Items Description of Module

Subject Name Management

Paper Name Human Resource Management
Module Title Human Resource Information System
Module ID Module 39
Pre-Requisites Understanding the nature of Human Resource Information System
Objectives To study the types, components and applications of HRIS
Keywords HRIS, Decision Support System, Application Tracking System
 QUADRANT –I

1. Module 39 : Human Resource Information System

2. Learning Outcome
3. Objectives of HRIS
4. Components of HRIS
5. Types of HRIS
6. Implementation of HRIS
7. Application of HRIS in HRM
Summary

1. Module 39: Human Resource Information System

2. Learning outcome
After reading this module, you should be able to:
Understand the objectives of HRIS
List the types and components of an HRIS
Enumerate the steps in the implementation of an HRIS
Discuss the applications of an HRIS in human resource management
Explain the benefits of an HRIS
List the conditions essential for an effective HRIS

3. Introduction.
The human resource information system is basically a database system developed to
assist HR in decision making and reporting. It is normally one of the elements of the
overall management information system of an organization. It is indeed an IT-enabled
HR service available to the HR managers for data analysis and decision making. HRIS
helps the HR managers in making a quality decision by making them available
adequate relevant information timely. The scope of HRIS is so wide that it can provide
information about every aspect of an employee. As such HRIS provides facilities for the
use of computer technology to make HR operations more efficient and simple, reduce
costs and eventually enhance the result orientation of human resource management.
However, the importance and the components of HRIS may not be same for all
organizations.
The scope of HRIS includes all the HR functions of the organization ranging from
namely, recruitment and selection to grievance resolution, human resource planning
and succession planning. The different systems dealing with the HR functions are the
job evaluation system, the job analysis system, the HR planning system and the
grievance management system. The goal of bringing these HR functions into the ambit
of HRIS is to enhance the efficiency of these functions. However, any HRIS would be
effective only when the information available for decision making is timely, accurate,
concise, relevant and complete. Systematizing and streamlining the HR operations and
enhancing the efficacy of the HR department are the focus of the definitions of HRIS.
Thus, HRIS may be defined as an automated system for collecting, storing, retrieving,
analyzing and disseminating HR-related data for facilitating operational, managerial and
strategic decision making that impacts human resources.
4. Objectives of HRIS
Main Purpose of Human Resources Information System
To help HR Managers and line managers in making decisions that adds value.
 Facilitates HR Managers to become strategic partners.
 Helps in making analysis of important matters such as the HR costs.
 To enhance the ability of the human resource management to leverage and
absorb new and emerging opportunities and challenges in the business
horizons.
 Provides effective communication channel.
 To ensure efficient collection, storage and distribution of HR related information
in a papers work environment.
 It can contribute to employee satisfaction and productivity.
 To create an integrated system for achieving an efficient and purposeful human
resource functions and effective deployment of strategic human resources.
 Provides the employees access to all relevant information for the
accomplishment of organization's mission and strategic objectives.

5. Components of Human Resource Information Systems (HRIS)

A human resource information system (HRIS) is designed to assist human resources
managers in managing data. Human resource professionals use these systems to
create facilities for work flow, improvement of efficient and store and collect information.
Several companies proffer HRIS packages to employers which can be customized to
the specific needs and requirements of the employer.

5.1 Database
The second component is a database to store employee information. HR professionals
are able to input all personnel data into the system accessible from anywhere, round
the clock. Compensation history, emergency contact information, and performance
review are the types of data collected in the database. The core database can also be
seen as online backup for paper files.
5.2 Time and Labor Management
Activities like time and labor management can highly time consuming. HRIS allows
employees to input their own hours worked and allows managers to immediately verify
vacation requests, and the data is directly fed to the payroll. Time and labor
management also improves the HR department’s ability to track punctuality and
attendance.

5.3 Payroll Function

Payroll function is yet another major component of a HRIS model. HR can simply
download employee hours, and issue payroll deposits to employees. Salaried
employees can also be paid with substantial low risk of errors. The HRIS payroll usually
improves tax compliance for locations with multiple tax levels.

5.4 Employee Interface

Most HRIS permit for an employee to have limited user access. Employee users access
a portion of the database so as to update their personal details, review pay scales,
make changes in retirement benefit programs, update direct deposit particular or
download benefit elect documents.

5.5 Recruitment and Retention

Finally, recruitment and retention are the most important components of HRIS and is
the anchor of all HR policies and systems. Identifying new talent, acquire them,
engaging them and ultimately to retain them are the major task of a HR personnel. HRs
need to ensure that employees are not only doing their work, but are also provided with
the required training; receive appropriate compensation and benefits from the
organization.

6. Types of Human Resource Information Systems (HRIS)

The domain of human resources management has developed over the last two
decades and the foraying in of technology has reshaped the domain considerably.
Human resource information systems (HRIS) allow HR professionals to store and
organize vast amount of data concerning to employee information.
There are different types of HRIS that every organization uses in order to perform their
daily tasks of managing employees.

6.1 Operational HRIS

Operational HRIS is of great help to the manager in providing with all the needed data
to support routine human resource decisions. Several operational human resource
systems gather and report human resource data usually including information about the
organization’s employees, position and governmental regulations. Two major sub-
divisions under operational HRIS consist of the following:

6.1.1 Employee Information Systems

Employee information system is a major part of operational HRIS. Organizations are
required to keep a track of an employee’s records and information relating to all kinds of
personal and professional details.

6.1.2 Position Control Systems

The position control systems are introduced in order to identify each position within
the organization; the job title and the employee currently assigned to the position.
 Referring to the position control systems, a HR manager can identify the information
about and vacant position.

6.2 Performance Management Information Systems

Performance Management Information Systems include data concerning performance
appraisal and productivity information frequently used as evidence in employee
grievance matters. Careful documentation of employee performance and the
measurement of performance and reported is critical to acceptance of appraisal
information in grievance hearing. Performance management systems can lead to a
number of decisions beyond merely the decisions to retain, promote, transfer or
terminate an employee.

6.3 Tactical HRIS

Tactical human resource information systems provide managers with support for
decisions emphasizing the allocation of resources. Within the domain of HR, these
include recruitment decisions, job analysis, and job design decisions, training and
development and also employee compensation plans. Different subpart of tactical HRIS
also has a few subparts that include job analysis and design information system,
recruiting information system, compensation and benefits information systems and
employee training and development systems.

6.4 Strategic HRIS

Strategic HRIS focuses on supporting labor negotiations, HR planning, and certain
specialized human resources functions. The main purpose is to have entire good idea
about labor resources and workforce planning. Major types of strategic HRIS comprise
information systems supporting workforce planning and specialized human resource
information systems

7. Implementation of an HRIS
Several organizations have recognized the need for application of technology to human
resource management in order to develop human resources as strategic instrument to
survive and grow in an intensely competitive market. It is generally expected that the
future success of human resource management depends on how effectively it is
integrated with technology. HRIS play a major role in planning, administration, decision
making and control activities of the human resource management. Thus, organizations
of all sort, are interested in installing an HRIS. The installation of HRIS involves the
stages of determination of the need for HRIS, constitution of a project team,
development of the project plan, designing and developing system specifications,
identification and training of user group, implementation and maintenance, and
evaluation of effectiveness of HRIS. The steps are shown in Fig.2
7.1 Determination of the need for HRIS
The first stage in the implementation of HRIS is the determination of the need for HRIS.
The management must determine the need for an HRIS in the organization and in the
HR department in particular. It should first assess the present HR operations that
require system-enabled support and then the extent to which these operations require
such support. Factors like the size of the organization, the strength of the workforce, the
corporate and HR philosophies, the present level of HR efficiency, and the existing
bottlenecks in the HR operations should be considered carefully before any decision is
taken regarding the HRIS implementation. The existing HR practices, the degree of
centralization, the present model of report generation and the future HR information
requirement can also influence the HRIS installation decision. As part of assessing the
HRIS needs, the views of the managers and the employees can be ascertained through
reviews. When the management is convinced that the HRIS can make a substantial
difference o the organization in terms of efficiency and productivity, it may go ahead
with its implementation in the organization.

7.2 Constitution of a Project Team

Once the management decides about the implementation of the HRIS, the next step is
to choose a specialized team for this specific purpose. The main task of this team is to
supervise the entire operation from the planning to the execution of the project,
including post-installation monitoring. Since the project is associated closely with HR
operations, the HR professionals must be involved in the task force in substantial
numbers along with technical people.

7.3 Deciding the Project Plan

 Normally, the first assignment of the task force is to evolve a comprehensive plan
regarding how and when the team should begin its task, how should proceed with the
task, and so on. The preparation of an exhaustive plan can help the team in foreseeing
the likely challenges in the process clearly and in developing strategies for surmounting
these challenges. In any case, the plan developed by the task force must be practicable
and well focused. As part of the project plan, the team members may also develop
guidelines for order placement and evaluation.

7.4 Designing and Developing System Specifications

In this stage, the task force should develop a precise system design and specifications
for the proposed HRIS after examining and defining the users’ data requirements.
Certainly, identification of data needs and applications is crucial for developing the
design and programming specifications. For this, the task force members must have
adequate knowledge of the concepts, methods and techniques of computer system
design and specification preparation. They must also be aware of the techniques of
computer system design and specification preparation. They must also be aware of the
techniques for flow chart preparation, program coding, and compilation and testing.
Since the HRIS software would be controlling the processing part of the HRIS, it is
essential to consider the input data characteristics and the desired quality of output
information.

7.5 Identification and Training of User Groups

This is the most sensitive stage in the entire HRIS planning process because
employees would not be involved in the HRIS implementation. At this stage, the
probable users of the HRIS are identified and imparted the necessary training for
handling an HRIS. The task force must anticipate vocal or subdued resistance from the
existing employees for two reasons. Once, they may oppose automation due to the fear
of job losses in the organization and the compulsion to forego their skills and abilities
learnt from the existing practice. Two, they may fear and doubt their own ability to learn
and master the new technology and techniques. The task force, along with the
management, must act judiciously in dispelling the feature of the employees and in
imparting training to make them fit for an HRIS work environment. A timely acquisition
of information system capabilities by the HR staff is essential for a seamless
introduction of HRIS in the organization.

7.6 Implementation and Maintenance of an HRIS

Once the HRIS software s procured from the vendor, it should be properly installed
under the careful supervision of the task force as per its plan and guidelines. The team
must conduct performance testing to ensure that the HRIS fulfils all the system
specifications and user requirements. It is important for the team members to analyze
the real time functioning of the system and decide the critical system performance to
ensure that the system performance meets user needs. In this regard, the team must
have adequate knowledge of the tools and techniques used for testing the software. In
fact, they must develop the test data for checking the efficacy of the entire system.
Once the testing phase is over, the task force must make the HRIS available to the
actual users in the HR department. The performance of the users in the HRIS
environment must be observed closely. The task force must also ensure the availability
of the user operational and program manuals. When any complaint and trouble is
reported about the HRIS, it must be ready for troubleshooting. Similarly, it must
ascertain the views and suggestions of the users for improvements in the system
functions. The HRIS must be properly maintained to ensure that it produces optimum
 results throughout its life. If the task force is permanently responsible for maintaining
the HRIS throughout its lifetime, it must keep a watch on its performance and
maintenance constantly.

7.7 Evaluation of Effectiveness

The organization must undertake periodic evaluation of the performance of the HRIS to
ensure that is fit and adequate to meet the present and future information requirements
of the users. When the HRIS is found to be inadequate in its present form, the
management may update it with new features. In contrast, if the present form of the
HRIS has become obsolete due to technological and other changes in the environment,
the organization should begin its search for a new HRIS by replicating the whole HRIS
implementation process.

8. Application of HRIS in Human Resource Management

HRIS is applicable to a number of areas of an organization. These are discussed below:

8.1 Applicant Tracking System

Several organization of different sizes are now automating their recruitment process by
installing an applicant tracking system to streamline the complete recruitment process
and offer a unique support for all forms of candidate application. It assists the
organization in screening applicant capabilities and facilitates the accomplishment of
the hiring goals of the organization in a fast and cost –effective manner.

8.2 Training and Development System

The training system helps the user to track the qualifications and competency levels of
the employees constantly. Then the training module uses the job codes to link job
requirements with employee competencies to determine the training needs through a
process called competency matching. Based on its assessment of the training needs,
the training system schedules and registers the employees for training courses. Once
the training program is over, it automatically updates the employee profile by recording
the result of the training program in their profiles.

8.3 Compensation Management System

The compensation management system aims at computing employee payments
through an integrated payroll system. It makes a flexible module available for the
processing of pay and all related financial transactions.

8.4 Performance Management System

The online performance management system permits the organization to automate the
review process and allow the managers to have instant access to current and correct
employee information while writing performance reviews.

8.5 Human Resource Planning System

The HR planning module automates the manpower requests based on the long and
short term goals of different departments.

8.6 Succession Planning system

The succession planning module makes an attempt to bring the identified and selected
employees into the succession route. Usually, this system functions in close
coordination with other systems like training system, compensation system, and
performance management system.
 8.7 Position Control and Budgeting System
This system maintains all information about each position in a separate database. This
database maintains information about position descriptions, education and skill
requirements, requisitions, incumbent history, reporting relationships, and budgeting
information for each job in the organization and functions in coordination with other
systems.

8.8 Benefits Administration System

This system manages all the current and historical employee benefit information for the
entire organization. A few examples of employee benefits are retirement plans, medical
and life insurance plans, vacation pay, holiday pay, maternity leave, and employee
stock ownership plans. The benefits administration system keeps information about the
beneficiaries and the details of the benefits.

8.9 Personnel Information and Identification System

The purpose of a personnel information system is to manage report and analyze
employee information. This system provides almost all information about the
employees. It contains general staff data like name, address, family details, identify
number, date of appointment, job position and location in the organization structure, job
classification, job specifications, job descriptions, and disciplinary action taken. It can
also automate reporting, notifications, and form generation relating to human resource
operations.

8.10 Grievance Management System

The grievance management model can effectively track and analyze the grievances of
the employees. It assists the management in pre-empting employee grievance by
analyzing its nature, sources and frequency of earlier grievances and by acting on the
sources of those grievances.

Summary

The human resource information system is basically a database system developed to

assist HR in decision making and reporting. The scope of HRIS includes all the HR
functions of the organization ranging from namely, recruitment and selection to
grievance resolution, human resource planning and succession planning. There are
various objectives of HRIS.
Different components of Human Resource Information System are database, time and
labor management, payroll function, employee interface, recruitment and selection.
Types of human resource information system include operations HRIS, employee
information system, position control system, performance management information
systems, tactical and strategic HRIS.
The installation of HRIS involves the stages of determination of the need for HRIS,
constitution of a project team, development of the project plan, designing and
developing system specifications, identification and training of user group,
implementation and maintenance, and evaluation of effectiveness of HRIS.
Once the HRIS software is procured from the vendor, it should be properly installed
under the careful supervision of the task force as per its plan and guidelines.