update the old recruiting technologies to give the user an enriched interface which can help them assign dedicated roles and update recruiting processes that can help the HR department to stay ahead of the market and effectively scrutinize the needed potential from the talent pool. SAP e-recruiting defines a great spectrum of strengths that can be used for the future of an organization and the realization can also be used in other capacities (SAP ERP HCM, 2011). The solution answers some very basic questions like:
- The talent needs of the organization.
- How to attract that talent.
- Organizational competency to address the relative talent and ensure effective utilization.
- How can the employees be motivated to stay loyal to the organization?
- Key challenges in addressing organizations and business requirements.
Week #3 – E-Selection
For integrating an effective E-selection system, ATS is the best choice that can work incompatibility with the E-recruiting system. Most systems might have it as a function coupled with E-Recruiting. ATS stands for Applicant Tracking System which can act as a complete database of the relative applicants for a certain job capacity after realizing their strengths and weaknesses pertaining to their employment experiences and the relativity of their skills to the nature of the business which hires them or plans to hire them. ATS, as mentioned before comes as a feature in certain HR solutions and can be used for the purpose mentioned above. It addresses the challenges that are posed against the management and those are the pre-screening processes that require the organization to take time in organizing the relative information that can be used in the future. This is why the E-recruiting technology can be used to reduce the processing time and to increase the efficiency of the system. In addition, the pre-employment results which are extensions of such ATS are stored to create a complete set of applicants who lie in the correct field and fall in for the relative job description. Strengths and weaknesses are assigned weights which are analyzed but the system is to produce a candidate out of a large pool of recruits, to be selected for the next level of hiring (Russell, 2007).
Week #4 – Self-Service & HR Portals
For effective Self Service and HR Portals, SAP is probably the most widely used solution in large organizations. About the fact that they provide customized solutions to address the relative requirements of the business. SAP self-service solutions include:
- SAP Employee Interaction Center
- SAP Enterprise Learning
- SAP Administrator Role
There are numerous solutions in the market which include:
- Advantage HRM (Advantage HRMS, 2011)
- G&A Partners HR Portal (G&A Partners, 2011)
- Automatic Data Processing INC.
Almost all of the solutions mentioned here have their specific nature of services that are offered to businesses worldwide. The self-service portals are a common product that can assist the communication of employees and managers, employees and employees, managers and managers. The primary goal is to establish a complete set of systems to ease communication and to transmit data without hassle. Different solutions can help the overall organization by providing integrated services such as the payroll technology can be integrated with employee work hours and also the performance charts which can enable the employee to completely monitor their own performance over time. In addition, the employees are empowered to use the service of a certain portal to increase their learning in reference to organizational learning (Padva, 2010).
Week #5 – E-Learning & Training
Among the various HR portals and solutions available in the market, the E-learning portals such as SAP Enterprise learning which is completely easy to be integrated into the SAP ERP, and provides a large range of facilities. SAP enterprise learning is a platform that accommodates parties such as the Learner, Instructor, Training Administrator, Manager, and Content Author (Padmanabhan, Hochwarth, Wolf, Bharathan, & Parthasarathy, 2010).
The platform helps the organization to develop a Needs Assessment in reference to employees who need to be polished and must have their organization knowledge increased. In-house training sessions are a very common example. Through E-learning technology, the need of providing new and undisputed knowledge can be addressed. The product architecture and technical architecture features of the organization can help the overall functional departments in the company to benefit from the newly attained knowledge. Different roles in the technology can help the training administrator to accommodate the training roles and the content to be used, while the training progresses. Visual aids and the relative material to be used along with the required material inputs can be listed and the whole process can be easily identified as a seamless activity that is purposefully designed to benefit the organization. It is safe to say the technology mentioned here is to facilitate the learning environment and the provision of such environment which promotes transmission of extensive knowledge required by organizational units (SAP Education).
Week #6 – Performance Management
Performance management was previously being used by the organizations as a timely appraisal or a constant track of weighted activities that were checked on timely basis to review the performance or the benefit that was given to the organization in a period. The truth is that the scoring methods, weights, and the quantitative performance tracking were effective but hardly efficient. This proposed a need for a complete performance tracking system that enabled the development of such technologies being used by organizations today. One of the most notable technologies being used today is:
- IBM Cognos Express
- SAP Business Planning and Consolidation
- Oracle Hyperion
PMT or Performance Management Technology such as Oracle Hyperion Performance Management Applications is quite effective in promoting the implementation of a complete set of performance measures. This suite contains a very simplistic interface such as that of MS Office and web applications, accompanied by reporting tools and administrative terminals (Deloitte).
Oracle Hyperion can be used by an organization to keep a track of the performance measure set by the organization heads that can change and review the current performance and also gather timely reports, thus making the overall appraisal and benefit awarding less complicated and more accurate and efficient by employing less time. It enhances the capability of the organization to include the strategic financial decisions to integrate quality management and add the relative performance score to the major scale used by the service (Oracle Solutions).
Conclusion about the future of HR
Human Resources was believed to be a complicated process, which to a certain extent is completely true. An organization has a lot of processes in place for the benefit of its stakeholders and as the business world keeps on getting more complex, the HR processes are concurrently being diversified to accommodate the different functional and operational requirements. The evolution is still in progress. Things are still focused on continuous improvement. With the technologies mentioned here and the technologies researched, the future of HR practices is much brighter than it ever was. With the promotion of a paperless environment and the effective utilization of resources, the processes are yet being improved and proposed towards a better, simpler, and diverse set of activities that will require less input and will generate high results, thus being more profitable and paving way for smooth business practices.
References
Advantage HRMS. (2011). Web Based Human Resources Management. Web.
Deloitte. (n.d.). Performance management technology. 2011, Web.
G&A Partners. (2011). HR Self-Service Portal Solutions: Looking to empower your employees? G&A Partners is offering self-service capabilities.Web.
McAdams, J. (2009). The Evolution of HRIS. Web.
Oracle Solutions. (n.d.). Oracle Hyperion Performance Management Applications. 2011. Web.
Padmanabhan, P., Hochwarth, C., Wolf, S., Bharathan, S., & Parthasarathy, M. (2010). SAP Enterprise Learning: A Practical Guide. Boston: Galileo Press.
Padva, T. (2010). The Human Resources Management System Solution. London: Routledge.
Russell, D. P. (2007). eSelection: Leveraging Technology to Improve Hiring Practices. AON. Aon Consulting Forum.
SAP Education. (n.d.). SAP Enterprise Learning. 2011. Web.
SAP ERP HCM. (2011). SAP E-Recruiting. Boston: Galileo Press.