Hi All,
I cam e across this article and thought of sharing it.... thoug hit is a bit lengthy, it sworth reading.
~Shehwar
Organisational Readiness For Human Resource Information Systems
In a real sense, the aggregation of what have been the key features and functions of HR software over the past three decades becomes the benchmark for today's best performing software. In addition, and perhaps more importantly, how organisations have used their HR software over the years will help define the best practices for the software's impact on the human resources function.
The HR software industry had it's birth in the late 1960's, when information needs emerged that were not met by "people systems" at the time. These systems were essentially the early-automated payroll/accounting systems, and they lacked three essential characteristics:
• First, they did not contain the capacity for non-accounting information, like education, skills, dependants, beneficiaries, etc. These data were becoming increasingly important for workforce planning and benefits-plan costing.
• Second, they did not retain significant history of the events that happened to employees. This was essential to track the employment process for compliance with social legislation.
• Third, they were locked in to processing periods (pay cycles) that prevented easy ad hoc reporting and analysis.
Solutions to these deficiencies were developed by the late 1970's: full-featured human resource information systems (HRIS) were placed at hundreds of companies. Most of these organisations were large-sized, with thousands of employees. Then the personal computer was introduced in the 1980's, and HR software became available for smaller organisations, as well as for specialised functions within the larger organisation, such as recruitment automation, or training registration.
The 1990's were characterised by a growing recognition that integrated solutions which combined personnel, payroll, benefits, recruitment, career development, training and so on. These were able to deliver more value by sharing common information, simplifying multisystem updates, and providing a more complete view of each employee. Integration with financial, manufacturing and supply chain systems resulted in the "Enterprise-wide Resource Planning" (ERP) systems that are prevalent today.
During this same time, the industry migrated through several technological changes, such as relational databases, Local Area Networks (LAN's), client/server architectures, and most recently, the Internet and Intranets. However, while more features, flexibility and functions are available, the basic needs of the late 960's still apply. "Best practice" for HR software is founded on:
• An extensible database for a wide range of employee/employer information.
• A significant "date-sensitive" historical capacity
• Easy-to-use reporting and analysis capability, available to a broad user community.
With a vendor industry now over 30 years old, these fundamentals can be found in nearly all the leading suppliers' products.
Understanding what Functions are Available
With many products now on the market with these capabilities, the selection and implementation requires careful consideration. Of course, company size dictates certain affordability parameters; small companies are unable to justify investments in thousands of dollars towards large-scale software costs. Otherwise, the intended use, functional requirements and technological environment are key determining factors in making the right choice.
These expectations, functions and technologies evolve over time, and therefore, upgrades and enhancements will be needed. HR software projects are rarely "finished," as new needs and features are required to meet changing business needs. An assessment of foreseeable needs in the next two to five years is usually the best planning horizon that can be established.
An organisation can make its software selection process a success by understanding what's out there-- it should define the functions, expectations and technical characteristics that are needed to satisfy its business requirements.
How Can HR Software Be Used Effectively?
For ease of discussion, we may divide company profiles and characteristics into three types:
• Type I companies exhibit high competency and capability, making best use of HR software in support of well-articulated and aligned business goals across all HR disciplines.
• Type II companies exhibit effective competency and capability, within many HR disciplines, but with needs to broaden the impact of the software's use, across the HR functions and upward to the overall business objectives.
• Type III companies exhibit basic operational effectiveness, such that data accuracy is reliable to support fundamental reporting needs within the primary human resources disciplines.
It is important to note that these "type" profiles are not directly related to company size in terms of revenue, or number of employees. Large companies may find themselves at the Type III level, just as smaller companies may very well exhibit Type I practices.
With so many companies "recovering" from the massive ERP implementation projects that were prompted by the Y2K bug, it isn't surprising that many organisations are only at the Type III level. Such organisations have completed the implementation of the major software components, usually consisting of human resources, payroll, and basic benefits information.
Data-maintenance processes and procedures are in place, and users (often only in the HR/payroll/benefits departments) are trained and proficient. Best practices in Type III organisations are reflected by quality, accurate information, well disciplined processes (albeit still paper-clogged), and periodic reporting of key information such as headcount, turnover, organisational demographics, and necessary compliance reports.
It isn't unusual for Type III organisations to have extended their HR software impact, and be exhibiting best practices outsourced service providers, and automated voice-open self-service for benefits open enrolment.
Moving up the scale, Type II organisations are beyond organisational effectiveness, and often have implemented capability for broader functional support and a wider user community. Recruitment automation, which provides applicant tracking, requisition processing and position management features, is frequently in place for these organisations.
Compensation planning and budgeting capability is another high priority function that is technologically supported in Type II organisations. More widely available access, both for data maintenance and reporting is another best practice characteristic found in Type II companies. These companies often have employee and manager self-service initiatives underway to reduce "administrivia," and move the HR function into its desired, strategic and business aligned role.
Type II companies are also likely to have established intranet strategies which support the dissemination of a wide variety of HR information, such as policy guides, organisational directories, job openings, training course catalogues and so on.
The distinguishing best practice characteristics of Type I organisations are highly integrated and complete databases, broad self-service access by employees and managers, harnessed intranet and Internet connectivity, and a tightly aligned link between the goals of the business and human resources activities.
Type one organisations recognise the human resource function as being responsible for building and maintaining their high-performance workforce. Human resources employees own the "employee productivity agenda," and can demonstrate the value proposition for each activity, associated data element, and related business processes.
For example, by using HR data to identify all employees who are connected to the sales role within the company, and by linking sales and commission statistics to these employees, it is possible to identify the best performers. This information can be used to develop competency and skill characteristics, which form the basis for a sales-performance knowledgebase that can be deployed across the Internet, and around the world. The link between HR software and the improvement in sales performance can be thus, compelling.
The best practice characteristics for each type of organisation is affected by the particular HR software that may be implemented. Since new HR software releases (from most vendors) occur at least annually, with new features being added each year, a Type III organisation may be able to use older releases, while a Type I is likely to be using the most current release. For example, newer releases-- and the stated direction of planned future releases-- are heavily focussed on enabling self-service, Internet and "best performer" competency/knowledgebase functions.
From India, Madras
2I cam e across this article and thought of sharing it.... thoug hit is a bit lengthy, it sworth reading.
~Shehwar
Organisational Readiness For Human Resource Information Systems
In a real sense, the aggregation of what have been the key features and functions of HR software over the past three decades becomes the benchmark for today's best performing software. In addition, and perhaps more importantly, how organisations have used their HR software over the years will help define the best practices for the software's impact on the human resources function.
The HR software industry had it's birth in the late 1960's, when information needs emerged that were not met by "people systems" at the time. These systems were essentially the early-automated payroll/accounting systems, and they lacked three essential characteristics:
• First, they did not contain the capacity for non-accounting information, like education, skills, dependants, beneficiaries, etc. These data were becoming increasingly important for workforce planning and benefits-plan costing.
• Second, they did not retain significant history of the events that happened to employees. This was essential to track the employment process for compliance with social legislation.
• Third, they were locked in to processing periods (pay cycles) that prevented easy ad hoc reporting and analysis.
Solutions to these deficiencies were developed by the late 1970's: full-featured human resource information systems (HRIS) were placed at hundreds of companies. Most of these organisations were large-sized, with thousands of employees. Then the personal computer was introduced in the 1980's, and HR software became available for smaller organisations, as well as for specialised functions within the larger organisation, such as recruitment automation, or training registration.
The 1990's were characterised by a growing recognition that integrated solutions which combined personnel, payroll, benefits, recruitment, career development, training and so on. These were able to deliver more value by sharing common information, simplifying multisystem updates, and providing a more complete view of each employee. Integration with financial, manufacturing and supply chain systems resulted in the "Enterprise-wide Resource Planning" (ERP) systems that are prevalent today.
During this same time, the industry migrated through several technological changes, such as relational databases, Local Area Networks (LAN's), client/server architectures, and most recently, the Internet and Intranets. However, while more features, flexibility and functions are available, the basic needs of the late 960's still apply. "Best practice" for HR software is founded on:
• An extensible database for a wide range of employee/employer information.
• A significant "date-sensitive" historical capacity
• Easy-to-use reporting and analysis capability, available to a broad user community.
With a vendor industry now over 30 years old, these fundamentals can be found in nearly all the leading suppliers' products.
Understanding what Functions are Available
With many products now on the market with these capabilities, the selection and implementation requires careful consideration. Of course, company size dictates certain affordability parameters; small companies are unable to justify investments in thousands of dollars towards large-scale software costs. Otherwise, the intended use, functional requirements and technological environment are key determining factors in making the right choice.
These expectations, functions and technologies evolve over time, and therefore, upgrades and enhancements will be needed. HR software projects are rarely "finished," as new needs and features are required to meet changing business needs. An assessment of foreseeable needs in the next two to five years is usually the best planning horizon that can be established.
An organisation can make its software selection process a success by understanding what's out there-- it should define the functions, expectations and technical characteristics that are needed to satisfy its business requirements.
How Can HR Software Be Used Effectively?
For ease of discussion, we may divide company profiles and characteristics into three types:
• Type I companies exhibit high competency and capability, making best use of HR software in support of well-articulated and aligned business goals across all HR disciplines.
• Type II companies exhibit effective competency and capability, within many HR disciplines, but with needs to broaden the impact of the software's use, across the HR functions and upward to the overall business objectives.
• Type III companies exhibit basic operational effectiveness, such that data accuracy is reliable to support fundamental reporting needs within the primary human resources disciplines.
It is important to note that these "type" profiles are not directly related to company size in terms of revenue, or number of employees. Large companies may find themselves at the Type III level, just as smaller companies may very well exhibit Type I practices.
With so many companies "recovering" from the massive ERP implementation projects that were prompted by the Y2K bug, it isn't surprising that many organisations are only at the Type III level. Such organisations have completed the implementation of the major software components, usually consisting of human resources, payroll, and basic benefits information.
Data-maintenance processes and procedures are in place, and users (often only in the HR/payroll/benefits departments) are trained and proficient. Best practices in Type III organisations are reflected by quality, accurate information, well disciplined processes (albeit still paper-clogged), and periodic reporting of key information such as headcount, turnover, organisational demographics, and necessary compliance reports.
It isn't unusual for Type III organisations to have extended their HR software impact, and be exhibiting best practices outsourced service providers, and automated voice-open self-service for benefits open enrolment.
Moving up the scale, Type II organisations are beyond organisational effectiveness, and often have implemented capability for broader functional support and a wider user community. Recruitment automation, which provides applicant tracking, requisition processing and position management features, is frequently in place for these organisations.
Compensation planning and budgeting capability is another high priority function that is technologically supported in Type II organisations. More widely available access, both for data maintenance and reporting is another best practice characteristic found in Type II companies. These companies often have employee and manager self-service initiatives underway to reduce "administrivia," and move the HR function into its desired, strategic and business aligned role.
Type II companies are also likely to have established intranet strategies which support the dissemination of a wide variety of HR information, such as policy guides, organisational directories, job openings, training course catalogues and so on.
The distinguishing best practice characteristics of Type I organisations are highly integrated and complete databases, broad self-service access by employees and managers, harnessed intranet and Internet connectivity, and a tightly aligned link between the goals of the business and human resources activities.
Type one organisations recognise the human resource function as being responsible for building and maintaining their high-performance workforce. Human resources employees own the "employee productivity agenda," and can demonstrate the value proposition for each activity, associated data element, and related business processes.
For example, by using HR data to identify all employees who are connected to the sales role within the company, and by linking sales and commission statistics to these employees, it is possible to identify the best performers. This information can be used to develop competency and skill characteristics, which form the basis for a sales-performance knowledgebase that can be deployed across the Internet, and around the world. The link between HR software and the improvement in sales performance can be thus, compelling.
The best practice characteristics for each type of organisation is affected by the particular HR software that may be implemented. Since new HR software releases (from most vendors) occur at least annually, with new features being added each year, a Type III organisation may be able to use older releases, while a Type I is likely to be using the most current release. For example, newer releases-- and the stated direction of planned future releases-- are heavily focussed on enabling self-service, Internet and "best performer" competency/knowledgebase functions.
From India, Madras
Hello Shehwar,
As Per Our recommendation,there's a Hard Core HR Work Force Mgmt. Software which will take care of all the organisation HR activities by implementing will definately increase not only the performance of the work force but also will help in incresing the efficiency as well as the growth of the organisation .The price of the Software which is designed are affordable & attractive .
Unlike other HR products in the market HR Align permits seamlessly
integrate Workforce management with the best in class HR practices to
unleash the hidden potential and latent talent of your human capital. A lot
of effort has gone in to make this software process friendly by linking People,Strategy and Performance in an organized and efficient manner. It improves performance and accountability, by providing a matrix of critical tools; workflow and information that helps companies drive business results from your HR-activities.
Many more new concepts are coming-up which will reinforce all the core areas in an organisation in large such as ;
1. HR Score Card
2. Succession Planning
3. OHEI Health survey
4. CRM
5. KMS
They will be reached at 09967200517/9892022091 .
Contact Person - Vaibhav Dongare
- Taran Bhatia
Regards,
HR Experts
As Per Our recommendation,there's a Hard Core HR Work Force Mgmt. Software which will take care of all the organisation HR activities by implementing will definately increase not only the performance of the work force but also will help in incresing the efficiency as well as the growth of the organisation .The price of the Software which is designed are affordable & attractive .
Unlike other HR products in the market HR Align permits seamlessly
integrate Workforce management with the best in class HR practices to
unleash the hidden potential and latent talent of your human capital. A lot
of effort has gone in to make this software process friendly by linking People,Strategy and Performance in an organized and efficient manner. It improves performance and accountability, by providing a matrix of critical tools; workflow and information that helps companies drive business results from your HR-activities.
Many more new concepts are coming-up which will reinforce all the core areas in an organisation in large such as ;
1. HR Score Card
2. Succession Planning
3. OHEI Health survey
4. CRM
5. KMS
They will be reached at 09967200517/9892022091 .
Contact Person - Vaibhav Dongare
- Taran Bhatia
Regards,
HR Experts
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