Does your company's human resource management functions need to be automated? We look at what you need to consider, and three packages to help you do it.
Most definitions of HR are very broad in their scope and basically include anything that tracks and manages your human resources such as payroll and occupational health and safety (OH&S) as just two examples. We can break it down further as follows:
Payroll. A payroll module, if it is standalone, may include quite a large proportion of the employees' biographical details in line with the HRM module below. Obviously employee remuneration falls in this module along with sick leave, annual leave, long service leave, superannuation, and any other benefits or allowances payable.
This module would manage pay rises and bonuses, payroll automation including direct payment into employee bank accounts, and of course generation of group certificates.
Human resource management. This includes the employees' biographical details such as their job title and classification, place of residence, home phone, age, gender, medical history, and next of kin.
Other items that may fall into this category are training and education, skills and competencies, employment history, performance reviews, any disciplinary action, memberships, and professional affiliations.
Also generally included is the organisational structure and policies.
Occupational health and safety. OH&S may be able to drill right down to the desk that a particular staff member sits at and the location of each fire extinguisher, for example. All OH&S meetings, audits, issues, and incidents are logged along with any action that may be taken. Quite obviously, any OH&S hazards are identified and recorded along with details of risk assessment, handling and safety procedures, incidents, and relevant safety officer.
Why deploy an HR package?
The short answer as to the why is quite simple, it's to capture your employee data in a form that is easy to update and interrogate. Without an electronic system in place, the data is not stored in one easily accessible location but rather in a number of documents distributed around the organisation, some of which may well become misplaced or may have duplicate and/or conflicting data.
What is not so simple however is the scoping of requirements and the actual implementation process; both tend to require more resources than you may first expect.
Don't underestimate the time it will take to install and configure your new software.
It's not uncommon to hear of HR implementation horror stories or even failures. This is, not always an indictment of the software, and can be the fault of the planning process.
Obviously your first question should be, "Is it even worth implementing in a cost and resources sense?", that is have you carried out a proper cost benefits analysis? Quite a few experts will argue that for fewer than 200 staff, depending on your HR requirements, it's quite possible that an Excel spreadsheet may be adequate for the task and also far cheaper to maintain and implement. So before you begin, carry out a proper business cost analysis.
