Human Resource Information System Knowledge
Information systems are virtually used everywhere because of their abilities to transform organizations. They have redefined how businesses across the globe conduct their operations, with many enterprises and fortune 500 companies agreeing to the fact that such systems not only add value but also have changed the business landscape across the globe. One such system is the human resource information system. This is a system that is implemented across an organization to support the various HR functions to enable them make proper decision making including the reporting function (Mathis & Jackson, 2003). It helps an organization in various ways as will be discussed.
The use of the human resource information system has however been necessitated by the constant evolution of the various needs of employees, which have prompted organizations to implement such information systems. This has also been necessitated due to the strategic role that the workforce plays in an organization with many adapting to this in order to remain competitive. In the past, the human resource had minimal duties apart from just performing the common functions of managing duties and overseeing collective agreements. This was done mostly in paper without any single form of system helping to oversee the function.
In as much as there were no human resource systems at the time, human rights played a great role in advocating for scientific knowledge that could help solve disputes in an ethical way. This forced most personnel administrators to focus on improvements and compliance related to laws that were put in place as a result of an active human rights movement. This caused most existing companies to develop ways of handling critical functions pertaining to recruitment, hiring and assessing their workforce. This further led to the emergence of various theories that helped in change management and management of the human resource.
As time elapsed, and also with the advent of computers and increase in scientific knowledge, there were basic systems that were developed which helped in managing an organizational resource, later of which human resource information systems were developed mainly to help centralize the various elements of the workforce. From a simple human rights issue, the human resource function grew immensely which made organizations to use systems to manage the strategic function of human resource, with a HR department being formed to manage the recruitment function including aligning the HR function strategically in the organization. Despite the emergence of such an information system and their value, there are a number of attributes that an effective system should have. This will ensure that the HR organizational goals are met in relation to sourcing for an information system.
Functionality
The human resource information system should be able to meet the functional requirement regarding to managing a workforce. It should be able to manage the basic information including providing additional roles that would help the organization to recruit and assess its workforce based on some performance metrics.
Implementation
The human resource information system should be easy to implement within the organizational existing information systems infrastructure. In this, its implementation should bring about a smooth transition and changeover without causing system conflicts pertaining to the use and interaction with other systems in the organization. This will prevent services downtime and interruptions which may be caused by the inclusion of a new information system.
Cost factor
Virtually all information systems are associated with some cost element. In relation to
this, the cost of developing and implanting a HRIS should be considered to help an organization implement a system that it can maintain. This will reduce instances of cost overruns especially when a system cannot be fully implemented which may lead to resource wastage.
A human resource information system provides human resources function through a customized portal. This allows people, customers and other administrative personnel to access a variety of services via the HR portal. In this sense, the information system being accessible via the internet and the IS infrastructure gives employees the ease of requesting for HR services, thus enabling workers to apply for services and interact with the HR department simultaneously from any location without having to go to the physical departments.
In addition to the above, given that a HRIS can be accessed via the internet, employees can manage their work profiles. In this, employees through the use of an app, laptop or desktop computer can manage their work issues through a single touch of a button, in a self-paced way rather than depending on communication from the physical offices (Coronas & Oliva, 2005). This has especially been made possible with the development of an intranet environment where companies can always post crucial information on an internal HR portal thereby easing work and also enhancing efficiency in the work environment. In this, compared to the time it takes for such a department to filter and process paper based applications regarding employee queries such as leave, this would reduce the lead times between the request time and when the request is processed.
Such models of innovation will leverage the functions of the human resource department, by helping the company to align itself with the needs of this fast paced global economy. This will increase the pace under which businesses and administrative operations are conducted and on the other hand will also increase service interaction by connecting employees in a way that will reduce the burden of processing paper based requests.
In the modern workplace, organizations use information systems to deliver a number of services which improve productivity. One of the services commonly delivered by the HR department is e-learning and training. E-learning is a model whereby learning occurs through internet based systems. In this, the organization delivers training through the human resource information system, whereby a given section is dedicated to providing training. In this, the HR department can easily reach the employees by giving them access to the training section. This, in the form of e-learning would provide training in an organization whereby the organization would customize its learning materials for training while also deliver it when there is demand.
The benefits of this and the need for an organization to adopt this is that it would increase efficiency, enhance productivity as well as reduce training costs. In efficiency, training materials would be accessed through a single touch of a button which would also cut the time when an employee visits the physical library to access training materials.
In terms of productivity, the organization would enhance the corporate image by instilling additional knowledge on what has already been acquired individually, while in cost reduction, the organization would attain a lot in terms of costs. This is because training would come with additional costs of renting or leasing classrooms, building the physical infrastructure and also buying hardcopy books which would be costly compared to customizing a single book to be accessed from a single point.
Human resource information systems also play a role in performance management within an organization. Many organizations have or are deploying the HR based information system in order to enable them collect, analyze, model and interpret various information that are fed into their systems by employees (Gueutal et al, 2005).
This is mostly done or can be conducted using internal mechanisms such as employee surveys on compliance, performance and motivation levels. In the use of such a method, an organization can assess the various elements related to performance planning, employee performance management, employee development and evaluation, all of which are important and can be used in measuring and managing the performance of employees.
Therefore, by consolidating all these information on a single HR based system, it would be easier for an organization to manage the various elements through profiling the various information submitted on the HR portal as feedback. This gives an organization the ability to monitor, assess performance levels in order to help it give solutions to problems highlighted by the employees. This would help solve internal problems thus would increase motivation levels which would benefit the organization as a whole.
The use of a human resource information system would therefore benefit an organization in a number of ways, which would improve the work environment, reduce costs related to hiring and keeping redundant positions thereby enabling the HR department to achieve its overall mandate of maintaining the right and a proper size of a workforce. However, in as much as there is slow uptake of human resource information systems, these systems continue to play a central role in organizations. Their future is bright and most organizations will find it difficult of not having such as system in place.
One of the trends of the future is that the workforce will completely be extended, in that most organizations will stretch beyond their regional confines in search for the appropriate workforce outside the organizational borders. In this, the human resource function will be able to tap into a pool of talent from any location. In addition to this, the future of human resources will be in the management of remote employees where technology will be used to leverage this function in order to bring mobility to every worker.
However, their implementation is expected to be hard, due to the low levels of acceptance that most organizations face. One of this is that it would bring about privacy concerns where some data could be accessed by some people. This would be a concern given that workers with poor password polices such as writing passwords on a piece of paper would help unauthorized people to access sensitive employee information. This would result to acceptance issues where employees would ignore supporting such a system.
Despite this, the human resource information system plays an important role in streamlining the HR functions. It leverages the operations of the department and also gives employees an opportunity to access work related information with much ease. The future regarding the use of such a system is therefore brighter, with innovation expected to play a lot in terms of developing the best HR solutions for the 21st century workforce.
References
Gueutal, H. G., & Stone, D. L. (2005). The brave new world of eHR: Human resources management in the digital age. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Mathis, R. L., & Jackson, J. H. (2003). Human resource management. Mason, Ohio:Thomson/South-western.
Torres-Coronas, T., & Arias-Oliva, M. (2005). E-human resources management: Managing knowledge people. New York: Idea Group Inc (IGI).