Determining HRIS Needs

The purpose of the HRIS is to promote superior use of data and to motivate effective decision-making for addressing daily challenges for all companies and/or organizations. All companies are now being forced to think ahead of time to keep up with changing and challenging technologies as well as monitor the ever changing environmental conditions. The types of changes and new developments in technology and government regulations that should be considered in long-range planning requirements for updating or replacing an HRIS is how it will increase a company’s administrative efficiency and/or obtain compliance support. As well by examining the big picture of any organization’s human resources functions and its information needs in light of its overall business strategy. When an organization is determining a long-range planning, it must consider how long the plan should be and what needs are to be met. “When considering long-range planning for HRIS needs, what time frame are we talking about? Typically, Long-range planning looks beyond the present, usually focusing on needs in future 1, 5, and 10 years from now.

Consequently, long range planning is something that is revisited annually” (Kavanagh, Thite & Johnson, 2012, p.102). In addition, depending on the company’s situation and needs; the planning strategy should include a continuous collection of feedback from the corporate leaders about changing data needs and improvements that will align with those needs. Despite the fact that it could be challenging for companies to assess, improve and collect data on new HRIS, it will help them to stay competitive with other companies and up-to-date with technology. Therefore, the initial planning team should make certain that the HRIS that is developing actually meets the needs, saves costs, and time when software development gets in motion. “This general assessment ought to consider not only existing electronic HR information systems, but also paper-based systems, data collection forms and processes for gathering data about new technology and government regulations” (Kavanagh, Thite, and Johnson, 2012). The assessment should also provide a comprehensive picture of how HR information is presently collected, managed, and reported.

As well as the planners should take into consideration the tools and processes that are in place for managing human resources data and any gaps that will have to be addressed to meet all the demanding needs of the organization. Three disadvantages (other than time) of using interviews and focus groups for data collection during the analysis phase when determining HRIS needs is one open to bias; meaning highly reactive environment with biases from interviewer and interviewee. Focus Groups tend to become influenced by one or two dominant people in the session thus making the output very biased. Two poor reliability; due to their openness to so many types of bias, interviews can be notoriously unreliable, particularly when the researcher wishes to draw comparisons between data sets. And last but not least, the need for well-qualified, highly trained facilitators. These methods yield data that are limited to self-report, and can yield less valuable information is the facilitator is unskilled. There are some approaches which can be used to overcome these disadvantages. The first approach is a company should select highly qualified and trained facilitators.

Attitude, knowledge and skills of facilitators will play an important role in conducting research. The second approach is for a company to select the relevant group for the interview. It is very important and it will reduce the disadvantage of low reliability because, if the members of the focus group are more closely related to the functional area, they can provide good review on the basis of their experience. The third approach is the selection of clearly defined measurement criteria. “Project leaders will need to develop a list of interviewees-people with expertise in functional or technical areas-and an interview schedule” (Kavanagh, Thite, and Johnson, 2012, p. 109). Organizations nurture data collection and improvement initiatives, while other organizations feel exposed by these efforts which are for most organization mandatory but for others are voluntary. Unfortunately, the variations among data collecting systems and reporting standards make information difficult to collect, aggregate, report, and interpret. However, an organization must choose what work best for its success endeavors.

There are three critical sources of data gathering initiatives for an HRIS needs analysis and each of them will be highlight in term of advantages as well as disadvantages. They are interviews, focus groups, and surveys and online tools. First, interviews are formally done face-to-face between an interviewer and the interviewee (s). Interviews are the primary technique for information gathering during the systems analysis phases of a development project of the organization. The advantages of interviews are that the interviewer has the power of selecting the interviewees, can derive a better understanding of what can be expected from an interview of a person at a specific level, and understanding the perspective of the person being interviewed. The disadvantages of interviews are that they are time-consuming. “For this reason, careful thought should be devoted to selection of interviewees, such that a large amount of valuable information can be obtained from a relatively small pool of experts” (Kavanagh, Thite, and Johnson, 2012, p. 109). Second, focus groups can be another great source of data gathering for companies. One advantage of focus groups is that you can engage many people at the same time.

Focus groups will also enable a company to accept new human resources solutions because it will be accepted before-hand via the larger group of people. A disadvantage of focus groups is that it takes up a lot of time to assemble the group for a meeting and it requires a more coordination such as the right size of meeting area and the materials needed to set up for the meeting. Last, surveys and online tools are a great way to gather data. “Many researchers are tempted to do much of their data collection online; however, it is not always the preferred mode of data collection, especially if respondents are in hard-to-reach areas. Whether a researcher uses an online survey, mobile survey, paper survey, or a combination of all modes, the mode should depend on the type of study and the demographics of respondents” (snapsurveys.com).

The advantages of surveys and online tools is that they are very useful for documenting a person’s perceptions and perceived experiences of an firm’s service delivery, work culture and/or other area of interest. It is also cheaper to administer and can reach a larger group of people. Yet, there are some disadvantages of using these methods. One such disadvantage is reliability and quality of data depends on factors as the expertise of the individuals conducting them. There is no control over who will respond. Surveys and online tools may not provide an exact measure of how others comprehend an individual’s background/experience and there is no opportunity to clarify vague answers. Interviewees may not feel comfortable, they may get bored and there may be data errors.

The Internal recruitment efforts may be improved by using the career development programs. If designing that program, organizations must collect the work history as well as the skill level information on each & every employee that is hired. Such information to be collected is their age, the education level, the training, the special skills as well as the promotion record which will be stored on the computer. Such employee information permits organization for identifying the present employees which have been qualified for assuming the jobs with the greater responsibility levels. Rather than of hiring the new workers for meeting the increasing demands, the organization can decide upon improving productivity of a present workforce by the additional training.

Other options consist of use of the overtime, the additional shifts, the job reassignments & the temporary workers. When such aim has been met, the firms would have some job vacancies to fill. “The primary way companies can help facilitate work-life balance for their employee is through work-life programs and training. Achievement and enjoyment at work is a critical part of anyone’s work-life balance” (worklifebalance.com). The Companies also may improve the retention rates through offering the attractive advantage packages, like the generous retirement plans, the stock ownership, the health as well as the dental insurance & employee discount programs. Lot of firms has now been offering the cafeteria plan advantage packages that have tailored to particular requirement of each of its employees.

In conclusion it is very important for companies to be in a continuous seeking mode of improvement of their HRIS needs. “The use of HR planning enables companies to gain control of their future by preparing for likely events. That is, they can anticipate change and devise appropriate courses of action. When companies learn how to capitalize on future events, their own future improves” (referenceforbusiness.com). It is important to align the organization system needs with that of the people working there to be able maintain a strong relationship, and have the ability to deliver developmental feedback to organizational leaders.

References
Kavanagh, M. J, & Thite, M., Johnson, R. D. (2012). Human resource information systems:
Basics, applications, and future directions. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publication, Inc. Kleiman, Lawrence S. (1999-2012). Human Resource Information Systems. Retrieved from
http://www.referenceforbusiness.com/management/Gr-Int/Human-Resource-Information- Systems.html
Wyse, Susan E., (2012). Advantages and Disadvantages of Surveys. Retrieved 29 October 2014 from http://www.snapsurveys.com/blog/advantages-disadvantages-surveys/ Work-Life Balance…A Case of Social Responsibility or Competitive Advantage? Retrieved 29 October 2014 from http://www.worklifebalance.com/assets/pdfs/casestudy.pdf