Studying Human Resource Information Systems Information Technology Essay
HRIS is a way of emergence of management of human resources with the help of information systems .HRIS provides online solution for the tracking the information of any company’s employees , payroll management and accounting .It helps accomplishing the database needs of any company in an oderly fashion .In any company , the human resources can be viewed as as organizational function .It deals with the following issues :
Training
Recruitement and selection
Appraisal
Performance management of any employee
Compensation
The main importance of the management of human resources and maintaining of human resources as information database has grown in past 10 years with the growing need.It helps the employees for real time information viewing and sharing.
The various HUMAN RESOURCE INFORMATION SYSTEMS helps in the empowerment of the employees to a large extent.
HRIS – Applications & Utilities (Appendix 3)
PERSONAL RECORDS : It will include the personal details of the employees for example : their name , address etc.
RECRUITMENT & SELECTION :It contains the details of recruitment process such as method of recruitment and the time taken to recruit .
EMPLOYMENT EQUITY :
SALARY ADMINISTRATION : It is an important part of the HRIS .An effective & sound HRIS can only perform the right operations if when there are some changes are incurred.
PENSION ADMINISTRATION : It maintains the database of the pension of the employees and according to the plan selected by the employee it manages the information
COMPENSATION :For good relationships , it is important to set fair & appropriate salary levels.
TRAINING & DEVELOPMENT : Training done by the staff members or the induction training done by the interns.
HEALTH & SAFETY : Records of health & safety of the employees are maintained
MEDICAL RECORDS : Medical history of each and every staff member is maintained .
HRIS – VENDORS
SAP-AG
ORACLE/PEOPLESOFT
HUMAN RESOURCE MICROSYSTEMS
AUTOMATIC DATA PROCESSING INC.
RESTRAC WEB HIRE
BUSINESS COMPUTER SYSTEMS
SPECTRUM HR
Though there are more then 25 vendors worldwide, these are the main vendors.
HRIS consists of :
Hardware
Software
Databases
Telecommunication
Procedures
People
MANAGING OF THE SYSTEMS
WITHOUT HRIS
WITH HRIS
Manual check for employee’s leave status history.
History information is captured.
Prepare leave application forms and then print and copy them.
Online leave application form.
Manually maintain employee’s attendance information daily.
Automatic entry in the balancesheets generated by the system.
Work is done manually which wastes time and resources.
Saves strategic resources.
TOYOTA : HRIS
Toyota is one of the most successful & profitable Japanese company which is one of the leading Automobile industry .Toyota is one of the largest automobile manufacturers in the world.It was founded by Kiichiro Toyoda in 1937 & its headquarter is in Aichi , Japan .Toyota has its strong base in North America . Toyota has flourished in the field of Information systems technology also.TOYOTA Material Handling USA(TMHU) is the main unit responsible for the maximum operations of Toyota like sales & marketing , production & manufacturing etc. TMHU started facing problems and inefficiencies about their existing information system and felt a need to make the necessary design changes so that the problem faced can be nullified.
As many of the large corporate companies wanted to carry out basiness operations with TMHU but could not do so due to the lack of TMHU’S services being online as the applications were not web-enabled.
AN INTELLIGENT & SUSTAINABLE SOLUTION FOR HUMAN RESOURCE INFORMATION MANAGEMENT
For solving this problem , Toyota worked with third party consulting firm . The third-party evaluated the needs of TOYOTA and determined that SAP system for automotives will be the best choice for Toyota.The SAP solution is a comprehensive and integrated package in which the extensive modifications can be made easily.The SAP system which is used by Toyota runs on a Linux operating system together with Oracle9i RAC. Conventional active/passive high availability concept is used to secure the SAP system on linux -including the Oracle database server with data archiving hardware.
SAP SOLUTION & SERVICES
SAP* R/3*
SAP for automotive solutions
SAP Netweaver
TECHNICAL REQUIREMENTS FOR SAP
SAP R/3 4.6 C/D or newer
Newest set of BR*Tools 6.40
Oracle 9.0.2.5 or higher (recommended always to use the latest patchset)
Shared Oracle_Home(binaries,tracefiles etc)
Shared SAP directories(Monitoring related;saptrace,sapchech etc.)
Shared Archive Location
SAP ARCHITECTURE : SAP has a client -server : service – oriented architecture.The client server version of SAP IS SAP R/3 where R stands for “Real time data processing ” and 3 for 3 tier . The new architecture is compatible with many operating systems & platforms such as UNIX and Microsoft Windows.(APPENDIX 2)
CASE STUDY : TMMNA (TOYOTA MOTOR MANUFACTURING NORTH AMERICA)
BACKGROUND
North America is one of the most important base of Toyota.Toyota Motor Corporation(TMC) has turned out to be one of the leading company in the automotive sector.It is the 4th largest automaker in NORTH AMERICA.Toyota gives employment to more than 264,000 people all over the world and sells vehicles in more than 140 countries.Toyota currently employs over 36,000 people in North America and when dealers and suppliers factored in , creating 190,000 jobs.
Toyota Motor Manufacturing North America,INC.(TMMNA) has 10 manufacturing plants and there are 2 more which are under construction .TMMNA serves as a parent company to the other Toyota companies in North America .It acts as a central support system to other plants in the area of administration , purchasing , production control & quality control.
KEY CHALLENGES
The demand of the skilled personnels and managers increased with the growth of TMMNA. Employees are the main asset of any company. They are the most important part of any organization. TMMNA faced a problem in expanding its operations as they were unable to manage its human resource .They were not able to maintain and retain their efficient employees with the handling of the acceptable rates of turnover every year.After a survey done by a team of delegates it was revealed that the human resource (HR) played the main role in the problem faced by TMMNA. It also revealed that due to this the promotional and developmental oppurtunities of the employees are hindered. The main issue was the use of IT in the best way to support its HR although TMMNA was already highly dependant on IT(information technology) to run many of its business operations . After many discussions and meetings conducted , TMMNA came on the decision that they have make some enhancements in their IT infrastructure . They felt the need of IT not only for increasing their production but also for improving its HR efficiency . The main idea was to increase the HR efficiency with the movement of HR from transactional processing to strategic business partnerable to respond quickly to the needs of the other team members.
The estimated cost in the desired expansion of the IT services to TMMNA’s HR came out to be US$7 million which included the upgradation of their integrated Human Resource Management System as well as adding some of the software modules that will help to do the following jobs :-
Recruitment
Selection
Placement
Appraisal
Compensation
The scheme included the standardized process of hiring , retention and development of the skilled employess which can turn out to be efficient team members and managers .
The main challenge came out to justify the expense to the senior management and the board of directors for providing & approving funds for TMMNA’s HR improvement.
SOLUTION
The Cisco Systems’ INTERNET BUSINESS SOLUTIONS GROUP (IBSG) provided consulting to help TMMNA in improving their HR’s IT solution. The new technology supports process changes with specific business challenges. The main goal was to add 7 software modules which included :-
Salary planning
Position management
Succession management
Career development
Training & labor relations
Attendance management
Appraisal
David Burchfield ,manager, Human Resource Information System(HRIS) and Payroll, TMMNA recalls ,”We knew we needed more efficiencies inside human resources , but struggled with creating the overall business case.IBSG helped us understand how to align our vision as a company with quantifiable metrics.”
IBSG consultants also explained the HR managers of TMMNA the functionality and the processing and working of the new system installed.
RESULTS
With the help os IBSG , TMMNA is adopting to the new system & the business process changes. Almost all ERP systems take atleast 4 to 5 years to function properly and giving excellent results whereas TMMNA started making profits in over a years time.
POSITIONS
PEOPLE
JOB
COMPENSATION
TRAINING &
DEVELOPMENT
BENEFITS
HR
PLANNING
EMPLOYEE
RELATIONS
PENSION
ADMINISTRATION
HEALTH &
SAFETY
MEDICAL RECORDSCONCLUSIONS AND FINDINGS :
Managing information is the most important task for any organization today.The integration of computer systems with the organization’s database need has helped many companies to flourish.When computers existing everywhere in the world , every business today relies on comuter system and information technology.Using information system , it has become much easier task for organizations for the access of the required information.Raw data is transferred into useful information which can be used by the employee of the organization. Human resource is the most important asset of any organization. In order to make human resource department more effective and useful , information technology has played a very important role. We have seen how SAP system has helped TOYOTA’s HR to overcome its failures .This report presents the findings of how HR department of TOYOTA is being cultivated and well developed using the new technology .The information system at TOYOTA can easily be judged by the SWOT analysis :
STRENGTHS : TOYOTA’s biggest strength is that they can integrate their organization’s aims effectively and efficiently.
WEAKNESSES : They mainly use ENGLISH as there language for the communication of information worldwide but Japan being the main base of TOYOTA, Japanese still holds a considerable share in the information system.This creates language barriers for the foreign customers.
OPPURTUNITIES : TOYOTA has the ability to increase their customer base and customer satisfaction so there is a possibility for TOYOTA to exploit its oppurtunities and emerge out to be a bigger organization with the help of information technology.
THREATS : In a business .organizations are not willing to share any kind of information with their competitor. But to further advance the information systems , TOYOTA has to share the information. This poses as the threat to the organization.
RECRUITMENT & SELECTION
PERSONAL
RECORDS
POSITIONS
PEOPLE
JOB
COMPENSATION
TRAINING &
DEVELOPMENT
BENEFITS
HR
PLANNING
EMPLOYEE
RELATIONS
PENSION
ADMINISTRATION
HEALTH &
SAFETY
MEDICAL RECORDS
SALARY ADMINISTRATION
EMPLOYMENT EQUITY
RECRUITMENT & SELECTION
PERSONAL
RECORDS
APPENDIX 1:
APPENDIX 2 :