The Principles of Phase Containment - Essay Example

This realization came with the understanding that if no changes were made to legacy systems built on the old date algorithms, it was predicted that there would be serious errors to any function that relied on date calculation. This problem could potentially affect all areas of business for many companies.

The reason why so many organizations found themselves vulnerable to the Y2K bug is that they were not disciplined when it came to phase containment. The problem was not only a result of initial legacy systems; many replacement custom systems simply replicated or converted the old programming logic without fixing them. Along with a company’s unwillingness to research to find a true fix to the problem, many waited too long and were left rushing to find a solution. The warnings of experts and futurists only added fire to the alarm felt by already panicked companies as many turned to extremely expensive quick fixes. Many of these quick fixes ended up costing billions more than if companies had simply stayed disciplined to phase containment from the beginning.

Phase containment can be maintained by acting immediately on any kind of problem as soon as it presents itself. The term “pay a little now, or a lot later” should be applied to every aspect of business along with the realization that even if a maintenance cost may seem expensive at the time, it will end up saving money in the long run. Keeping in close contact with employees and everyone who uses the HRIS software can help keep everyone aware of problems as they present themselves.

Based on the out of date process detailed in figure 4.5 many changes can be made. There are many manual processes required for this HR model and as research has proven manual processes often contain large amounts of human error. By analyzing the current system, businesses can evaluate “where they are now” and what can be done to improve their system. For example, a business may use interviews, focus groups, or surveys to help assess their system to see what aspects can be streamlined or eliminated. Looking at Figure 4.5 it may be seen that instead of manually filling out a time card each day, employees could clock in and out with a computer or their hours could be paid through a salary system to avoid any miscalculations, unreadable written information, or typos. The company could download a kind of fact-checking system to make sure that the hour's employees clocked in and out for were properly documented, eliminating the need for a payroll assistant. By setting up a salary system, there would be no need to hire anyone to calculate payroll, because it would be the same amount of money every time. Then, if an employee notifies payroll of a mistake there will be no need to have to go in and manually recheck what was entered because it would all be electronically calculated.

Based on the Hacket Best Practices Benchmark Study of Human Resources’ estimate that $17 is wasted in every manual HR transaction this new process can save a company a fortune. If every step in the 6 step model represents a transaction then the company could potentially be wasting $102 for each employee whose payroll they process. With the new improved system, the company could save all of this money by eliminating unnecessary transaction steps. If a company pays 10,000 employees once a month, they would save 1,020,000 per month and 12,240,000 per year.

Overall, based upon my analysis of this company’s payroll process I would definitely recommend a new process with fewer manually entered transactions to try and eliminate money wasted on human error. While the new payroll processing system will probably be expensive, its benefits will definitely pay off in the long run.