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Source : iEmployee
Five HR Technologies You Should Know
Human resource outsourcing (HRO) is also known as:
Human resource information systems (HRIS),
Human Resource Management System (HRMS, EHRMS),
HR modules,
HR management module,
Human resource system,
Human resource process,
HR outsourcing,
Overseeing organizational structure,
Recruiting, training, and development,
Tracking department objectives, goals, and strategies,
Employee and manager training,
Employee orientation programs,
Benefits administration,
HR function
Almost everything you know about human resource
outsourcing (HRO) is going to change. Say goodbye to your contact list of
different suppliers, from organization charters to time and attendance
providers to benefits enrollment specialists. The future is about
single-source integration, and this article is your introduction to the five
technologies that herald the new era. Understand these technologies and the
competitive advantages they will provide your organization, and you will
understand the foundation of future human resource information systems
(HRIS). Let's look at these five technologies one by one.
5 Core HRO
Technologies you need to know:
- Unified Service for HR, Time, Payroll and
Expense Tracking
- Management Dashboard
- Streamlined Employee
Interface With a Single Login
- Synchronous Data With a Single Database
- Empowered Reporting With A Common Report Writer
1. Unified Service for
HR, Time, Payroll and Expense Tracking
In the first generation of HR
outsourcing, simply delivering self-service functions to deskbound employees
was a victory. With that victory came the ongoing campaign to deliver
technical support to employees learning multiple applications, not to mention
the tremendous work of keeping those applications up to date with each others
data. How many times do you hear HR professionals lament, "I can make that
change today, but it will be three weeks before it shows up in payroll . . ."
Forrester Research, a think tank and research organization, recommended
earlier this year that a single core HRMS is "essential for the entire
organization." The HRIS of tomorrow will share the same user interface,
security model, and data model. A unified stance protects the organization,
provides better access to enterprise data and streamlines operations. The
overhead of supporting multiple databases, security protocols and employee
learning will be sliced to a fraction of current levels. The organization's
safeguards will be extended to their HR outsourcing provider in a secure
structure that provides scalability, a window to the details of each user
session, and full audit trails.
2. Management Dashboard
One of the
frustrations of today's systems is that managers have to access multiple
applications to approve time, leave, expense reports, training and benefits.
Even if half a dozen applications have been "Frankensteined" together in one
browser interface, the manager ends up using different business rules and
often different logins to approve a variety of employee-centric tasks.
In
the future, a single management dashboard will optimize each manager's time. It
will also provide a robust toolkit of reporting features that allow, for
example, the manager to forecast and plan for peaks and valleys in employee
attendance based on historical figures. From a business perspective, changing
the rules in one function will cascade across the other functions seamlessly,
alerting others on the system who need to be aware of the event.
3.
Streamlined Employee Interface With a Single Login
Future HR applications
will provide a single point of entry for the employee that complements
management dashboard. Instead of learning several applications, the employee
will quickly become an expert user with one login and one system. This
reduces the training and support burden on the organization and frees
employees to be more productive.
A single login also enhances the trackability of the employee on the system since the employee is engaging a
single system in a single session with every logon. When the employee moves
on, instead of removing their user privileges from several areas, it's a
simple update to one application, and the event cascades through payroll and
approving final expense reports.
4. Synchronous Data With a Single
Database
Synchronous data makes real-time information available through the
enterprise. That means if you update one system, instead of expecting a
cascading update across the systems, instead, there is only one system"so
everything is updated instantaneously. An employee gets married and changes
their name, and then their email account, their 401k accounts, and their W-4
are simultaneously updated.
Most organizations are only in the planning
stages of their data consolidation efforts. In the next five to ten
years, data consolidation and database unification will become a priority
for the world's organizations.
Those who outsource HR functions to top
providers will be ahead of the curve, reaping competitive advantage faster
than those who attempt these ambitious projects with internal resources. This
is because not only are most internal resources somewhat deployed on other
projects, but large HR outsourcers can leverage economies of scale in
infrastructure, knowledge base and staffing. In the next decade, HR service
providers are in a unique position to deliver streamlined, dynamic, secure
systems faster to all but the largest of employers.
5. Empowered Reporting
With A Common Report Writer
Empowered reporting will accelerate the functions
of three important groups:
- HR administration (people like yourself),
- management, and
- employees
Managers and HR administration will be more
agile than ever in response to changing circumstances, workforce initiatives
and executive priorities. Need to know how many smokers are on staff? What
about the frequency of smokers versus nonsmokers using sick leave? Are
smokers raising health premiums? These metrics could quantify the
justification for an internal stop-smoking campaign.
In today's human
resources environment, complex questions like these require a query to the
time and attendance system, a query to the HR database with employee lifestyle
parameters, a query to the health insurance data store, and someone skilled
enough at spreadsheets to run pivot tables. Several departments may be
involved in answering this type of question.
In the future, structuring a
query like this will be the work of minutes, leaving HR administration
empowered to strategically lead the enterprise-not sort and filter data.
About the Author
Snehal Shah (sshah@iemployee.com) is CEO and founder of iEmployee, the hosted HR solution of choice for over 1600 leading
organizations, including Daimler Chrysler, Kodak Polychrome and Reader's Digest.
Sources Cited (originals available)
- Jon Hallgrimsson,
jon.hallgrimsson@ins.com, Microsoft Center for Excellence. International
Networking Services. Interview.
- Business Objects. Crystal Reports 20
Secrets. White Paper.
- Gartner Group: Web Services Posed For Main Stream. Webinar presentation.
- AMR Research. Database Consolidation: Reducing Cost
& Complexity. White Paper.
- Forrester Wave: HR Management Systems. White
Paper.
By Snehal Shah