Human resources and information systems

Information systems are the latest trend that is affecting every market, enterprise, business, and department in order to allow the most use of finite resources. For a long time, human resource administration was handled manually, but information services are now collecting it as well.

Human resource management is a key practice in an enterprise that is currently facing several difficulties in handling personnel in various locations and departments. From that standpoint, I was able to secure an Enterprise Resource Planning system that will allow the company to centralize and provide real-time control of resource distribution and quality efficiency. In that process of evaluating human resource performance and linking it to an intelligence system, I have come up with an Information system that will manage the expectations of the different offices and connect them to a single database in the following areas.

Project Scope

The information system is set to assist in the functionality of the Human Resource Management department. The information system is going to help in different areas where manual work is currently handled and is replaceable with an intelligent network. The scope of which the information system is going to cover, include:

Recruitment and selection

Currently, the human resource management has different timelines on recruiting and selecting the best human resource for a position to be it graduate trainees or high post in the organization. With the introduction of the information system, all the potential candidates are supposed to apply online to a single database where all the applications are stored, and then they are shortlisted from there. Unlike, in the past where manual documentations were received making it a tasking activity where manual verification and shortlisting was and is currently being done, the system will enable the department to centralize soft copy materials on shortlisting and recruiting process.

Compensation

From the stated number of human resources deployed in the organization, they are entirely a number ranging from around 4000 employees distributed unevenly in the three offices. The resources here have different packages and as such their compensation is separate and it is quite challenging to maintain such a massive number of employees on the manual system. The introduction of my Human Resource Information system, all the package per staff will be linked to each employee and with that running their compensation will be easy since the system will hold that information. The information system will improve accuracy, efficiency and cut on costs.

Benefits Management

Different professions and different grades of labor grades meet different benefit scheme. The system has a lockable benefit scheme within itself where every employee linked to employee number do have. The benefits allocated for various professions such as accountants and engineers on registration body is already inbuilt, and by the locking, in an accountant at a particular grade the benefits pop up for verification. The system, in this case, will help minimize different allowances allocated to various professions which are a crucial point of concern.

Human Resource Information System Data

The Information system is an Enterprise Resource Planning section. The data stored in this system is strictly and stringently linked to staff who are within the Human Resource Department and also segmented to the level of seniority. That means at any one point there will be no leakage of information to other departments unlike the departmental members do so. The system has been programmed to safeguard and segregate data access to employees.

Project Plan

The project is already known is to help the Human Resource team to eliminate the manual operations and control. To enhance better performance, the project plan has already taken into consideration the prerequisites of the project which is the number of employees, their earnings, the organization structural that runs from the three different offices.

The project plan having kicked off on the prerequisites, the next bit is to incorporate it, in the main organizational enterprise resource planning system. Having the real time based ideology in managing all the resources, this gives the stage the reasons behind ensuring that the information system is captured in the day to day operations of the current existing Enterprise resource planning system.

The next stage is implementing the coded information system in the organization. At this stage the organization now starts using the system concurrently with the manual system to see how effective and efficient the system is, in comparison to the manual system. The stage at which the system is being implemented its crucial since every aspect of managing the system is tested.

Feedback receipt and course of action taken. The last stage is to receive feedback from the teams working on the system and if positive the codes used are maintained and if negative, a course of action to control it, is implemented.

Requirements

The Human Resources Information system shift needs to have some primary resources to have it a success. The Information systems need to have supportive resources to have everything run smoothly. The information systems require human resources who have the exposure on how the system is operated, controlled and even maintained. Acquisition of the system is also based on a financial need which is the costs and additionally it also requires the institution to have enough time to train, implement and even give feedback on the same. Among the system requirements, the following are some of the resources needed;

Financial Costs

The system has two primary costs that are mandatory in using the system. The first costs are the acquisition costs, and the next is the operational costs. The acquisition costs are the cost that the institution is going to lay down to have the system in place while the subsequent cost is the operational costs. Operational costs are the costs that the organization will incur to maintain the system in position. The operational costs include; Database maintenance costs, Local Area Network connection (Basically it is an Enterprise Resource Planning System having all the information running on the real-time basis), Information technology support costs, and Human resource employees among others. For the acquisition cost, it is a one-off which will be costs shared among the three companies, where the prices are relatively $ 100,000. On operational costs, it’s all dependent on what are the costs the companies incur in to maintain the said functional support team.

Time

Another requirement is the time to be taken to have the system operational in the organization and having results linked to it. System implementation and execution takes some time to have it fully fledged. For that case, the system needs around three months to have the system implemented, and all the feedback received and rolled in, in the system. With a span of three months the system will have been used parallel with the current manual system, feedbacks responded on and had it fully incorporated into the system.

Stakeholders

Stakeholders are the entities who have an influence or are influenced by the system. The information system as it is, is a real-time based system that brings together employees, managers, administration, the executive committee, etc. The stakeholders have the following stake in the information system;

Employees/ Staff

Employees, the information system has features for employees to be able to check, apply and confirm their leave days. Unlike the manual system where papers are a key feature, in this system, employees can use leave without the present ability to the manager. Additionally, the employees can access other services such as salary advance application, pay slip downloads with Human Resource Authentication, and training facilities for all departments shared within the same.

Management

It is somewhat difficult for managers to be able to train the staff continuously and monitor them too. Management has always ensured that the staff is well equipped with the right skills to perform the current duties and in the right way. To ensure that employees have the best and right skills, managers will use the system by loading the training sessions on the information system and will ensure that every staff that undergoes the training will have a test to measure the understandability and usefulness of the practice. The system will capture, the training time for every team, who well the skills have been acquired by the staff, and also recommended areas of training. The system salvages a lot of time to slot in a specific training period and ensures flexibility regarding management monitoring of their juniors.

Financial Performance review team

The staff is always gauged regarding what they earn against what they are charged as overheads. The information system can calculate the profitability of every employee by calculating the absorption rate a staff has over the time spent on working on a product or a project. The information system that is currently availing will enhance staff profitability analysis that will enable the financial performance analyst to be able to tell where the grey areas that need be addressed are. The review gives feedback on where the staff is completely overwhelmed or underutilized thus helping in making recruitment decisions and the like.

Information Technologists

The information system is based on codes and algorithms that are known to IT Experts. It is crucial for the institution to ensure that they have an IT team that will guide them through on what they are supposed to be doing with regards to providing delivery of the system performance in accordance to the set guidelines and continuous operation. The team becomes so sensitive since they are the ones to man and offer security codes to every employee to ensure that the system data is not lost on bad teams and competitors.

The above are some of the stakeholders among others such as system vendors, database vendors and the like.

The project Summary

The project of ensuring there exists an Information system is crucial and as such it is essential to incorporate the system. From the above project discussion, a lot of benefits are arrived at such as; better resource allocation, better decision making, reduced time wastage and among others better training and skills management, etc. With that, the Information system is quite helpful and manageable in centralizing all the human resource functions of recruiting and selection, compensation training among others.