The function of human resources departments is administrative and common to all organizations. Organizations may have formalized selection, evaluation, and payroll processes. Management of “human capital” has progressed to an imperative and complex process. The HR function consists of tracking existing employee data, which traditionally includes personal histories, skills, capabilities, accomplishments, and salary. To reduce the manual workload of these administrative activities, organizations began to electronically automate many of these processes by introducing specialized human resource management systems.
HR executives rely on internal or external IT professionals to develop and maintain an integrated HRMS. Before client–server architectures evolved in the late 1980s, many HR automation processes were relegated to mainframe computers that could handle large amounts of data transactions. In consequence of the high capital investment necessary to buy or program proprietary software, these internally developed HRMS were limited to organizations that possessed a large amount of capital. The advent of client-server, application service provider, and software as a service (SaaS) or human resource management systems enabled higher administrative control of such systems. Currently, human resource management systems tend to encompass:
=>> Retaining staff
=>> Hiring
=>> Onboarding
=>> Administration
=>> Managing payroll
=>> HR planning
=>> Recruiting/Learning management
=>> Performance management and appraisals
=>> Employee self-service
=>> Scheduling and rota management
=>> Absence management
=>> Leave management
=>> Reporting and analytics
=>> Employee reassignment
=>> Grievance handling by following precedents
The payroll module automates the pay process by gathering data on employee time and attendance, calculating various deductions and taxes, and generating periodic pay cheques and employee tax reports. Data is generally fed from the human resources and timekeeping modules to calculate automatic deposit and manual cheque writing capabilities. This module can encompass all employee-related transactions as well as integrate with existing financial management systems.
The time and attendance module gathers standardized time and work related efforts. The most advanced modules provide broad flexibility in data collection methods, labor distribution capabilities and data analysis features. Cost analysis and efficiency metrics are the primary functions.
The benefits administration module provides a system for organizations to administer and track employee participation in benefits programs. These typically encompass insurance, compensation, profit sharing, and retirement.
The HR management module is a component covering many other HR aspects from application to retirement. The system records basic demographic and address data, selection, training and development, capabilities and skills management, compensation planning records and other related activities. Leading edge systems provide the ability to “read” applications and enter relevant data to applicable database fields, notify employers and provide position management and position control. Human resource management function involves the recruitment, placement, evaluation, compensation, and development of the employees of an organization. Initially, businesses used computer-based information systems to:
=>> produce paychecks and payroll reports;
=>> maintain personnel records;
=>> pursue talent management.
Online recruiting has become one of the primary methods employed by HR departments to garner potential candidates for available positions within an organization. Talent management systems, or recruitment modules,[3] offer an integrated hiring solution for HRMS which typically encompass:
=>> analyzing personnel usage within an organization;
=>> identifying potential applicants;
=>> recruiting through company-facing listings;
=>> recruiting through online recruiting sites or publications that market to both recruiters and applicants;
=>> analytics within the hiring process (time to hire, source of hire, turnover);
=>> compliance management to ensure job ads and candidate onboarding follows government regulations.
The significant cost incurred in maintaining an organized recruitment effort, cross-posting within and across general or industry-specific job boards and maintaining a competitive exposure of availabilities has given rise to the development of a dedicated applicant tracking system (ATS) module.
The training module provides a system for organizations to administer and track employee training and development efforts. The system, normally called a “learning management system” (LMS) if a standalone product, allows HR to track education, qualifications, and skills of the employees, as well as outlining what training courses, books, CDs, web-based learning or materials are available to develop which skills. Courses can then be offered in date specific sessions, with delegates and training resources being mapped and managed within the same system. Sophisticated LMSs allow managers to approve training, budgets, and calendars alongside performance management and appraisal metrics.
The employee self-service module allows employees to query HR related data and perform some HR transactions over the system. Employees may query their attendance record from the system without asking the information from HR personnel. The module also lets supervisors approve O.T. requests from their subordinates through the system without overloading the task on HR department.
Many organizations have gone beyond the traditional functions and developed human resource management information systems, which support recruitment, selection, hiring, job placement, performance appraisals, employee benefit analysis, health, safety, and security, while others integrate an outsourced applicant tracking system that encompasses a subset of the above.
The analytics module enables organizations to extend the value of an HRMS implementation by extracting HR related data for use with other business intelligence platforms. For example, organizations combine HR metrics with other business data to identify trends and anomalies in headcount in order to better predict the impact of employee turnover on future output.
There are now many types of HRMS or HRIS, some of which are typically local-machine-based software packages; the other main type is an online cloud-based system that can be accessed via a web browser.
The staff training module enables organizations the ability to enter, track and manage employee and staff training. Each type of activity can be recorded together with the additional data. The performance of each employee or staff member is then stored and can be accessed via the Analytics module.
Employee re-assign module is a recent additional functionality of HRMS. This module has the functions of transfer, promotion, pay revision, re-designation, deputation, confirmation, pay mode change and letter form.
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