Conclusion

The core HR/payroll system will provide much of the functionality to support the major HR activities and processes illustrated by HR taxonomy

HR packages provide different levels of coverage across these areas. If coverage in a particular area is shallow, an organization may purchase add-on products to achieve the missing functionality. Although these products may be provided by other suppliers, a standard interface with the core HRIS may exist where the two suppliers have such as arrangement.

With modern web-enabled workflow-driven HR systems, however, these processes can be highly streamlined so that task owners (employees, line managers,  HR staff) are prompted automatically to execute their task using employee or manager self-service (ESS/MSS).

Lastly , various add-on may be used to supplement the HR administration component of the core system. For example,  in a clocking-on environment, a separate time and attendance system may be used to record absence details, which are then passed to the HRIS via an interface. the HRIS also need to integrate with systems that are external to the HR department, such as security, accommodation, expanses and so on.

The development of human resources is bound inextricably to the technology that serves it. The HR function has faced a succession demands for changes to the way in which it delivers transactional service ranging from the development of more effective, integrated end-to-end processes through to the development of knowledge based centres of excellence

In the end, however, the ability of the HR function to deliver step changes in performance is dependent on its capability to manage administrative tasks, which in turn demands a firm grasp and control of HR processes and data.

Web-Based Application

ERP/ Web-Based Applications

The development of integrated HR solutions was given further impetus by the emergence in the 1990s of enterprise resource planning (ERP) applications, such as Oracle, SAP and PeopleSoft. Initially the term was coined to describe a complete set of business applications that would cover all aspects of an organisations’s core process although later it generally mean applications that specifically focused on back office operations including HR, finance procurement.

The development of an integrated approach to the back office meant the potential to eliminate the complexities of integrating cross functional processes such as management of organization structures (where HR and finance information seldom agreed) and paved the way for fully integrated solutions that might cover multiple back office processes and geographics.

Changing Role for Software Vendors

The battleground for HR systems suppliers has shifted away from the development of new and better functional solutions. The functional “arm race” has led to a position whereby the majority of the users of the main ERP solutions are unable to make effective use of the full range of the functionality offered to them.
 Therefore many are simply buying more functionality

Of far greater importance now to the emerging models of HR is the need for effective integration of core HR applications with the wider set of technology  tools that are required to manage an HR SSC. Software vendors need to demonstrate that they possess an understanding of how a single end-to-end process will be supported by the technology and how the components of the product offering fits together to provide a seamless suite of applications for shared services

However, this is still a challenge to many suppliers who may not have had to make their products work this way before. For example, contact management solutions are an essential part of SSC technology; however, suppliers have frequently evolved their CRM tools to do a different job-namely to manage relationships  with external  customers – and still do not recognize the significance of these applications to HR

Ample evidence shown that many market leading suppliers are still focused on products that meet the demands of the ‘old’ model of HR delivery where the emphasis is solely on core process and HR-related management information. As long as this focus remains then suppliers will not provide adequate support to the needs of the new model for an integrated set of technology to support shared services.

Organization Management (OM)

Organization management (OM) is now standard offering of HR products and provides a record of the organization. OM allows the organization to be represented in terms of departments and functions , spanning as many organizational layers as required. Within these, reporting hierarchies are recorded comprising individual positions, which may be vacant or occupied by one or more employees whose records are linked to Om from the HR administration module.

OM enhances HR  functionality across a range of applications:

·         Resourcing – where positions attribute can be used to create vacancy records,  when incumbent is shown as leaving (see below);

·         Learning and development  - where competency matching between individuals and their current and intended positions can be conducted for development planning purposes

·         Management information – providing analyses of filled and vacant positions, job competency profiles and so on. The OM module may also generate organization charts showing filled and vacant positions although, a specialist charting package is often needed as an add-on to achieve sufficiently user-friendly display;

·         System security – OM hierarchies may be used to control access rights among ESS/MSS users based on hierarchies , for an example, a line manger can only access the records of staffs occupying positions in his or her department

·         Workflow may be well be governed by Om; for example, determining where to route a request for annual leave.  As mentioned previously, the workflow may reside in the CRM layer, in which case  an interface with OM data would be needed to supply the CRM with the necessary hierarhy details

·         Payroll charging- rather than maintaining cost centre details individually for every employee in a department, it is more efficient to record the cost centre once,  on OM against the department. Employees will then inherit the cost centre details via their positions and not only in exceptional cases would these need to be overwritten by individual level cost centre entries. Apart from economy of data entry, this improves accuracy and consistency between the HR and finance systems.

In summary, OM supports a range of critical HR functions and as such is the backbone of the HRIS and related systems. It is therefore essential that OM data is accurate and up to date, requiring robust data maintenance procedures.

Performance Management

Performance management is an ongoing process. Performance management does not take place just once a year. However, performance management is a continuous process including several components. These components are closely related to each other and the poor implementation of any of them has a negative impact on the performance management system as a whole. The components in the performance management process begins with prerequisites, performance planning, performance execution, performance assessment, performance review.

The first component of the performance management process involves two prerequisites. First, there is a need to have good knowledge of the organisation’s mission and strategic goals. This knowledge, combined with the knowledge of the organization’s mission and strategic goals of one’s unit, allows employees to make contributions that will have an positive impact on their units and on the organization as a whole. Second, there is a need to have good knowledge of the job in question. A job analysis allows for the determination of the key components of a particular job: what task need to be done, how they should be done, and what knowledge, skills, abilities (KSAs) are needed. If we have good information regarding a job, then it is easier to establish criteria for job success.

The second component of the performance management process involves performance planning. Performance planning includes the consideration of results and behavior, as well as developmental plan. A discussion of results needs to include key accountabilities, specific objectives for key accountability and performance standards. A discussion of behaviors needs to include competencies. Finally the development plans includes a description of areas that need improving and goals to be achieved by each area.

The third component is performance execution. Both the employee and managers are responsible for performance execution. For an example, the employees need to be committed to goal achievement and should take a proactive role in seeking feedback from his or her supervisor. The burden is on the employee to communicate openly and regularly with the supervisor. Also, the employee has a responsibility to be prepared for the performance review by conducting regular and realistic self-appraisals. On the other hand, the supervisors also have important responsibilities. These including observing and documenting performance, updating the employee on any changes in the goals of the organization and providing resources and reinforcement so the employees can succeed and continue to be motivated.

The fourth component involves performance review when the employee and the manager meet to discuss employee performance. Involvement of the employee in the process increases his or her own ownership and commitment to the system. In addition, it provides important information to be discussed during the performance review. In the absence of self-appraisals, it is often not clear to supervisors if employee have clear understanding of what is expected of them.

Lastly, the fifth component involves performance review when the employee and manager meet to discuss employee performance. This meeting is usually called the appraisal meeting. This meeting typically emphasize the past: what the employee has done, and how it was done. An effective appraisal meeting also focuses on the present and future. The present involves the changes in compensation that may results from the results obtained. The future involves a discussion on goals and development plans that the employee will be expected to achieve during the period before the next review session. 

The above explanation is essential for me to understand a bigger picture of performance management of employees in organizations. This is due to my current degree in Psychology requires me to understand first the performance management process, a topic of Human Resources Management, as the groundwork before I can able to comprehend application of HRIS in performance management

Conclusion

To be effective, the organization’s goals, objectives, culture, and activities must be consistent with the organization’s strategy. This means that all information systems in the organization must facilitate the organization’s competitive strategy. By finding the right HRIS system which able meet the needs of companies, it can serve as an advantage to companies when managing the competitive forces.

HRIS offers HR, payroll, benefits, training, recruiting and compliance solutions. Most are flexibly designed with integrated databases, a comprehensive array of features, and powerful reporting functions and analysis capabilities that you need to manage your workforce. Therefore, it saves much time of the HR administrator spent on their routine tracking employee’s development. Besides that, it serves the function of facilitating communication processes and save paper by providing an easily-accessible, centralized location for company policies, announcements, and links to external URL’s. Employee activities such as time-off requests and form changes can be automated easily, resulting in faster approvals and less paperwork. An effective HRIS provides information on just about anything the company needs to track and analyze about employees, former employees, and applicants.

With an appropriate HRIS, Human Resources staff enables employees to do their own benefits updates and address changes, thus freeing HR staff for more strategic functions. Additionally, data necessary for employee management, knowledge development, career growth and development, and equal treatment is facilitated. Finally, managers can access the information they need to legally, ethically, and effectively support the success of their reporting employees.

Reference:

James R Mensching & Dennis A. Adams (1991). Managing An Information System. Prentice Hall Series in Information System

HRIS application: An Overview

Compensation Administration: Maintaining internal and external equity while preserving the incentive value of compensation is not getting any easier. Specifically, there are systems that perform their job analyses (some even describing job descriptions) and others that carry out job evaluation, using either the vendor’s propriety technique and accommodating the evaluation methods that the user may prefer. Some systems accept survey data and perform analyses that help the user price jobs according to the market. Still others facilitate the development of salary structures, costing out the various alternatives as the users experiment with them. Example: Lotus 1,2,3.

Benefits Administration: Benefits plans requires intensive records keeping, therefore introduction of computerizing have save much costs. The situation has changed dramatically especially in the recent years,  largely because changing demand of benefit administration – most emanating from government regulation such as pension regulation has added to the administrative burden. Another increase in costs is the health care cost which requires record keeping to be computerized for government compliance and analyst of cost control. Example: Employees Benefit Software Directory

Human Resources Planning: HR planning is especially important for forecasting and succession planning.  Forecasting uses HRIS application to determined the demand of key jobs, turnover. This allows HR planners to use computer softwares to forecast training and hiring needs besides identify staffing problems. However few companies have the expertise to forecast as it is difficult task. Secondly, the succession planning is a planning for the development of talent besides for continuity in key positions. This systems function by having information list of managers at all level who has the highest promotion potential to be stored and manipulated. Such systems can stored placement related data on individuals and can position data (including reporting relationships). Example: ExecuGrow 

Organisational Planning: This is a planning for organizational structures and roles that people will occupy. This includes creation of organizational charts to document hierarchical relationships of jobs and to records names of incumbents. Some systems goes beyond to locate important information such as locating data to determine the firm spending on various activities. Therefore, it allows alternative organizational structures to develop cost-cutting.

Employment Management: Organizations may receive unsolicited employment applications, therefore  must preserve a good image and acknowledge these applications. The record keeping allows organization to keep track promising applicants to be contacted. This is useful during recruitment function which enables monitoring of selection process, manage interviews, minimize delays and record information collected thus decision made effectively.

References:
Stephen E Forest & Zandy B. Leibowitz (1991). Using Computers in Human Resources: How to Select and Make the Best Use of Automated HR system. Jossey-Bash

What Is Competitive Fores?

The subtopic of competitive forces give me a better insight of using for the topic of using Information System for competitive advantages. Before this lesson, I always define competition too narrowly, as if it occurred only among today’s direct competitors (rivalry among existing competitors). Yet competition for profits goes beyond established industry rivals to include four other competitive forces as well: bargaining power of buyers, bargaining power of suppliers, threat potential entrants, and lastly threat of substitute products. The extended rivalry that results from all five forces defines an industry’s structure and shapes the nature of competitive interaction within an industry. For an example, in the market for commercial aircraft, fierce rivalry between dominant producers Airbus and Boeing and the bargaining power of the airlines that place huge orders for aircraft are strong, while the threat of entry, the threat of substitutes, and the power of suppliers are more benign.

An organization responds to the structure of its industry by choosing a competitive

strategy. Porter followed his five forces model with the model of four competitive

strategies. According to Porter, a firm can engage in one of these four fundamental competitive strategies.

An organization can focus on being the cost leader, or it can focus on differentiating its products from those of the competition. Further, the organization can employ the cost or differentiation strategy across an industry, or it can focus its strategy on a particular industry segment.Consider, a car rental company can seek to differentiate its products from the competitors. It can do so in various ways—for example, by providing a wide range of high-quality cars, by providing the best reservations system, by having the cleanest cars or the fastest check-in. The company can strive to provide product differentiation across the industry or within particular segments of the industry, such as- domestic business travelers.

 Cost leadership means a company provides goods/ services with lower price compare to other company with same goods/ services, the company who able to produce goods in lowest cost would gain best profits. Innovation strategy means produce a unique product that the other company do not have to attract customers. Another way to compete with competitor is to improve the company itself by developing or expanding the size of company to turn it into global markets in order to  gain more customers and profit. Alliance strategy includes of mergers, acquisitions, joint ventures and others.

To be effective, the organization’s goals, objectives, culture, and activities must be consistent with the organization’s strategy. This means that all information systems in the organization must facilitate the organization’s competitive strategy.

Reference: Paul Sparrow; Chris Brewster; Hilary Harris (2004). Globalising Human Resource Management. Routledge