SAKIB MOHAMMED MALIK ID: 151-116-020
HUMAN RESOURCE INFORMATION SYSTEM
Definition of Human Resource Information System
A Human Resources Information System (HRIS) is a software or online solution that is
used for data entry, data tracking and the data information requirements of an organization's
human resources (HR) management, payroll and bookkeeping operations. A HRIS is usually
offered as a database.1
Why Should We Need Human Resource Information System?2
Every firm wants to be successful on the market and there is only one way to get the desired
success is to hire the right labor or staff. With every passing day companies pay more
attention to the human resources that they employ and manage, and that is why all kinds of
Human Recourses Information Systems (HRIS) are getting more and more popular for firms,
as they give a hand at data entering, tracking, management, accounting and so on.
There are some purposes of human resource information system that an organization must
need to manage its employee and work environment. These are given below:
1. To store data and information for each individual employee for ready reference.
2. To provide a basis for decision making in day-to-day personnel issues, also for planning,
budgeting, implementing and monitoring a host of human resource functions.
3. To supply data/returns to government and other public.
3. HRIS would help achieve “equality” in areas like promotion, transfer, nomination, etc.
4. HRIS helps settle employees’ dues in time, in respect of provident fund, retirement,
gratuity, L T C. and earned leave compensation, etc.
5. Once the profile of a person is entered in the computer, retrieving the information becomes
easier and also involves less cost and lessens chances of errors.
Examples of Human Resource Information System4
There are many functions within HR, such as recruiting, hiring, pay and benefits, training,
evaluation, and attendance. Some software packages:
1. Kronos Workforce Ready: Workforce Ready is a cloud-based solution offering a
variety of modules, that allows you to custom a system for employee data management.
The solution offers a robust workflow engine and reporting, and also a mobile
application.
1. Ascentis: Ascentis is a fully integrated human resources software suite, which includes
applications that span the employee life cycle, including recruiting, performance reviews,
as well as personnel tracking and benefits administration.
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2. ClearCompany HRM: We recommend ClearCompany HRM for organizations with 100
to 5,000 employees in a variety of different industries. This solution is a good fit for
companies that want to improve recruitment, onboarding and new talent management.
3. APS: APS (Automatic Payroll Systems, Inc.) has been providing payroll and tax
compliance services to companies for almost two decades. In 2004, they released their
APS, their cloud-based solution for human capital management. APS combines their
services in a streamlined format that can be scaled to various sized companies.
4. Jobvite: Jobvite uses social media, employee referrals and resume databases to find the
top talent. The online system works within Outlook and Gmail calendars and has a
dashboard for an overview of recruitment efforts.
Importance of Human Resource Information System
Organizations must look for ways to manage their internal processes efficiently while
preserving the integrity of each practice. Tracking HR activities through a human resources
information system is efficient and effective for many business organizations. For the owner,
it's usually a matter of which system is affordable and suited to the organization's needs.
1. Identify Manpower Requirements: In the most basic sense, an HR information system
organizes information about every job in organization. This information might include
details such as who is currently in the position, what he/she is paid and what his/her job
responsibilities, training needs and assigned benefits are.
2. Identifying Resources: When you must make decisions such as how much manpower
will be required, you want to determine quickly what resources are already at your
disposal. Using an HRIS, you can make better decisions.
3. Compliance: In most firms, there is a critical need to manage how employees are treated.
An HR manager could pull a report about the diversity of the organization, including
percentages of employees in each occupation by their race, gender or national origin.
This report would help to show whether the business is complying with Equal
Employment Opportunity regulations.
4. Meeting Training Needs: An HRIS system can help employers manage training needs,
allowing them to complete mandated and optional training. When training becomes
available, the HRIS notifies him so he can register and complete the training. In this kind
of model, the HRIS helps the organization to automatically manage the fulfillment of
many training needs.
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Function of Human Resource Information System
It’s a very interesting and backbone of any business as it’s the people who build the business
and thus should be taken care of in well manner.
So Let’s see what are the key functions of HRIS:
1. Benefiting Administration: This function deals with the benefit policies of employee in
an organization like, perks, special allowances, insurance, profit sharing and retirement
benefits.
2. Payroll Handling: This is the foremost function of HRIS as people are there with you for
the “Pay” itself and handling the Payroll is in itself a complicated task which are filled with
conditions and company policies, so HR managers have to perform this task every month
on each individual basis after calculating his leaves, holidays, late hours, overtime and
many other aspects which effects his monthly salary credit. The HRIS system helps in
maintaining the attendance and generating the payroll according to it and also in the
preparation of pay slips.
3. Employee Record Handling: This is a simple function; all you need to do is to maintain
the records of each employee but it’s very important and a single error can be very harmful
for the organization and the individual itself. This function describes about keeping the
employee records from his past organization, personal details and details of current
company.
4. Recruitment: This is a critical function to perform for HR Department, as, having good
Human Resource can take your company to heights and failing to do this can take your
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company down. HRIS system helps in organizing the recruitment activities properly like
resume management, interview panel making, selection criteria, number of interview
rounds and many other activities which needs to be performed as the recruitment process.
5. Training: It is a most often activity in an organization which is required to nurture the
talent and remove the “Can’t do and Don’t Know” kind of words from the company. The
HR department is responsible for organizing training session for its employee. Trainers can
be from within the company itself and on some occasions, may be from outside. HRIS
helps in maintaining all these records, keeping appointment filtering of employee list based
on their knowledge, weakness and other criteria, through which a session can be organized
and proper identification can be done for employee while managing the trainings.
6. Appraisals & Performance Management: This function is not only independent to HR
but dependent on other functional departments. It needs score from various other
departments and people as well like from Project Managers about the team leaders and
team members, Sales Managers, Branch Manager and other people. Collecting reports and
other relevant information like extra-curricular activities & participations, learning reports,
are joined together for analysis and comes out with the appraisals, incentives and
promotions. HRIS supports these activities in analyzing the reports and works as a decision
support system for the HRs.
7. Attendance Record Management: HRIS is majorly used here in an automated fashion
mostly and if not, at least in a semi-automated fashion where HR keeps the record of all
the employees’ attendance, leaves- paid or non paid, holidays granted or not granted one
and of course timely reporting. Although there are smart machine and system now-a-days
which manages attendance with a card swipe or a finger print reader, so in modern world
it’s not a core HR function but often at some places, specially in small organizations, it is
still a function of HRs and we can say that HRIS include attendance management.
8. Grievance Handling: Grievance is an official statement of a complaint over something
believed to be wrong or unfair. We can identify the grievance by behave of an employee
in organization. Grievance can be of multiple nature, at multiple levels; some can be
handled at HR level but some cannot be handled by HR level. So grievance handling is a
function of HR Department but not in complete sense. HRIS are not able to provide much
help in these cases except keeping a log file of it.
How Human Resource Information System Can Help An Organization?
There are many benefits that can be enjoyed after implementing a HRIS into an organization,
such as:
1. Expedition of recurring tasks through automation
2. Improved ability to reach large candidate pools regarding new position openings
3. Ability to quickly apply higher selection standards to a number of applications
4. Speedy onboarding made possible by mobile accessibility
5. Reduction of paper and related materials and storage – often yields cost savings
6. Ease in distributing up-to-date materials concerning company policies and procedures
7. Empowerment of employees to change benefits information directly as changes occur
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8. Improved collaboration throughout organization, even when there are multiple company
locations
9. Reduction of errors in payroll and employee information database
10. Improved time and attendance tracking abilities and accuracy
Designing of Human Resource Information System (HRIS)
The four steps involved in designing of HRIS are as follows:
1. Determination of Information Needs: Data and information are basic inputs for decision
making activity. Managers at different levels may need different types of information. Hence,
identification of information needed by the managers becomes the first step in designing
HRIS. This involves a perspicacious study of the activities carried out in the organization.
Work patterns, their relationship and constraints affecting the HRIS also need to be analyzed.
2. Designing the System: At this stage, the flow of information is structured in such a
manner that it is economical and matches with the information needs of managers. It is
important to mention that HRIS as a sub-system of Management Information System (MIS)
does not require a separate design. However, designing HRIS may require developing
preferred processing techniques for desired data set by managers at different levels.
3. Implementation: This is the stage when the HRIS is actually set up. In order to handle the
system effectively, employees are imparted the necessary skill through orientation and
training programs. Besides, facilities are increased and upgraded, procedures are properly
streamlined with an objective to integrate the HRIS with various organizational components
in existence at the
4. Monitoring and Evaluation: It involves measuring the performance, or say, contribution
of the system to the overall human resource management of the organization. By doing so,
gaps are identified and corrective steps are taken to ensure its smooth operation. The system
is evaluated on a regular basis so that it is evaluated in the light of changes taking place from
time to time within and outside the organization.
Limitation of Human Resource Information System
An HRIS also can be a problematic for small businesses in which some employees must wear
many hats. So there are some limitations of human resource information system are given
below:
1. Human error during information input.
2. Costly technology to update the system.
3. Insufficient applications to support human resources needs.
4. Finding a qualified specialist with human resources functional area knowledge can be
difficult.
5. Hiring a HRIS specialist may be far above the average salary for a computer technology
specialist.
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