Role of Information Technology in HR - Essay Example

? What Are The Most Critical Learning Points From This Material? The six critical points that have been addressed in this chapter include: Organizational Information dissemination; Role of information technology in HR; Role of social media in enhancing HR performance; Leveraging information in decision-making; Connecting people through technology; and Use of technology in creating competitive advantage. Organizational Information dissemination Information dissemination is associated with broadcasting of business ideas to a wide audience, hence making the ideas more meaningful. Information dissemination is critical because it has the greatest impact on business success. What’s more, exchange of information is critical in creating competitive advantage for organizations. Since numerous markets are somewhat flooded with many organizations making efforts towards similar core competencies, firms are forced to enhance their information dissemination in order to produce a sustainable competitive advantage. The information age and its revolution has budged organizations away from being nearsightedly concerned with the utilization of tangible assets towards a holistic and unwavering interest in leveraging intangible assets, such as the management of information dissemination as a way of ensuring that competitive advantage is developed. Impact on business Dissemination of business information is a source of competitive advantage. Dissemination of information facilitates communication across all organizational boundaries, such that the entire business is able to seize the available opportunities and address its challenges by bringing all the stakeholders on board. In view of this, managers are able to use information dissemination as a tool of fostering productive and collaborative exchange between employees. With effective dissemination of knowledge, businesses are able to increase influential decisions significantly, since all the origination’s stakeholders are able to gain access to important strategic opinions, instead of holding such information on the hands of high-level management only. What’s more, by allowing employees to have access to each other, those who have the most current information are able to share it with those who derives benefit from it, rather than going through upright channels of upper management. In view of this, the organization is able to make quick decisions and implement them successfully. Integration of technology and HR Since Human Resources are one of the most critical assets in an organization, it is important that its adoption of technology is at the same level with marketing, production or finance. This includes automation of performance appraisal systems, payroll, and employee benefits. Furthermore, deployment and management of technology in an effective way, means that any business organization would require knowledge workers, and it is the responsibility of HR function to manage the knowledge workers. This makes integration of technology and HR a must. Therefore, the point on adoption of technology in HR is very important because it is about efficiency of Human Resources, which is a very important tool for competitive advantage. Impact on business Integration of technology and HR facilitates harmonious, complementing and enhanced co-existing of business functions. While technology plays an important role in enhancing effectiveness of HR, adoption and managing of change is enhanced by HR that is brought about by the technology. Integrating technology and HR functions leads to successful business strategy execution, employees’ contribution, administrative efficiency and capacity for change. All these are fulfilled through the contribution of workers, including development, staffing, benefits, compensation, highly performing teams, among others. Actually, technology is bringing about the highest number of changes in the HR market. Besides, implementing of Human Resource Information Systems (HRIS) has a strong impact on business excellence, since this reduces administrative workloads and addresses more serious issues that facilitate business excellence. The ability of the HR leaders to anticipate technological change and accordingly evolve is instrumental on organizations’ survival and success; otherwise, HR will remain at dinosaur state - lagging way behind the change rhythm. The emerging global business landscape poses a number of challenges to HR as a function. There is now greater need for the HR leaders to ensure that the organizations have adequate talents and skills, set to exploit opportunities resulting from the ever changing technological landscape and cushion the organizations from possible threats resulting thereof. Leveraging information in decision-making This is s a critical point because the world is currently awash with information, hence making it very essential to interpret the information in a manner that adds value in decision-making. Since different firms in any industry have access to similar data almost at the same time, then it becomes critical for individual firms to device ways of interpreting information in their own unique way with the aim of fostering competitive advantage. Impact on business Different organizations are following up with the information regarding the changes that are taking place due to social, economic and political changes, and then bundling such information in their own unique way that they are able to decide what products they should produce at a particular period. For example, this happens when a design firm foresees a significant change in dressing style a certain generation, hence adjusting the designs of its products to suit such changes. Such a firm positions itself to reap hefty profits in the event that its prediction was right. In order to effectively leverage information in decision-making, businesses are required to break from their erstwhile paradigms, for example by welcoming an open forum where every person’s voice is taken seriously and with the weight that it merits. This has led to accepting and understanding of new and potentially threatening practices for the sake of salvaging the organization’s long-term existence. Leveraging social media tools Nowadays, it does not take long before yet another innovation takes the world by its storm, in which case businesses quickly adopt these developments in order to guard their competitiveness. Examples of these innovations include chartrooms, emails, instant messaging, texting, blogging, and the most recent and very influential social networking sites. Due to the critical role played by HR as earlier discussed, it is not only important to consider the role that social media plays on areas such as marketing, but also on the world of Human Resources. Impact on business The most essential manner in which social media is impacting businesses is associated with customers’ collaboration. In the recent times, social media platforms such as social networks and blogs have been used by business establishments to collaborate with different stakeholders such as customers, partners as well as employees. Nowardays, almost all companies have a Facebook page that is used to connect with the clients, while many of them use Twitter messages to communicate with their employees. The blogs and videos on social Medias are used by companies to communicate their culture, advertise their products, and make announcements about new opportunities to the external world. Many companies use sites such as Facebook, Istagram, Foursquare, and Twitter to engage its customers, hence promoting its brands. Social media marketing has become very popular with online companies, especially because they have realized the effectiveness of using popular social sites like Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn, and Twitter. The considerable increase in social media marketing has not only attracted traffic to their websites but also passed on content that places greater demand on the company’s products. Businesses share videos on social media outlets, or add videos on their emails to drive more clicks on their links. Connecting people through technology Connecting people through technology is a critical point because this is one of the important factors that lead to success of business. It is through use of technology to connect people that many firms are able to achieve high efficiency in the delivery of their HR and other processes. Impact on business The information flow architecture is the key determinant of the logic of business process; hence the HR professionals that are involved in running of this field are substantially influencing the success of firms. In many companies, employees apply technology in bringing information into the business. For example, when the marketing employees realize that a certain product is slowly losing market, they use technology to conduct research and hence come up with recommendations the best way of addressing such an issue (Ulrich et al. 1241). Use of technology in creating competitive advantage In recent times, technology and innovation has been the most important factors of enhancing success in business. In fact, any organization that ignores technology risks being edged out of market by other companies that utilize it as a tool for building competitive advantage. Therefore, this is a very critical issue, which cannot be left out when discussing issues associated with competitive advantage. Impact on business Advancements in information technology have played a vital role in terms of revolutionizing the manner in which businesses communicate with their customers. Advancements in information technology have made it easy for organizations to communicate with their customers, suppliers and employees in an efficient and faster manner. It has also enabled organizations to reduce their costs of production drastically. The workplace today is experiencing significant changes. This is because people are getting more educated thereby impacting on the way they conduct their daily operations. People today are more efficient in the activities that they perform. In addition, education has become global thereby enabling people from all over the world to share ideas and improve their working skills. References Ulrich, Dave et al. Praise for HR from inside in. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2012. Print. Reference Read More