The Components of the Management Information System in Etihad Airways - Case Study Example

MIS Case Study Name: Institution: Course: Lecturer: Date: This document is a case study carried out on management information system used (MIS) used in the Etihad Airways-Head office. Etihad Airways is the flag carrier air company in the UAE (United Arab Emirates). The Etihad Airways was founded by royal pronouncement in July 2003 and was centered at Abu Dhabi, Etihad and begun to operate in November 2003. This name is derived from the term "union", in Arabic (Etihadairways 2012). This airway is operating more than 1,000 flights on weekly basis to 96 passengers and cargo endpoints in the Middle East, African, European, Asian, Australian and the America countries, with fleets of almost 85 Airbuses and Boeing aircrafts. In the year 2012, Etihad Airways had transported 10.3 million travellers, which was a 23% increment from the preceding year, bringing about revenue of about US$ 4.8 billion and net profit of US$ 42 million. The Etihad Airways is the fourth biggest commercial airline in Middle East and it is the second biggest Airways Company in the United Arab Emirates, after the Dubai-based airline Emirates (Etihadairways 2012). In addition to its major activity of carrying passengers, Etihad Airways also works on the Etihad Holidays and Etihad Freight. The Airways is located at Abu Dhabi International Airport and its headquarters are found within Khalifa City A, Abu Dhabi (Etihadairways 2012). In September 2013, Etihad Airways was serving 96 passengers and cargo destinations throughout the  African, European, North American, South American, Asian countries and Australia from its center at Abu Dhabi International Airport. The Etihad Airways, simultaneously with the British Airways, Delta Air Lines, Emirates, Korean Air, Qantas, Qatar Airways, Singapore Airlines, South African Airways and United Airlines, is amongst the few transporters to serve in all the six populated continents (Etihadairways 2012). The components of the MIS in Etihad Airways According to UAEEmiratejobs (2014), the Oracle HR systems (HRMS, Payrolls, iServe Self-Service module, Talents Management, HR reporting module) have been the pillar of the Etihad HR, management of the whole life cycle of employees and acting as the foundation of HR information to the whole business. This MIS has been used in the Etihad Airways since 2012 to date. In the Human Resource planning processes, it is stress-free to have a follow-up on the labor force gaps, the capacity and worth of the labor force and planning impending workforce necessities being enhanced by the HR knowledge systems (Dessler 2005). Karakanian (2000) believes that risk and security control is another essential purpose of MIS in an organization due to the secretive and highly sensitive personal information and multi-platform security factors which are the most critical aspects factors that are usually considered. The strategic context for the MIS The improved usage of the web tools in delivering HR would leave the HR professionals with much more time for the tactical decision making and that the subcontracting of the people-management undertakings liberates the HR specialists for the performance of more strategic undertakings (Kulik & Perry 2008). As one of the major strategic partners, the Human Resource manager derives of the Etihad Airways benefits from the MIS, in the dissemination and execution of the strategies within the company. These systems are enabling the staff in managing most of their individual HR management responsibilities. They are able to care for many repetitive transactions on every occasion they feel like, since the automatic systems do not keep the office hours. Also, the HR professional are able to act as a competent manager by whenever they arrange the appropriate individuals to the suitable positions in the appropriate time with their fresh strategic architectural role. Ostermann et al (2009) asserts that the MIS contributes to the general trade performance by gratifying or at least assisting the responsibilities of storing data and recovery, of acting as the main management support tools, of commentary and statistics and of program observing. MIS is also playing an essential role for the Etihad organization to efficiently manage its human resources. The organization has also incorporated the MIS to enhance their regular human assets operations. According to Noor & Razali (2011), MIS enables the aligning and attempts to satisfy the necessities of an organization and its users so as to be fruitful. Nevertheless, the HR departments in the Etihad Airways have become aware of some of the present limits of web technologies and their integration into the MIS. Security of the confidential HR data is of highest priority. Karakanian (2000) points out the essence of an organization looking earnestly into the internet empowering of their HR services and then evaluating the authentication, safety, accessing rules, and audit tracks linked with networks, servers, and applications of the service provider. Conversely, there are some undesired and unforeseen concerns of MIS in any organization. These consequences include the increased quantity accompanied by a decreased quality of the candidates in the e-recruitments (Strohmeier 2009). Another essential factor of using information systems is the user contentment. It is usually recommended as an indication of the IS achievement. Various IS empirical scholars have observed user satisfaction as essential proxy of the IS achievement and it is one of the most incorporated measure of the IS success as a result of its ease of application and ease of usage. (Shibly 2011). The HR Professionals in the Etihad Airways are using the MIS in reporting and compliance, Payroll and compensation analysis, Benefits management and the applicants tracking, expertise inventory. The Functional Managers in the Etihad Airways are using the MIS in performance administration and appraisals, recruitments and processing of resumes, management of Teams and projects, Trainings and skills testing and the Administration development. The rationale used by the management in justifying the MIS The MIS was meant to support long range development in Etihad Airways with the information regarding the labor force planning and supplies and demands projection; recruitment with information on equal recruitment, partings and the interviewee testimonials; and the expansion with the information regarding the training programs, projections of salaries, paying budgets and labor/employees relation with information pertaining contract consultations and employees help needs. The risks that the management mitigated Though there was security by use of passwords protection, there was risk of the HR management system being accessed by unapproved people, putting the team’s private information to be up for grabs (Noor & Razali 2011). User errors like some misspelled employees’ names usually happened. At worst, errors when entering the data upset the workflow of the business. The MIS lacks the human input thus failed to handle some of the outside the box logistic matters in the HR duties. The MIS was vulnerable to down time, with likely terrible consequences. This brought about some serious business activities to a halt whenever the employee data wasn’t available (Ostermann et al 2009).   Technical elements of the system 1. Database The MIS in the Etihad Airways has a database that stores the information of the employees. HR specialist input all the employees’ data into the database and the data remains accessible from any location and at any time (Noor & Razali 2011). 2. Time and Labor Management The MIS allows the workers to feed their individual time-frames worked and enables the leaders to have an immediate verification of holiday applications, and the information is directly input to the payrolls. The time and labor management similarly helps the HR department in tracking the attendance and timekeeping of the workers (Noor & Razali 2011). 3. Payroll The HR department easily downloads or uploads the worker hours and hand in to them c payroll deposits to workers. This HRIS payroll software is an improvement to the tax compliance for the scenarios with multiple tax levels. This payroll software offers storage to the payrolls registers and tax filing information according to legal requirements (Dessler 2005). Decision support offered by the MIS There is business intelligence support related with the MIS that helps in decision making. As a result of the enhanced access to metrics, quicker data processing, and enhance data precision, quicker decision making and improved HR scheduling is realized by the decision makers within the organization. The HRIS dashboards and reports make it possible to exhibit real-time data while providing fast info on return of any investment that is carried out on human capital and training sessions conducted on the staff. Input of the HR examination is translated into extrapolative feedback in regard to the imminent needs. The MIS is of help in forecasting of the imminent workers’ demands to commence recruitments for the unfilled positions so as to sustain an excellent service, forecasting turnover within service delivery position, and understanding the requirements to execute  training sessions to manage a progressive planning and building a skillful team, in future (Noor & Razali 2011). Information security issues As a way of making the data of the company confidential, the system requires to have data encrypted. User’s IDs and passwords are used as the common approach; while the two-factor authentication remains the common method that prevents delicate information from being accessed by wrong people. As a way of safeguarding the delicate information from reaching wrong users, the organization ensures that the employees, who have access to such information, have adequate training on how to effectively prevent such incidences (Ostermann et al 2009). Data that is stored in the MIS database requires high level of integrity within the employees of the company so as to prevent it from being altered, by unauthorized individuals, while being transmitted. The system has incorporated version control technique as a way of preventing incidences of erroneous alterations or unintentional erasure by approved users. Also techniques such as file permission and user access control are of significance in enhancing integrity. A rigorous maintenance of all hardware, hardware repairs when needed are essential in enhancing availability of data. There is need to accurately maintain an operating system setting that has few incidences of conflicting software. It is of significance to keep upgrading the MIS regularly. There is need to prevent data loss by backing up the data and storing it in a physically-isolated premises that are fireproof as well as waterproof (Ostermann et al 2009). Analysis of the incident when the system failed As a result of big traffic, accessing the database, the system becomes down and employees are unable to access the system for a while. The system was also down as a result of datacenter hitches. The servers of the organization’s website are big and in charge and are hosted offsite. It is as a result of the hitting of the datacenters with power failures and hardware failure, it has effect on the websites that are hosted there. The website became not accessible by the clients and its global ranking was adversely affected. The stake holders that help in salvaging the situation are the IT department. The servers were upgraded and the source code improved so as to make the website more reliable. However, there are no reported cases of system security cases (Smith 2012). In conclusion, the Etihad Airways has been using Oracle HR systems since 2012 as its MIS. The system has resulted to some increased profits after the HR personnel had training from the Oracle support trainers. The MIS has been of help in recruitments, attendance tracking, the employees had sufficient time for other responsibilities in the company. The online self-services offered through the HR portal, have been processing various requests, like the payroll look-ups, paid time off requests, employee’s handbooks access and the yearly benefits enrollment. But the MIS has been vulnerable to down times, user errors and risk of the hackers. However, the MIS has been of great assistance to the Etihad Airways. Reference List Dessler, G 2005, Human Resource Management, 10.ed., USA: Prentice Hall. Etihadairways, 2012, Etihad Airways In Brief. Retrieved from http://www.etihadairways.com/sites/Etihad/Etihad%20Images/Resources/EY-Factsheet.pdf Etihadairways, 2014, Etihad Meet & Greet Service. Retrieved from http://www.etihadairways.com/sites/Etihad/trades/global/en/Pages/etihad-meet-and-greet-service.aspx Karakanian, M 2000, Are human resources departments ready for E-HR? Information Systems Management, 17(4), pp.1–5. Kulik,C. T., & Perry, E. L 2008, When less is more: The effect of devolution on HR’s strategic Role and Donstrued Image, Human Resource Management, 47(3), pp.541–558. Noor, M. M., & Razali, R 2011, Human resources information systems (HRIS) for military domain-a conceptual framework, International Conference on Electrical Engineering and Informatics, 17–19 July, 2011, Indonesia. Ostermann, H., Staudinger, B., & Staudinger, R 2009, Benchmarking human resource information systems. In T. Coronas & M. Oliva (Ed.), Encyclopedia of Human Resources Information Systems: Challenges in E-HRM (pp. 92–101). Hershey, PA: IGI Global Smith, P 2012, Professional website performance optimizing the front-end and back-end. Hoboken, N.J. Chichester: Wiley John Wiley distributor. UAEEmiratejobs, 2014, HR & Payroll management. Retrieved from http://uae-emirates.jobs career-listing.com/articles/4687/1/Manager-HR-Systems-Support---Etihad-Airways---Abu-Dhabi/Page1.html . Read More