Trends In HR Technology - Essay Example

TRENDS IN HR TECHNOLOGY INTRODUCTION: The concept of HR self-service has become the goal of most HR systems. HR self-service involves the use of interactive technology by employees and managers to obtain information, conduct transactions, and essentially “shortcut” processes that previously required multiple steps, paperwork, the involvement of HR staffers and all the delays such processes are heir to. HR self-service provides the “customers” for HR products and services with the ideal delivery system to meet their changing, individually variable needs. And the benefits to the organization from efficiencies realized when employees change their own HRIS data and “serve themselves,” to more informed, effective decision making by managers support a transformation of HR’s role within the organization. The role will change from an essentially administrative function to a strategic business partnering function where HR personnel contribute to bottom-line results. HR self-service eliminates the non value- adding administrative tasks that can be handled automatically by the system. HR self-service are somewhat different for employees than for their managers. In all cases, however, the time, cost, and quality improvements enabled by a self-service HR adds value to the organization. Not only are HR department and HRIS administrative expenses sharply reduced, but employees and managers using a well designed self-service system spend “less time doing more” for themselves, their colleagues and the business. Employee self-service has proliferated over the last two years and has become mandatory for allowing employees to view and manage their individual records. This trend within organizations is shattering the traditional HR model by providing executives, managers and employees’ access to vital personnel information typically reserved for the HR department. In order to fully understand this trend, let’s take a step back and see how traditional HR departments controlled and maintained employee data under lock and key. By understanding where things were a few year ago, we can see the possibilities that exist within organizations to leverage their human capital across departments and hierarchical boundaries. We will also examine some of the problems surrounding the employee self- service model and how solving its problems will dictate the future trends of HRMS functionality and processes (Anheir, 2002). Traditional HR process: Traditionally, HR personnel used countless forms to capture and maintain employee information. These were forms for every aspect of managing employee data. To be hired, prospective employees had to fill out an application that HR personnel would then enter into HR system. Once the record was created data had to be kept current employee record changes such as name and address, dependent and benefits information, were maintained from paper forms. For each process, the employee filled out a form and sent it to HR department where data was manually entered into the system. This was a time consuming and costly process. This process was also prone to discrepancies in the information. The biggest problem is that some of these life events never got into the HR system. For example, employees may not know about the requirement to inform HR of a new child. They also may not have had access to the correct forms or known where to send the forms completed forms. Another major problem faced by HR was coordinating benefits enrollments. The sheer volume of information changes also challenged them. The data had to be received from the employee in a reasonable amount of time before it could be entered into the HR system. It also had to be transmitted to the benefits provider in a proprietary format requiring custom programming. The move to Employee self-service (ESS): With the advent of kiosks and the utilization of internet-based systems, employee self- service applications have been developed and deployed. The ESS systems allow employees to maintain a subset of their own information such as personal information, dependent information, emergency contact information, and allow for online benefits enrollment. Utilizing ESS systems offloads the responsibility of maintaining the volatile employee information from the HR department to the employee. Tasks formerly performed by HR personnel through forms completed by employees are now handled by the information source, the employee. Not only has redundancy been eliminated but data integrity problems have disappeared. In addition, the entire process is performed in minutes instead of days. This improvement has significantly reduced the cost of performing these transactions as well as ensuring accuracy and timeliness. The result is that employee spend more time doing their jobs and less time on checking up on HR’s handling of administrative details. As ESS systems evolve, additional functionality is being integrated, including benefits enrollment, skills inventories, training enrollment and tracking, online evaluations and career planning. As these new features are developed, the ESS system plays a continuing role in reducing HR’s burden of performing lower value clerical tasks. The resulting increase in productivity gives HR freedom to focus on more strategic Issues (Paul, 2004). Another advantage to ESS is the additional benefits provided to managers. These systems allow managers to access information about their employees without having to wait for a response from HR. This provides convenience and flexibility while reducing the burden on HR. Managers can now view and change earnings information, manage promotions and review information useful for day-to-day management of their employees. Problems with the self-service approach: Using ESS represents a major improvement in HRMS functionality and process. However, ESS comes with its own set of problems such as costliness and complexity. ESS systems usually utilize Internet technology to provide system access within a corporate intranet. Establishing an ESS system involves use of:  Web browsers for rendering the user interface.  HTML for defining the user interface  TCP/IP network protocol for transmitting HTML data.  Web servers for fulfilling client requests.  Communication between Web applications and legacy systems.  Additional network security utilizing firewalls and secured connections between the Web server and the browser interface. and  Web applications to process ESS transactions and dynamically generate the HTML- based user interfaces. A major stumbling block to the use of ESS systems is that, at present, they are usually limited to midsize and large companies. Smaller companies are often lucky to have any HR system at all. Implementing an ESS system is cost-prohibitive for smaller companies who rarely have adequate staff to implement and maintain such complex systems. Many companies question the wisdom of expending the funds required to maintain these demanding systems instead of focusing on their core business. There are also functional problems faced by ESS systems. The first question is: “How do they benefit the employee?” Although there are tremendous benefits to the HR department and even to managers, it is unclear as to what incentive exits for the employees to take on the additional burden of managing their own information. Do these systems provide any benefit to the employee that helps them to perform their jobs better with the results of benefiting the customer? No, they benefit the HR department and managers. The employee is left with more responsibility and very little additional benefit. Technology Considerations: When designing your information systems be sure to assess all associated risks. Then develop mitigation strategies to minimize exposure. For example, benefit plan rules governing coverage changes typically allow modification after a change in family status. However, the plan may require specific documentation to substantiate the change. Risk mitigation activities could include automatically presenting the form to the employees to fill out while preventing automatic updates to the employee record if the necessary fields are not completed. While defining your organizations self service requirements, proper security must be implemented to prevent fraud and ensure intruders cannot enter your network. At a bare minimum, consider the possible consequences of providing internet access with inadequate security, and take the following precautions:  implement a proxy server with a firewall. This prevents intrusion beyond the first level of contact into your network.  Implement network address translation (NAT) tables to prevent hackers from “seeing” your machines beyond the firewall.  Use encryption to ensure confidential data is restricted to the intended recipients.  Maintain anti-virus protection.  Be aware that implementing even the most sophisticated security measures does not guarantee intruder-free network. Backup your network regularly and store a copy of critical data so it can be restored quickly with minimal disruption to your business. Implementation benefits: When analyzing employee self-service benefits do not expect an immediate return on your investment, many benefits are not quantifiable or even determinable. Suppose a data entry error creates a tax liability and penalty to an employee. There are, however, certain clearly identifiable and easily quantifiable costs. For example, a large, geographically dispersed organization could justify implementing employee self-service on the cost reductions associated with preparing, mailing, tracking and entering employee data. Properly designed employee self-service systems allow adequate internal controls to ensure compliance (Keener, 2002) When you examine all opportunities to reduce paperwork requirements to be aware of the additional costs of available technology, such as optical storage systems, as you prepare your economic justification. Factors that will certainly drive the costs upward include the following: document storage, document retrieval, space to store documents, managing your record retention policy to determine when old records need to be discarded, disposing of old records based on your record retention policies, and compounding effects of the above related to the “mobile workforce” in the technology industry at the rate of almost twice per year. Future trends: Future trends in ESS functionality focuses on the employee. These systems will help employees perform their jobs better. Virtually any manager or executive will agree that the number one asset of a company is its employees. By addressing employee needs, both the company and its customers ultimately benefits as well. Another trend that will emerge is the permeation of vertical and horizontal boundaries within an organization. To remain competitive in an ever-evolving business, companies must become more flexible to change, respond quicker to customer needs and competitive pressures, and communicate better both internally and externally. The internet portal approach to HRMS availability allows small to midsize companies to gain the same kind of functionality now only available to larger companies. New service providers are offering tremendous amounts of functionality at very low startup cost, usually offered at a small monthly fee per employee. The other advantage is that they are completely web-based systems. In traditional systems, only the ESS portion of the system is web enabled. Portal systems are completely accessed through a web browser and link partners like payroll processors and benefit providers directly to the employee. This results in faster implementation of services and a significant reduction in the cost to the employer and the benefits providers (Walker, 2004). The term employee self-service will no linger be appropriate to describe the capabilities of the next wave in HRIS technology. Two new buzzwords that more aptly describe these systems are “eHR” and “B2E” (business to employee). These systems will need to:  improve vertical and horizontal communication within the organization, provide access to information that improves employees’ ability to perform their jobs and make smarter decisions.  allow employees to communicate problems, make suggestions and send requests up the chain of command, and across department boundaries,  manage employment records, including basic dependent and contact information: payroll deductions, benefits enrollment and contact changes,  access job postings to allow career growth and departmental transfers,  access an employee directory and organization chart to better understand the company structure and increase communication, and  provide access to outside information sources over the internet regarding jobs, customers and competition. When every employee is viewed as a customer of the HR process, HR management will continue to evolve as a strategic factor in organizations of the future. No longer will the information about the organization’s human capital be kept in a silo. Instead it will be utilized to efficiently manage human capital, resulting in increased bottom line profits for the entire organization. MANAGER SELF-SERVICE: In organizations where managers have always had primary HR responsibilities such as hiring people, organizing the work, managing performance, and setting the terms of the employment exchange, the process improvements offer clear and immediate advantages. In some organizations, where some of the functional applications have not been within the manager’s job description in the past, a cultural change within the organization may be the first order of business. In general, managers’ responsibilities for people management in the modern organization include participation in all or most of the HR aspects. The benefits of expansion of managers’ responsibilities are such that whatever cultural resistance to change may exist is only temporary. Self-service not only helps managers to do more HR work faster and better, it also leaves them more time for their “real” jobs (Morgan, 2002). Value-Adding Applications: Certain HR functions are best performed by managers themselves in a self-service system. These are the functions that offer the best opportunities for both reducing administrative costs and significantly improving the effectiveness of all HR functions, while achieving the business goals of the organization. HR functions best performed by managers typically have these characteristics:  Either they involve information that the manager is in the best position to know due to proximity to the work and workers, events, or conditions that require immediate attention or they involve the managers’ skills and experience, the very essence of that person as a manager.  The process involved is one that requires initial input from the manager, such as a job requisition or a performance appraisal, which in the past would begin a back-and-forth exchange with the HR department and its subject matter experts.  They are part of the manager’s responsibilities, for example, turnover control, budgeting, production goals, quality, training, and workforce productivity- functions within the managers’ domain but guided and informed by enterprise wide business goals, policies and standard procedures. The advantages of manager self-service for many HR functions can still be recognized as nothing short of revolutionary. Self-service systems already operational or under development at leading employers include systems for compensation, performance management, staffing and recruitment, time and attendance, and training and development. CONCLUSION: Process management was predicated on the belief that all workers want to do a good job and the output should be reliably accurate to the receiver of the information, goods or services provided. The receivers were considered “customers” and could be internal or external to the organization. Through management process analysis, we all clearly identified our own suppliers, the inputs from suppliers, the processes for which we owned responsibility, the outputs we provided and our customers receiving the outputs. This concept went beyond validating or checking the data while it is entered. The challenge was to find a straightforward method or process that enabled the person who knows the data best to be the primary candidate for entering the data. In the 21st century, the stage is clearly set for true employee empowerment by enabling connected employees to effortlessly access the internet. This concept of enabling the employee to update relevant information is known as employee self-service (ESS). REFERENCES:  Anheir, N., & Dohetry, S. (2002). Employee self-service: Tips to ensure a successful implementation (SHRM White Paper).  Keener, D., Heard, D., & Morgan, M. (2002). Implementing a human resources system-lesson learned [SHRM White Paper].  Hamerman, Paul. (2004). Taking Employee Self-service to a new level.  Walker, A. (2001). Web-based human resources. New York, McGraw Hill. Read More