History Of Human Resource Information System

Published Date: 02 Nov 2017

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Human Resource Information System

Introduction

The paper attempts to discuss the Human Resource Information System process that is being applied in Al-Futtaim Company operating in United Arab Emirates. The paper discusses the company’s HRIS description and history and evaluates the steps that are being applied within the company. The paper also discusses the services the company offers with respect to the HRIS and helps in understanding of the HR activities which are being supported by HRIS. Lastly, the paper describes the implementation process of HRIS, and evaluates the benefits and pitfalls regarding the HRIS activities.

HRIS Description and History

The United Arab Emirates Company that has been selected is the Al-Futtaim group of companies that has been established in the country since 70 years and has 40 companies working under its belt. The company has great amount of international exposure therefore the company utilizes the Human Resource Information System for updating their Human Resource Management. The company uses this approach since it gained the acceptance in the country and the company needed a bigger human resource management to handle the business. The model that has been used in Al-Futtaim group of companies is the Hyde-Shafritz HRIS Model (Walker, 1993). However, the company does not follow the whole sixteen points proposed by the company but it manages to adopt 6 points to gain competitive advantage in the market. These points have been listed below:

Career Planning

The career planning charts have been well defined for each employee and their categories for their needs and desires. These career paths help employees to plan for their future according to their capabilities and they strive to do more and achieve more (Bagdi, 2012).

Foreign Service Locals

The company monitors the data for foreign staff members who have been hired on special basis and their database is maintained. These are the foreign nationals that have managed to achieve their job in the company to which special treatments and arrangements are made and special salary and promotion package is arranged according to their needs (Bagdi, 2012).

Position Classification

The company enables to perform monitoring the job positions and their level for each candidate to allow them promotions according to their performance. This level of monitoring is performed to achieve the best results as far as individual performance is concerned. The check and balance on each individual performance for a selected level of position tends to increase the productivity of the company (Bagdi, 2012).

Position/person Matching

This is the most important aspect of human resource information system which is being performed by the company. The particular approach identifies the exact capabilities of a person and manages to match it with their job responsibilities and description. The company understands the need for matching this link because it is important that the company finds the best available person which is suited for the current position (Bagdi, 2012).

Recruitment

The recruitment process of the company is conducted on the basis of the performance of employees that are hired on probations. The company also continuously monitors the qualification of individuals and manages to analyze retention if an employee is better enough to be recruited for the company (Bagdi, 2012).

Training Assignments

The company Al-Futtaim finds a need for employees to be trained in their respective fields to perform their job more effectively and efficiently and to increase their productivity so they could retain and hold their current positions (Bagdi, 2012).

Services

The main services that are being provided by the company according with respect to the HRIS have been discussed below:

The company is responsible to make payments to their staff and managers timely payments according to their performance that have been delivered in the due course over the month.

The performance of employees is measured on the daily basis and is compared with their output that has become beneficial for their company. It enables close monitoring on employees which helps them to remain intact with their mission and not deviate in their course of achieving excellence.

The company performs the budget analysis which specifies the budget that is required to analyze the efforts of human resource working in the company. This is considered as the resource allocation technique which identifies the total resources that are required by the individual staff members.

The vacancy reporting is continuously been monitored and potential job vacancies are developed if the work that has been required is beginning to mount which is becoming difficult for the company to handle it more appropriately.

The training needs are important for the company and each employee therefore Al-Futtaim identifies a list of all training needs that are essential for the growth of individuals, in which the most significant training method is selected (Kavanagh, Thite, & Johnson, 2011).

HR Activities Supported by HRIS

The planning, recruitment, selection, training, development and appraising are the most important human resource activities that are performed by the company and have been backed up by the HRIS. The HRIS allows recruiting employees according to their capabilities and talent they possess with different technological procedures. The online recruitment processes have been considered of great importance to Al-Futtaim because it enables the company to recruit people from different countries and to find the best expertise in the area. The online recruitment process has been appraised by the HRIS because it allows the company to save both time and cost and to gain quicker responses from applicants. The training and development of employees is another factor which has become a great necessity of employees which has been well supported by HRIS. Many new technologies have been introduced and many new types of machinery have been adopted by the company as per the latest trends, but it requires great variety of skills to operate such machineries. Therefore, certain training programs have been designed by the company so that employees get equipped with the latest technologies (Kumar, 2005).

Appraisals of employees are the most important aspects of the company which shapes the motivational level of employees and according to which performance are delivered which results in the success and failure of the company. HRIS finds it useful in the current century to motivate employees in order to get maximum productivity from employees. As long as employees are satisfied with the company they will tend to retain their job position and work hard to achieve great performance. Therefore, the points that have been presented above are being applied in the company which is being supported by HRIS (Kumar, 2005).

Implementation Process

The company uses the six step process for the implementation of its HRIS activities and process to ensure the success of its company. These points have been listed below:

The first step includes the collection of information through the use of database in which the company highlights the most important points that can result in the success of the company.

The second step includes a discussion on the main points that were highlighted previously and are discussed with higher management. The pros and cons of the particular topic are discussed, and the one that receives a higher recognition then it results in the acceptance of the particular activity.

Once the activity is been approved by the company then it enables to find out the requirements in performing the resulted activity. The project is then created which performs and evaluates the challenges which are being faced by the company in the implementation of HRIS projects.

The training is provided to the staff members in coping with the challenges and the setup for performing the HR activities are delivered.

Testing of the current activity is been performed to check its effectiveness in the current environment. This also reveals the positive and the negative aspects of the activity which has been approved by the higher officials.

If testing reveals positive results and feedback from their employees then the decision is kept in order and the process is implemented (Kumar, 2005).

Staff Reaction to the Implementation

The reaction of the staff has always been appraised by Al-Futtaim because the internal customers are of value to the company and the company considers them as their asset. However, there is certain amount of resistance which is often showed by employees because the company believes that one cannot simply satisfy the entire group of people because each employee have different perspectives and nature (Kavanagh, Thite, & Johnson, 2011). Therefore, the company believes in the approval of majority of employees. If an employee considers the approach and the activity to be correct then the majority does not resist the activity. However, if majority of employees show resistance against the activity of the company then the idea is quickly dropped by the company and new measures are taken to review the entire activity (Bagdi, 2012).

Staff Training

Induction and on the job training are the two training processes which are being applied in the company which results in the increase efficiency of the workforce and improves effectiveness of the company’s production. Induction training is the process in which the new employees are informed about the activities that are being performed by the company and they are introduced with different clients to measure the work environment of the company. The new employee is been trained with the procedures that are applied in the company which are mandatory for each employee to obey and maintain the discipline. The organizational structure is well defined to the respective employees to let them well equipped with the knowledge of corporate governance of the company (Kumar, 2005).

The other type of training which is being performed in Al-Futtaim is the on job training which a worker or an employee is been trained under the supervision of a high experienced employee. It is considered as the typical mode of training which is very effective because viewing a higher professional carrying out the same job with higher precision results in fewer errors made by the new employee and makes them knowledgeable about the detail elements of the work (Walker, 1993).

Benefits and Pitfalls of HRIS

The benefits of using HRIS process includes managing of the entire process accurately with more precision and the process are more effective. The recruitment and selection process is made easier with the use of technology offered by HRIS which results in saving cost and time for the organization through online recruitments. The accuracy of information is the most important aspect with the effect of performing HR audits. The job responsibilities and job descriptions are then well defined which results in fewer complexities (Kavanagh, Thite, & Johnson, 2011).

The pitfalls include for companies which are smaller in size that does not have the capability to hire a technology specialist which allows them to outsource personnel which is also expensive for the company. Human error can be made during the input of information in the database which can disrupt the entire HRIS process. Finding employees that have specialties in technology is costly for many organizations which tend to avoid taking certain steps (Walker, 1993).