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ANS: 1

HUMAN RESOURCE INFORMATION SYSTEM (HRIS):

An HRIS, the abbreviation for Human Resources Information System, is a system that lets you keep track of all
your employees and information about them. It is usually done in a database or, more often, in a series of inter-
related databases. HRIS include reporting capabilities. Some HRIS track applicants before they become
employees. Some HRIS systems are interfaced to payroll or other financial systems.
HRIS is typically a database system that lets you keep track of all types of information related to your company
and your human capital. However, be wary of companies that call their system an HRIS - not all employee
management systems are comprehensive enough to warrant the title HRIS. For example, if a system only
handles one or two functions, such as benefits administration or payroll, this is not a comprehensive HRIS.
Many companies provide a complete online application that is accessible to you and your employees from any
location with internet access - the office, at home or from an airport terminal. Alternatively, some systems are
software applications that are installed at your location and you utilize it by running a program from your
desktop computer.

WHAT HRIS INTEGRATION CAN DO FOR AN ORGANISATION:

Human Resources Management (HRM) is the attraction, selection, retention, development, and utilization of
labor resource in order to achieve both individual and organizational objectives. Human Resources Information
Systems (HRIS) is an integration of HRM and Information Systems (IS). HRIS or Human resource Information
system helps HR managers perform HR functions in a more effective and systematic way using technology. It is
the system used to acquire, store, manipulate, analyze, retrieve, and distribute pertinent information regarding
an organization's human resources. A human resource information system (HRIS) is a system used to acquire,
store, manipulate, analyze, retrieve, and distribute pertinent information about an organization's human
resources (Tannenbaum, 1990). The HRIS system is usually a part of the organization's larger management
information system (MIS) which would include accounting, production, and marketing functions, to name just a
few. Human resource and line managers require good human resource information to facilitate decision-making.
An extensive study by Towers Perrin study revealed the following benefits of application of HRIS

HRIS can be applied in the following areas of HRM

♦ HR planning
♦ Succession planning
♦ Work force planning
♦ Work force dynamics analysis
♦ Staffing
♦ Applicant recruitment and tracking
♦ Employee data base development
♦ Performance management
♦ Learning and development
♦ Compensation and benefits
♦ Pay roll
♦ Job evaluation
♦ Salary survey
♦ Salary planning
♦ International compensation

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♦ Benefits management
♦ Develop innovative Org. Structure
♦ Develop IT

HRIS Benefits:
♦ HRIS has showed many benefits to the HR operations. A few of them can be detailed as;
♦ Faster information process,
♦ Greater information accuracy,
♦ Improved planning and program development, and
♦ Enhanced employee communications (Overman, 1992).

HRIS software:
Abra Suite: for human resources and payroll management
♦ ABS (Atlas Business Solutions): General Information, Wages information, emergency information,
Reminders, Evaluators, Notes customer information, Documents and photos, Separation information.
♦ CORT: HRMS: applicant tracking, Attendance tracking and calendars, Wage information, Skills
tracking, Reports-to information, Status tracking, Job history tracking, Cost center tracking, Reviews
and tracking, Mass update and change tools etc.
♦ HRSOFT: Identify and track senior managers, Assess management skills and talents, Generate a wide
range of reports, resumes, employee profiles, replacement tables and succession analysis reports,
Identify individuals for promotion, skills shortages, unexpected vacancy, Discover talent deep,
Competency Management, career development, align succession plans etc.
♦ Human Resource Micro Systems: sophisticated data collection and reporting, flexible spending
accounts, compensation, employment history, time off, EEO, qualifications, Applicant/Requisition
Tracking, Position Control/Succession Planning, Training Administration, Organization Charts, HRIS-
Pro Net (employee/managerial self-service), HR Automation (eNotification and eScheduler), and
Performance Pro (performance management)
♦ ORACLE- HRMS: Oracle iRecruitment, Oracle Self-Service Human Resources, Payroll, HR
Intelligence, Oracle Learning Management, Oracle Time and Labor
♦ PEOPLESOFT: Enterprise eRecruit, Enterprise Resume Processing, Enterprise Services Procurement,
Workforce Planning, Warehouse
♦ SAP HR: Human Capital Management (HCM) for Business, All-in-One: Rapid HR,
♦ SPECTRUM HR: iVantage® and HRVantage®. iVantage is a Web-based HRIS product designed for
organizations with up to 10,000 employees.
♦ VANTAGE: HRA: 'Point-and-Click' report writing, internal Messaging System for leaving reminders
to yourself, to someone else or to everyone using HRA - very useful for Benefit Applications,
Disciplinary Actions, Special Events, Employee Summary Screen for Basic, Leave (Absenteeism) and
Salary/Position History, skills & training module, Leave Tracking Module

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EXAMPLE:
An effective HRMS does much more than streamlining the HR processes and being a single source of human
capital data, it eventually contributes to the bottom-line of the company. Intas Biopharmaceuticals (IBPL),
based in Ahmedabad, uses Human Resource Information System (HRIS), which is a customised software
jointly developed by the HR department of IBPL with the help of an IT company, based on the specific needs of
the company's employees and the management. Dr Kashmira Pagdiwalla, Director-HR Operations, IBPL
says, "For providing user interface ASP.Net is used, whereas for storing database SQL Server 2005 is used.
Usage of advanced technology and sophisticated IT tools facilitate HRIS to access from the web in a secured
way within the intranet. Database in HRIS system is highly secured with role-based permission, security and
accessing data centrally. Database stores in a table like structure with maintaining relation of existence thereby
allowing the database to maintain data integrity and data redundancy."

ANS: 2

UNDERSTANDING TALENT ACQUISITION:

So what exactly do we mean by the term Talent Acquisition? Well, just as Customer Acquisition describes the
overall strategic process around identifying market sectors, targeting client prospects, running direct marketing
campaigns, selling and receiving the order (i.e. acquiring a new customer), so Talent Acquisition involves all
the sub-processes around finding, attracting and engaging highly talented individuals into your organization.

ROLE OF AN HR MANAGER IN TALENT ACQUISITION:

The worldwide market for talent management technologies is thriving. A number of factors are fueling the
exponential growth: a dynamic geo-economic climate that increases focus on the workforce; a changing global
labor market; and the need for organizations to transform their workforce and build a climate and culture of
performance and innovation.
The impact of organizational brain drain and the fear of a global talent shortage due to an increasingly aging
workforce have caused companies to focus on finding, developing and retaining superior, talented employees.
That makes talent management technologies must-haves for organizations committed to developing a
competitive human capital advantage. Demand for talent management solutions is pervasive throughout North
America, Europe and Asia, where interest is high and adoption is brisk.
The talent management market includes HR process functionality for recruitment, performance, compensation,
succession planning, learning and other capabilities around self-service, analytics and reporting. Many vendors
have pursued a suite approach in an effort to leverage the data and intelligence across the various modular
capabilities while others have chosen to go deep in distinct modular functionality.
It forecasts the growth of talent management technologies will nearly double by 2009 and will exceed US$4.0
billion, a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of more than 26 percent in the next four years. Based on the
heavy influence of the on-demand, software-as-a-service subscription model, many organizations are attracted
toward talent management solutions based on low upfront costs, limited deployment risks, and predictable
pricing model. It estimates over 2300 companies worldwide adopted some form of talent management
technology in 2005. Of those companies, approximately 65 percent of those companies deployed their talent
management solution in an on-demand model.
North America and Europe account for the majority of investment in talent management. Recruitment and
learning categories will fuel growth in Europe because of an increasing talent shortage and focus on training

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and career development. North America and Europe will continue to lead spending in talent management; Asia-
Pacific also will invest and spend more between 2006 and 2009.
Most attributes strong market demand in talent management to the following factors:

• Increased focus on retaining talent: High performing employees are always in demand. More than 40
percent of HR managers surveyed in a recent Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) study said
turnover has increased in the past 12 months; 55 percent expect workforce retention to be a high or very high
challenge for their firms in the next five years. Companies are finally starting to align pay with performance for
non-sales functions to encourage high performance. Good recruiting organizations focus equally on internal
candidates and external candidates. Companies have placed additional focus on building value and quality
within the recruitment function. HR leaders are gaining more influence over organizational direction and value.

• Continued convergence of organizational expertise for strategic HR processes: Recruitment,

compensation, performance and learning have been disparate HR (and even non-HR) functions with distinct and
unrelated business outcomes. The ability to share intelligence between HR processes and minimize data
redundancy is the incentive many companies need to pursue integrated talent management strategies.
Organizations recognize the value of well-integrated HR processes such as learning, performance and
succession management and are committing centralized resources to ensure planning and success.

• Renewed focus on acquiring and managing talent: CEOs and HR executives are recommitting to talent
management. Leading companies are deploying resources and capital to talent and career development
programs, including succession planning and management.

ANS: 3

WORKFORCE PLANNING:
Systematic identification and analysis of what an organization is going to need in terms of the size, type, and
quality of workforce to achieve its objectives. It determines what mix of experience, knowledge, and skills is
required and sequences steps to get the right number of right people in the right place at the right time.

APPROACHES TO WORKFORCE PLANNING:

In general, organizations can take one of three approaches to workforce planning or use a combination of the
three:

– “Workforce approach” examines the current workforce and occupations and projects the number and
characteristics of jobs and the number of employees needed to fill them at a specific point in the future.

– “Workload approach” focuses on the amount and type of work the organization anticipates handling at a
specific point in the future, and uses this information to project the number of resources (people and skills)
needed to perform that work.

– “Competency approach” identifies sets of competencies aligned with the organization’s mission, vision, and
strategic goals. This approach assumes the organization has already considered workforce and workload and
can focus not only on the number of people, but the competencies employees must master for organizational
success.

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1. Workforce Approach – profile people and occupations, and conduct workforce forecasts. With this
approach, your goal is to analyze the following: the jobs that will need to be done, the type of occupations
needed to do these jobs, the number of people needed to achieve organization strategies.
The current workforce profile is a starting point to assess the workforce your organization will need in the
future. Supply analysis provides the data needed for your current workforce profile. A traditional job audit also
may help you get needed information. Specifically, you will need to evaluate: What jobs now exist? How many
people are performing each job? What are the reporting relationships of these jobs? How essential is each job?
What are the characteristics of anticipated jobs?
The next step is to project the current employee population into the future as if there were no new hires. Make
projections at whatever level the organization desires, estimating the employee population over the next three to
five years as if nothing were done to replace employees lost through attrition. The result will show your demand
for new workers if you institute no appreciable changes in work or workload.

2. Workload Approach – assess critical work, determine processes that drive work, and forecast future
workload. This approach starts with your organization’s strategic planning cycle, which will identify critical
work (type and amount) the workforce must complete to achieve strategies. You will need to capture workload
data such as cycle time, volume, cost, and performance measures when feasible. Your organization also may
want to create flow charts for those key processes that will “drive the work” to aid in looking at efficiency and
effectiveness. Your organization may decide workflow re-engineering is necessary to reduce redundancies or
inefficiency, and this review will likely include considering further automation.
Workflow engineering may affect the strategies your organization uses during the planning period to project
workload. You will want to consider all relevant metrics (time, speed, cost, and volume) and translate the
amount of work and the time it takes to complete that work into the number of people and critical competencies
needed to perform the work.

3. Competency Approach Competencies are sets of behaviors (encompassing skills, knowledge, abilities, and
personal attributes) that, taken together, are critical to accomplishing successful work and achieving an
organization’s strategy. Competencies represent the most critical knowledge, skills, and commitments that
underlie superior performance for your organization and/or within a specific job. The competency approach to
workforce planning is futuristic and focuses on the “ideal” workforce. Competencies may be defined at several
levels:

Organizational: core competencies identified during strategic planning

Leadership: the behaviors your organization expects all leaders to demonstrate or to develop
Functional: competencies that cascade from the core competencies and are associated with specific work
functions or business units
Occupational: competencies that cascade from the core and functional competencies and then are anchored
directly to the needs of a specific occupation
Individual: what each employee brings to his or her function
Team: what members of a team, in the aggregate, bring to their work