MNG00724 Human Resource Management And Experience and Specialization

Answer:

Development of Human Resource Information System

The responsibility of analyzing information in the human resource department and making a sound decision based on the information that would positively affect the running of business operations lies entirely in the hands of the human resource department and the line managers. The decision is based on the availability of the human resource as a factor of production, expertise, skills, experience and specialization of the present human resources, the availability of enough machinery that will be comfortably operated by the skilled labor at different points of the production line and measures taken in the maintenance of the available resource information to ensure continuous productivity (Slater et al., 2003). Hence this calls for the duty of these two to carefully analyze data associated with current employees and prospective new employees’ requirements. The human resource information system act as the fundamental tool when the managerial decision has to be made with regards to labor force since the system is responsible for the storage and updating of each employee's profile. The human resource department is tasked with a reevaluation of its competence and develop new strategies that are vital in the overall human resource information system development (Hendrickson 2003).

For most of the organization, the flow of information takes place at the center of the organization. Many organization has to adopt current means passing and storing of information since they are considered more effective and reliable when in comparison with the traditional forms. The adoption of technological advancement with examples such as modern computers, running of reliable software, use of internet as backup in cloud storage and the employment of computer wizard in the management and maintenance of these aspect of technological information flow who are familiar with the new technology forms the backbone for the best for of information management in the human resource department (Kavanagh and Thite 2009).  The aspect of information security is also a concern to any organization and protection of the business information so that it doesn't fall into bad hands say the competitors who may use the information to tighten their competitive advantage should be avoided at all cost. Research has shown that an organization that maintains the best information system fail out to be among the best decision makers since they make their cases based on facts delivered to the form the human resource information desk. The information act as a reference database or a checklist when it comes to analyzing the organization's potentials (Lippert and Michael Swiercz 2005). The analysis made by the management regarding internal information will be the basis of determination whether the business should exploit other potential venture if they have the required resources, skilled labor, managerial capacity and financial base to sustain the project. The information will also determine the probability of making a profit from the intended veny=ture and provide the optimal operational practice to minimize the cost of production in an attempt to maximize the returns (Matteson and Ivancevich 1987).  All these will be provided courtesy of how the information is handled, how fast and reliable the organizational information is and drawing made from previous statics of engaging to a new venture. Employee information system is a mode of integration where information from the machine and inventory skills are developed that are essential for employees' portal. The main aim of this is to maintain employees' profile and retrieval of hard copy when so required (Ngai and Wat 2006).

Emerging trends in information management in the human resource department is that software companies are now engaging in the development of programs that is best suited to particulars of a specific company. This is made possible when the company gives them they specification requirements (Asosheh et al., 2010). This specified software information system that has been engineered to a particular company are considered more strong in structure and provide utmost security to information when compare to the general information system meaning they are less likely hackable. On the downside the are costlier. However, their operational functionality is exceptional and can be employed by an organization in which the created database is used to manage the labor force on machine allocation pointing to areas of their expertise and specialization in the apparel industry. This provides a platform for easy management of the employees since the only work is to maintain and update the employee information system.

Cost-benefit analysis

The computerization and adoption of technology in the human resource information system have been considered among the key elements in the reduction of the cost incurred during the production process. This witness in fact when there is a conflicting pressure by the management to the human resource to provide valuable information while at the very same time the management requires them to reduce of the overhead production costs (Darmstadt 2005).  Therefore, this begs the question are the human resource information system cost effective? Yes, they are, and here is the reason for the adoption of a viable human resource cost effect information system and any particular productive organization:

i) They improve efficient in day to day operation: 

The adoption of human resource information system enables the running and storage of information digitally. Storage can be done on hard drives and backups made of an external disk and cloud-based backups. This minimizes the use of hard copy data operation that has been known to be tedious, easily lost, unreliable and even corruptible. Aspects of storage of employees' details and profile can be tiresome especially in a large organization. The making of changes can lead to unimaginable paperwork as compare to an institution that has adopted the information system in employee record keeping since the information can be easily rectified when the need arises. Cases of recruitment can be ready cumbersome in case the only form of application is through paperwork (Ball 2001). However, an organization that has adopted information system will just upload the form online on the website where it will be accessible and unlike paper application which is limited to geographical area application, the application form on the website can be accessed on a worldwide scale hence bringing in the best employees for the job as there is plenty of applicants to sample to get the best. This improves on the human resource functionality as more reliable and strategic decision are made when the system of information is technological.

ii) Benefit from the employees and management;

 The automation of the human resource system helps in upholding transparency. Unlike an organization dealing with paperwork, facts can be buried in a pile of the document making it harder to unveil certain information. Say for example in the case of promotion of employees, the electronic information system shall be keyed in o provide a cut of line of employees' profile that meet the required specification and from there the management will access their suitability unlike in paperwork where finding employee that have to meet the required criterions is tedious and could take day and possibility of omission is likely. Hence the information system improves on both the employee and management satisfaction when relating to requiring affairs. Programs can be used to generate screening filters to screen out and watch the profile of certain employee to determine who is much suited for a particular position.

iii) The human resource will work as a strategic planner: 

The adoption of information system in the human resource department has helped the department to play a key role in the organization's decision-making. Since they are the keepers of information far from raw data to the processed information, they form a crucial part of the decision-making process since they provide valuable information for an in-depth analysis of record and prediction of future expectation. This comes in handy especially when the organization wants to expand its basis of operation or is attempting to indulge in the production of an additional commodity that it wishes to introduce into the market (Tansley et al., 2001).

iv) Communication:

Adoption of human resource information system is also crucial in enhancing efficiency in employee communication. Integrating the system into the organizational communication system can help relay instant notification to certain employees or maybe a change or enhancement to the company policy.

v) Saves time;

The adoption of human resource information system has been proven to save time especially when it comes to searching and retrieval of routine data and information. Paperwork can be tedious, misplaced, lost or even destroyed unlike the system which you can easily retrieve the information needed and in case the computer has been destroyed there is backups too.

vi) Performance analysis;

The information system in the human resource can help create a pattern and thus help in a better decision-making process. For instance, since the human resource is tasked with recruitment of new employees, analysis was done on the hiring costs and turnover calculations can be used in development of patterns for strategic developments required when making decision of the type and number of new employees required so that the business can make exemplary profits in the coming financial year (Bacon 1992).

Return on Investment

The cost of adoption of the human resource information system can be calculated by Return On Investment (ROI) on the human capital. This entails the assessment done on the positive outcome or the benefits of adoption of the information system in the human resource department and also cost evaluation as a form of negative outcome in the human resource (Murray et al., 2003). This evaluation can be achieving on consideration of various factors such as:

i) Benefits and costs time estimation; 

This on essence interprets to a comparison made on the cost that the human resource department incurred in the acquisition of the information technology systems and the benefits the system has garnered to the organization over a period. This can be critically accessed during the policy making process (Bartel 2000).

ii) Identity made of the sources of costs value about benefits of the human resource led initiatives; 

This mainly assesses the effectiveness of the information system in the human resource department to access change in business environment, evaluation strategies and changing trends in the organization (Russ-Eft and Preskill 2005).

iii) Indirect benefits value calculation: 

This value calculation helps in understanding and determination of various factors that influence the probability success of the HRIS project. Evaluation of the magnitude of success, a better conclusion can be drawn regarding the planning process. This can be achieved by choosing a proper metric, followed by direct estimation. Benchmarking and internal assessment shall the follow shortly afterward. The steps are crucial to any organization taking benchmarking, for example, they are used in better risk management in case of large scale projects. An internal assessment, on the other hand, thrives on finding the firm own internal assessment of metrics (Love and Irani 2003). 

Return on investment of HRIS

We have established that a human resource department that has entirely adopted information system in its activities will save on management time that would have been used in processing paper transaction. On average the evaluation of a paper transaction could take roughly about forty-five minutes to one hour. However, the human resource information system can process the same transaction with a maximum of ten minutes say for example an organization wants to recruit two hundred employees.  The following table is showing the management time taken n processing a transaction.

The above shows that the human resource information system saves more time and hence the cost that is used to hire the actual people while indulging in paperwork. The system does so by allowing several multiple requests at the same time. These time saving and cost effective measures are experienced on an even larger scale when it comes to automated performance in the management of the application of the employment of new workforce in our system above. This is savings aided by the automated information system helps the employees to focus on another area of production. It also cuts on the unnecessary monthly wage bill the system will only require a few experts to maintain and retrieve its data. The savings garnered by the automation of the human resource department is by itself enough to pay for the installation of the information system in the department even with no need to explore the unquantifiable benefits like data safety that the system has brought to the human resource department. The information system cuts down on administration work that surrounds the management performance and the time spent in trying to locate employees' files and documents

Evaluation

The evaluation of HRIS is meant to determine its effectiveness in the organization. An evaluation report will help draw a clear picture of whether the system works as expected and points out some major pit hole that needs to be improved in due time. Evaluation of the HRIS provides information that is crucial in determining the functionality and viability of the information system in the human resource department. Here are the key element of HRIS evaluation factors:

a) Compliance: 

Compliance forms among the basic factors in determining the effectiveness of an HRIS. This gives a brief report of how the system can cope up with an ever-changing program that will need a continuous change and rectification in the information stored or the routine of operation. An effective HRIS should be flexible and easily compliable. The opposite can be said when it comes to paperwork human resource department since the actual correction is made on a paper and seriously how many times can a correction be made on a single paper before it becomes obsolete?

b) Employee empowerment: 

A reliable human resource system creates trust and confidence within the employee especially when it comes to promotion and awarding of bonuses. Adoption of HRIS boosts the two as the system keeps an updated profile of the employees from which information can be retrieved based on the best profile thus boost morale and confidence among them (Premkumar and King 1994).

c) The ease of integration

An effective HRIS should be easy to accommodate all form of integration into the system. The introduction of a new scheme or payroll procedure should be easily incorporated into the system without any form of difficulty (Irani 2002).

d) Recruiting and Onboarding feature

The evaluation of an effective HRIS system should be accommodated with recruiting and onboarding feature which should be optimized in the system. This should be a huge time saver especially during the recruitment and promotional process (Laudon and Laudon 2004).

e) Performance review; 

This can be highly tedious when done on paperwork. However, a good HRIS system should include performance review features that make the process a whole lot more manageable with special factors of details keeping and generation whenever needed being the key to the system. This will enable the management to keep detailed performance report and enable the distribution of feedback through electronic means whenever the need arises. The system should also be effective in the management of employees and machinery productivity as through this performance determination will the company know if they are making any progress and profits whatsoever (Mutula and Van Brakel 2006).

References

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