The Role of HRIS in Human Resource/Personnel Records

This is a presentation done by Unilag IRPM year 3 students on the role of HRIS in Human Resource/Personnel Records. 

Introduction

Human Resource Management can be defined as a strategic, coherent and comprehensive approach to the management and development of the organization’s human resources in which every aspect of the process is wholly integrated within the overall management of the organization (Armstrong, 1992, p.9). It can also be seen as a distinctive approach to employment which seeks to achieve competitive advantage through the strategic development of a highly committed and capable workforce using an integrated array of cultural, structural and personnel techniques (Storey, 2001). Businesses and cooperate organization grow and achieve many of her set goals, aims and objectives as a result of effective workforce otherwise known as employees. The HRM as of early years manage the people of such organizations in all aspects, but as in this new era of technology, the HRM is linked with information technology (IT). It’s also a known fact that social and organizational changes in the economic environment are numerous and extensive. Therefore, it is important for human resource management (HRM) to be comprehensive, high in quality, fast, flexible and in line with upcoming trends, because it is a one of the determinant of successfulness of a business. Therefore, the use of information and communication technology becomes an imperative for HRM.

This paper concentrated on the HRM function ‘Personnel/Human Resource Records’. It explains in detail what HR records entail; different types of records kept by HR department; as well as the roles human resource information system (HRIS) plays in keeping HR records. This paper also lay emphasis on the problems that might be faced by companies who do not adopt HRIS in their HR records and how HRIS can be a solution to that. It also explains what HRIS is in details.

Personnel/Human Resource Records—Definition and Concept

A record is information or knowledge on a specific subject and preserved in a typed, written, or electronic format. The information is regarded as processed facts. And those facts can be collected, processed and interpreted into a language that can be understood.

Personnel Records are records pertaining to employees of an organization. These records are accumulated, factual and comprehensive information related to concern records and detained. All information with effect to human resources in the organization are kept in a systematic order. Such records are helpful to a manager in various decision making areas.

Ø  Types of Personnel Records

·         Employment Records: These contain past applicants records, list sources, employees progress, medical reports, etc.

·         Wages and Salaries Records: These contain payroll records, methods of wages and salaries, leave records, turnover records and other benefits records.

·         Training and Development Records: They contain appraisal reports, transfer cases, training schedule, training methods.

·         Health and Safety Records: These include sickness reports, safety provisions, medical history, insurance reports, etc.

·         Service Records: These are the essential records containing bio-data, residential and family information, academic qualifications, marital status, past address and employment records.

Ø  Purposes of Personnel Records

·         It helps to supply crucial information to managers regarding the employees.

·         To keep an update record of leaves, lockouts, transfers, turnover, etc. of the employees.

·         It helps managers in framing various training and development programmes on the basis of present scenario.

·         It helps the government organizations to gather data in respect to rate of turnover, rate of absenteeism and other personnel matters.

·         It helps the managers to make salary revisions, allowances and other benefits related to salaries.

·         It also helps the researchers to carry in-depth study with respect to industrial relations and goodwill of the firm in the market.

Therefore, personnel records are really vital for an organization and are not a wasteful exercise.

Manually Managing Personnel Records: A Dilemma

In line with the above listed purposes of personnel records, it is of great importance that the information that are gathered, stored, processed, analysed and made available must have some good qualities: must be relevant, up-to-date, accurate, meet users’ needs, easy to use and understand, worth the cost, and reliable. As a result of the constant change in the business environment, any organization that want to have competitive advantage and be effective and efficient in managing its personnel records have to give up during it manually. This is due to the fact that recently many organizations have integrated the HRM with information technology and this gives them edge over other organizations who are lacking in doing so.

Organizations who still operate manually in keeping their personnel records are prone to losing their employees’ files in cases of unforeseen circumstances, incur more cost and waste resourceful time in managing personnel records. It may also leads to low productivity or even high rate of labour turnover. For example; employees whose sick, leave or attendance record is not well stored can have a reduction in pay and this may lead to job dissatisfaction which eventually can cause the employees to resign. It can also prevent the organization from keeping track of pay and performance of the workforce.

Organizations need to key into integrating their HR functions (like Personnel Records) with information systems in order to tap into the advantages of doing so.

Human Resource Information System (HRIS): The Way Forward

Ø  What is HRIS?

The term HRIS is sometimes used synonymously with HRMS (Human Resource Management System) or e-HRM (e-Human Resource Management). HRIS is an intersection of human resources and information technology through HR software. It allows HR activities and processes to occur electronically.

HRIS can be defined as a computer-based information system for managing the administration of HR processes and procedures. HRIS is a way of implementing HR strategies, policies and practices in organizations through a conscious and directed support of and/or with the use of web technology-based channels (Parry & Tyson, 2011:335).

HRIS is used by business to combine a number of necessary HR functions, such as storing employee data, managing payrolls, recruitment processes, benefits administration and keeping track of attendance records. It ensures everyday HR processes are manageable and easy to access. More specifically, it can otherwise be defined as an integrated systems used to gather, store, and analyse information regarding an organization’s human resources. It is made up of a number of subsystems, and data can be acquired, stored, manipulated, analysed, maintained, and generated from the system and can be made available to different stakeholders. It is a system that lets you keep track of all your employees and information about them. It is also used to support strategic decision making, to avoid litigation, to evaluate programs or policies, or to support daily operating concerns. It is worthy of note that HRIS is seen as a spine of the company and it has to meet the needs of all stakeholders in the company.

Diagram 1.0: HRIS Track

The above diagram spelt out basically the HR functions that HRIS can be used to perform. That is, most of HR functions that are done manually before can now be done through HRIS as a result of the integration of HR functions with IT and this will allow an organization to plan their HR costs more effectively, as well as to manage them and control them without needing to allocate too many resources toward them.

Ø  Some HRIS software

·         Abra Suite

·         ABS (Atlas Business Solutions)

·         OrangeHRM

·         HRSOFT

·         Human Resource MicroSystems

·         ORACLE-HRMS

·         SPECTRUM HR

Ø  Functions of HRIS

·         To assist managers with decision making by providing relevant data so they can make more effective and informed decisions.

·         To help organizations that employ very large number of people to develop employee database for taking personnel issues.

·         A computerized information system would store and retrieve data quickly and correctly enabling the organization to comply with statutory requirements.

·         It enables managers to forecast and plan future HR requirements.

·         To provide information to enable HR plans activities to align ore effectively with the organization’s strategic plan.

·         Necessary flexibility for adaptation to changes taking place in the environment can be built into mechanized information system.

Ø  Reasons for the Introduction of HRIS

The Chartered Institute of Personnel Development (CIPD) 2007 survey established that the top 10 reasons for introducing HRIS were:

·         To improve services to employees.

·         To produce HR metrics.

·         To aid human capital reporting.

·         To improve productivity.

·         To improve the quality of information available.

·         To improve speed at which information is available.

·         To reduce operational cost.

·         To manage people’s working time more effectively.

·         To reduce administrative burden on the HR department.

·         To improve flexibility of information to support business planning.

The Roles of Human Resource Information System in HR/Personnel Records

Since what HRIS is and what it does and basically the edge it gives organizations over others who don’t adopt it are known, it is of great importance to explain the roles it plays in HR records. Specifically, most of what HRIS does is that it helps in gathering, storing, processing, analysis and retrieval of data when needed. In other words, the role of HRIS in HR records cut across other functions of HRM. The following are the ways in which HRIS plays a significant role in HR records:

Ø  Employee Administration

HRIS as a module based on web technology which allows employee, together with professionals in HR department to manage the employee’s database. With the right permission they can access their data with read-only or change status. HRIS keeps the following listed information about employees: hire, address, telephone, email address, birth database, salary, emergency information, department code, location, employment status (full time, part time or contract), the start date of each position held, position titles, and benefit information.

Ø  Recruitment

With HRIS, online recruit is facilitated. HRIS stores information on the position name, and numbers, the department in which the position resides, whether the position has been approved, and whether the position is full/part time. In some cases, online forms will be available so that applicants can be tracked and resume can be scanned for key words to identify skills and experience.

Ø  Pension Administration

Information as to the design of the pension plan is found in HRIS subsystem. In addition, employee contributions and company contributions for each employee would be stored.

Ø  Organizational Management

The organizational structure and job descriptions are included in the HRIS subsystem.

Ø  Performance Evaluation

This is very important for an organization because continuous monitoring and evaluation are essential when organization makes conclusions about effectiveness of HRIS. It is also important to realize whether the objectives are met and which segment should improve. HRIS help keeps information regarding the performance ratings, the dates of when the ratings were received, type of appraisal used, and comments about appraisal, and performance objectives and goals.

Ø  Health and Safety

Accidents and incidents which are hazardous or can lead to injury happen at work and organizations are responsible for reporting these accidents to the appropriate authorities. Information on such accidents has to be kept in order to prevent repetitive occurrence and because the cost expended on accidents can be so costly. Data on the number of accidents, health and safety complaints, resolutions, workers compensation claims, and related forms may be included in the HRIS subsystem.

Ø  Training and Development

HRIS provides a system for organization to administer and track employee training and development efforts. Because management don’t just want to waste their resources, time and investment in training and developing their workforce without seeing improvement, therefore it is imperative to keep record of the activities. The HRIS subsystem keeps record/data of an employee’s skills and competencies, training courses taken, costs of courses, developmental activities, and career planning in terms of which positions might be most appropriate for an employee based on skills and competencies

Ø  Labour Relations

HRIS subsystem help keeps such information as seniority lists, union membership, grievances, provisions of collective agreements, and resolutions of grievances.

Ø  Payroll Interface

The HRIS module for payroll automates the pay process by collecting data on employee time and attendance, calculating various deductions and taxes, and generating periodic pay cheques and employee tax reports. The subsystem has information on salary, wages, and benefits to make it easier to interface with accounting (payroll). Most HRIS subsystems today have payroll components, and the more sophisticated systems have ability to directly interface with payroll providers.

Ø  Time and Attendance

HRIS keeps record or information necessary to calculate vacation time, such as hire date, any leave of absences (paid or unpaid), termination date, if applicable, and any other events that interrupted the service. In addition, organization’s policy details such as ‘use it or lose it’, might be programmed into the system. Other data in HRIS subsystem often include the number of days an employee was absent, leaves of absence, whether those leaves were sabbatical, personal leave or maternity/paternity/paternal/adoption leaves, and the dates the employee started and ended the leave.

Ø  Compensation and Benefits Administration

This provides administration of employee participation in various forms of benefits. The major function of HRIS here is to assist the organization monitoring all benefit programs and to notice any potential deficiencies. Information regarding the organization’s compensation and benefits plans and the policies relating to these plans are found in HRIS. For example, policies on the type of increases allowable when an employee receives information, data regarding pay grades and ranges of each position, positions that are entitled to bonus and bonus structure could be included.

Types of HRIS Software that can be used for HR Records

Ø  BambooHR

This helps to consolidate all employee information from all location into a single view. You can then access, control, sort, analyse, and take action on the data instantly from the office, road or home.

Ø  CakeHR

This offers an integrated time and attendance package that allows employers to schedule employee shifts and track employee absences and vacation days. The system is entirely web-based, which means employees and managers can access it from any device with an internet connection, no matter where they are.

Ø  Calamari

This is a people management solution that helps in time off tracking and attendance management. It contains two modules: Leave Management Module (which helps to plan time off, personal days, remote work and automate entitlement calculation) and Clock In/Clock Out Module (which helps to track time and attendance of the employees, auto clock in without any action, etc.).

Ø  Dayforce HCM

This is a cloud-based human capital management solution designed for medium to large sized enterprises. This provides a unified suite of applications for managing payroll, attendance, timesheet, benefits administration, workforce planning and recruitment.

Ø  UltiPro

This is HR software which assists an organization with their HR, payroll, benefits, and other services tailored to each organizations specific needs, in order to drive optimal business results.

Advantages of Using HRIS

There are several advantages provided to the organization as a result of the implementation of HRIS, but these advantages will be highlighted based on how the effect to the organization at large, the HR department, and the employees.

Ø  Advantages of Using HRIS in HR Records to the Organization

·         Using an internal website for record keeping can help organizations track the pay and performance of each employee as well as the dates for things like training licences.

·         It helps companies to have control over what the employees can see or change.

·         Cost reducing and better control of budget.

·         By making information available to employees through a secure internal website, organizations can save time answering questions they may have with respect to their own information.

·         Increase of overall decision making efficiency.

·         It reduces the amount of paperwork and manual record keeping.

Ø  Advantages of Using HRIS in HR Records to HR Department

·         Minimize errors caused by human factor.

·         Possession of single database of all employees in the company with all necessary information and opportunities for different reports.

·         Increased employee satisfaction in HR department because the easiest and efficient execution of the tasks.

·         The ability to take preventive measures to avoid unpleasant situations in the organization.

·         Standardization of business processes.

Ø  Advantages of Using HRIS in HR Records to the Employees

·         Saving time (for example, if the employee wishes a day off the simplest wait is to fill the online form available as an option of the HRIS and wait for approval by superiors.

·         The possibility of independent access to data, which often means working in one software window.

·         Increasing staff morale.

·         Automatic tracking and reminder to the business obligations and events.

·         Reducing the time required for desired information, which are available in the system.

Conclusion

The only thing that is constant is change, HRM had undergone radical changes and technology development has enabled the transformation of many business activities. To a large extent, the importance of integrating information technology to HR functions and processes had been stressed out in this work. Though small and medium enterprises managed to overcome the HR management tasks without specialized software, more or less successful. But large enterprises, with numerous workforce and complex structure are no longer able to do so.

Notwithstanding, this work have been able to point out some disadvantages faced by organization that adopted the manual approach of dealing with their personnel records, thereby losing competitive advantage against their counterpart. The importance of HRIS is multifaceted, ranging from operational assistance in collecting, storing and preparing data for reports, simplifying and accelerating the processes and controlling the available data, reducing labour costs for HR departments, and providing timely and diverse information to the management of the company, based on which it is possible to make quality strategic decisions related to human capital.

In conclusion, it is important that organizations integrate HRIS to their HR activities as a result of the ever changing development in order to have sustainability of their competitive advantage and to have quality workforce and work activities in their organization.

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