Necessity of HRIS for human resources management (Part-1)

A good HRIS provides the capability of effective planning, controls HR costs, and improves employee and managerial productivity.

Md. Kamruzzaman Sabuj, BA(Hons) MA(Eng) MBA, LLB, PGD-HRM, DSC, DISM, ITP, Director -HCM, Compliance & Admin, Windy Group

Human resources (HR) are the key success factor of any organization operating in the 21^st century. From the beginning to till today, they have been playing a vital role to boost up organizations’ competitive capabilities for enjoying a competitive advantage and superior profitability over rivals.

As today’s business environment is more vulnerable due to intense market competition and higher employee empowerment. Organizations have been using information technology for achieving efficiency in human resource management. The study found that HRIS emerged in the low-cost era (1980-90) and the roles of HR professionals transformed from traditional administrative to more strategic roles during the high-tech era (from 1990 onward).

In Bangladesh, we have got into this concept in 2000 and onward where it was started as ‘Personnel Management’. With the advent of time, we also acquired the knowledge and competency in the HRIS system.

In Bangladesh we still believe, HRIS (Human Resources Information System) is only to manage attendance, leave, and shift upto generating Payroll through a software application installed in a computer.  Nevertheless, a good number of companies are using ms excel to prepare Payroll and benefits. Few are showing their interest on ERP (Enterprise Resources Planning) where HRM is integrated with core functional modules like planning, production, supply chain, sales, accounts, commercial etc.

An HRIS generally should provide the capability to do plan more effectively, control and manage HR costs; achieve improved efficiency and quality in HR decision making; and improve employee and managerial productivity and effectiveness.

Few most essential HR functions, as well as modules of a good HRIS software, usually found:

• HR plan and cost budget
• Recruitment management
• Training-development and employee skill tracking
• Performance-based appraisal management
• Shift, attendance and leave management
• Compensation and benefit management
• Management intelligence and analytics
• Disciplinary management and records
• Personal asset management
• Payroll and final settlement

In the contemporary scenario of modernization and globalization, organizations heavily rely upon technological advancement and innovation in the field of Information Technology (IT). Advancements in the field of IT has opened up newer avenues for the organizations and provided a competitive advantage by using innovative and customized solutions. It has become an integral part of the organizational functioning and all the departments depend on integrated systems for organizing, storing, retrieving and reviewing data. Today internet and automation have facilitated accessibility, reliability, and accuracy of information; improved organizational effectiveness and provided a leadership edge by applying technology in various operations.

The field of Human Resource Management has been continuously evolving and the HR in today’s scenario is playing a strategic role than merely a support system and without HRIS an HR cannot play a good strategic role.

Ten Features of a good HRIS have been discussed here and rest of the 13 features will be discussed in the next part to make it understandable for any HR professional irrespective of industry, type or size of the organization.

1. Web-based A to Z HR process“Accessible On The Go!” By now, your HR system should be web or cloud-based and accessible on the go, anywhere in the world, different office, at an airport or train station, or simply when working from home. This is a non-negotiable system feature offers every process of HR operation, payroll, benefits, training, recruiting and compliance issues.If you make the HRIS real IP based then you can access the HRIS from anywhere through that you can materialize the concept of office from home or flexible work practice.
2. Paperless office“GO GREEN, KEEP THE EARTH CLEAN!” We are going paperless! Seems to be the statement of our time. Going paperless sounds like a great idea. But one of the great unfulfilled promises of technology is the paperless office. If we look back to our usage of paper in our daily life, the shocking scenario comes out that we just waste a huge number of rims. Can anyone just imagine, to prepare this number of rims of paper how many trees we have destroyed? However, the great gain to going paperless is, collaborating, synchronizing, and sharing our documents, along with being able to search through them and easily file them without having to buy a new file cabinet, backing up all of our documents easily and automatically and it is only possible through HRIS.
3. Best HR PracticeA good HRIS can offer best HR practices of the industry. It can accommodate and regulate the legal and local best practices while implemented. There are a few software vendors who have USP i.e. they are not selling software rather offer a solution for “Industry Best Practices”. An HRIS application is a big tool for implementing well-accepted good rules and regulation integrated with other HR function of the system.
4. Access control and securityThrough HRIS, we can control the access level wise and ensure the system security. For example, If we do not want to share salary and other confidential information with a particular group of employees (like below assistant Manager) we can do so through HRIS by this we can ensure the security & access control.
5. Policy implementationWhere policy is absent in black and white, a good HRIS can be the substitute for that. All the policies can be adopted and implemented in an HRIS system. In an organization, we have lots of policy but it is tough to monitor all the things that are going on in accordance with policy. But if we set this policy at HRIS, we can easily implement these policies. For example, an organization has a policy like-employees who has completed six months will be entitled for certain benefits and if we set this policy at HRIS, then HRIS will always allow this certain benefits to those who meet this criterion.
6. HR Planning and Budget Control 

    

   A right manpower planning is an essential part of sustainability for any organization especially any labor-intensive factories like RMG, Re-rolling or Jute mills. A good HRIS would help any management to ensure right kind of skilled people at the right quantity. It can ensure competency-based recruitment through a right headcount of people with the right skill within the overhead budget.

7. Job analysisBefore selecting an employee organizations need to fix the job specification and job description of that particular designation, moreover organizations need to analyze whether the position is required or not.Analyzing the job, time and frequency through HRIS organization can assess whether the organization needs the position or not.
8. Individual JD & KPI settingEach individual has different KPI, target, and achievement so it is a tough job to do it manually. Once if we set the KPI and target on HRIS then it automatically recalls the performance data from the performance record table and does the necessary calculation to show the performance.
9. Performance-based appraisal managementAn organization’s success depends on its employee’s performance. Hence, evaluation of the employee’s performance is essential. But unfortunately, employees are either undervalued or overvalued just because of the absence of the right tools.In this case, HRIS provide the right tool to evaluate the performance of the employees and ensure satisfied, motivated and productive employees. When a 180/360 degree appraisal is hard to practice in a manual system, a good HRIS can help to accomplish at ease. Through HRIS organizations can conduct the online appraisal.
10. Employee self-serviceSince organizations always want to utilize their employees time properly, so it would be time wasting for a company if the employee went to HR and ask for a few services like –pay slip, attendance information, tax statement, leave, loan, movement issue and so on. Through employee self-service, an employee can get these services at their desk which is time-saving and improve the quality of services.Your system should enable employees to log in securely, update and maintain their details on the system and they should be able to submit absences, holiday requests, and self-appraisal data directly to the system. Modern HR software should be automating these time consuming manual processes.

    Also Read: Necessity of Human Resources Information System (HRIS) for human resources management (Part-2)