HR

 

Discuss the benefits of using HRM technology, and compare and contrast the three types of HRM software mentioned in the textbook; (1) transaction processing, (2) decision support system, and (3) expert systems. Do you think it would it be beneficial for an organization to have more than one or all three types of HRM software? Why, or Why not? Your response should be at least 75 words in length. You are required to use at least your textbook as source material for your response. All sources used, including the textbook, must be referenced; paraphrased and quoted material must have accompanying citations.

 

Noe, R., Hollenbeck, J., Gerhart, B., & Wright, P. (2011). Fundamentals Of Human Resource Management. (4th ed., pp. 504-506). Boston, MA: McGraw-Hill.

No wiki, dictionary.com, cited work not posted.

  

504 PART 5 Meet

i

ng Other HR Goals

L05 Discuss the role
of HRM technology
in high-performance
work systems.

Compensation :
Organizations can reinforce the impact of this kind of performance managernent by

tinf,ing compensation in part to performance measures. Chapter 12 depcribed a num’

ber oimethtd, fot doing this, including merit pay, gainsharing, and ,profit sharing’
Lincoin Electric has for decades paid its production workers a piecework rate. No

t

only does this motivare individual employees to look for the most efficient ways lo

do ih.it jobs, but because the company is known for this compensation method,

it

atrracts workers who value rvorking hard in order to earn more. In addition, Lincoln

has been paying all of irs employees a profit-sharil^g bonus “every year since 193+,”

in che words of Lincoin’s CEO John M. Stropkl Jr.29 Compensation systems also can

help ro creare the conditions that contribute to high per{ormance, including team’

*ork, .-po*efment, and job satisfaction. For example, as discussed in Chapter 12,
compensation can be linked to achievement of team objectives’

Organizations can increase empowerment and job satisfactiorrl by includ

ing

“*plo”y””,
in decisions about compensation and by communicating the basis for deci-

sio.rs abo.,t pay. When the organization designs a pay structure, it can set up a task

force that inciudes employees with direct experience in various types of jobs’ Some

organizations share financial information with their employees and invite them to

,”Jo*rr”rrd pay increases for themselves, based on th.it contributkins. Employees
also may pu.li.ipur. in serting individual or group goals for which thiey can receive

bo.r,rr.r. R”r.u..h has found th”t .mploy”e participation in decisions about pay poli’

cies is linked to greater satisfaction with the pay and rhe job.rO And as pve discussed in

Chaprer 11, whln organizations expiain their pay structures to emplgyees,.the.cotn-

munication can er1hance employees’ satisfaction and belief that the system is fair’

HRl Technology
Human resource departments can improve their own and their organization’s perfor’

*”‘r.. by appropriately using r-r..’ t”ch.tology (see the “HR Oops!” box). New tech-
.roiogy r-,r”utiy i.r,rol,r”, autJ-atian and. collaboranon-that is, using equipment and

information processing to per{orm activities that had been performed, by people and

faciiitating.l”.tror-,i. Jommunication between people. Over thelast feq decades, auto-

,rrurio., hu”, irrrprou”d HRM efficielcy by reducing the number of peopie needed to
per-

form routine tasks. Using automation can free HRM experts to concentrate on ways
to

determine how human resoufce managemenl can help the-organizatiorl meet its
goals,

,o t.ch.,ology also can make this function more valuable’rl For example, information

technoiogy irovicles ways ro build and improve systems for knowledge;generation
and

,t *i.rg, ir iurr of a iearning organization. Among the appiications are datab,ases or

“.i*rt-f.i”g
rites where

“*ploy””r
can store and share their knowledge,’online directo-

;i;;
“i;;;.yee

skills and experiences, and online libraries of learninglresources, such

as technical manuals and ernpioyees’ reports from seminars and training programs’

HRM Applications

i

e, ror11p,rr.rs become evef more powerful, new technologies continue to be. intro-
duced. In fact, so many HRM apphcations are developed for use on personal ,com’
;;;;; ,h”, p,rtli.”tior-,, serving ih. profe*ion (such as HR Masanne 32d

Workforce

ir[o*gr*rri) devote annual lssues to reviewing this software. Some of the technolo-
gies ttat have been wideiy adopted are transaclion processing, decislon sllpport sys’

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We know that companies use per-
formance management systems
because they want employees to
do the things that will help their
company succeed. And we know
that the business environment is
constantly changing, so compa-
nies need to be flexible in terms of
their strategies and objectives. So
logically, performance manage-
ment systems should be flexible,
too, ad.justing goals as economic.
social, competitive, and techno-
logical forces introduce risks an-d
open up oppoftunities.

That may be logictl, but acco-
rding to a recent survey, it isn’t
what companies are actually doi-
ng. The Human Capital lnstitute
recently found that 66 Percent of
midsized companies said their
performance management sys-
tem isn’t set up to adjust goals;
rather, employees see Performa-
nce appraisals and get new goals
once or twice a year.

Constant adjusting o{ goals
could be complicated and con.
fusing, but HRM technologY exi’
sts to make flexibility part of the
system. For example, WorkscaPe
Performance Manager is a Web-
based HR application in which
employees and their managers
enter goals as the system
prompts them through the Pro-
cess. Then employees log into
the system to see a list of their
goals, indicating the Priorities,
progress, and deadline for each,
along with planned develoP’
ment activities and tasks related
to performance appraisal. Users
of the system can look uP and
alter details of the plans and their
progress at any time.

Sou rces: “Aligning Employee Perfor-
mance with Organizational Goals,”
F inancial Executive, November 2009,
p. 13; and Workscape, “WorkscaPe Per-
formance Managel” data sheet, www.
workscape.com, accessed May 1 1, 2010.

O.uesiions

1. What would hold be* e,*
emPloYer from using f-{E*#
technologY that was liker’i’m
i m prove Perf or m a nee? W’itr:ef’
of these obstacles, if a*Y. arc
reasonable barriers to usitlg
HRM technologY, and whicit
should HR managers try to
overcome?

2. Suppose you are an HR
manager who wants to
encourage your organization
to begin using WorkscaPe
Performance Manager or a
similar system. How would
you measure whether this
system is a wise investment
for your organization?

Transastion
Processing
Computations and

calculations involved

in reviewing and
documenting HRM
decisions and
pra ctices.

Decision Suppcrt

Systems
Computer software
systems designed to
help managers solve
problems by showing

how results vary when
the manager alters
assumptions or data.

Transaction processing refers to computations and calculations involved in
revieu’ing and documenting HRM decisions and practices. It includes documenting
decisions and actions associated with employee relocation, training expenses’ and
enrollments in courses and benefit plans. Tiansaction processing also inciudes the
activities required to meet government reporting requirements, such as filling out
EEO-1 reports, on which employers report information about employees’ race and
gender by job caregory. Computers enable companies to perforrn these tasks more
efficiently. Employers can fili our computerized forrns and store HRM information in
databases(data stored eiectronicaliy in user-specified categories), so that it is easier to
find, sort, and report.

Decision support systems are conputer software systems designed to help
managers solve problems. They usually include a “what ifl” feature that managers
can use to enrer different assumptions or data and see horv the likely outcomes wili
change. This type of system can help managers make decisions for human resource
planning. The manager can, for example, try out different assumptions about turn-
over rares ro see how those assumptions affect the number of new empioyees needed.
Or the manager can test a range of assumptions about the availability of a certain
skill in the labor market, looking at the impact of the assumptions on the success

505

506 PART 5 Meeting Other HR Goals

Expert Systems
Computer systems
that support
decision making by
incorporating the
decision rules used
by people who are
consldered to have
expertise in a certain
area.

of different recruiting plans. Possible appiications for a decision support system
include forecasting (discussed in Chapter 5) and succession planning (discussed in
Chapter 9).

Expert systems are compLlrer systems that incorporate the decision rules used
by people who are considered to have expertise in a certain area. The systems help
users make decisions by recomrnending actions based on the decision rules and the
information provided by the users. An expert system is designed to recommend the
same actions that a human expert would in a similar situation. For exarnple, an expert
system could guide an interviewer during the selection process. Sorne organizations
use expert systems to heip ernployees decide how to allocate their money for benefits
(as in a cafeteria plan) and help managers schedule the labor needed to complete
projects. Expert systems can deliver both hlgh quality and lower costs. By using the
decision pfocesses of experts, an expert system helps rnany people to arrive at deci’
sions that re{lect the expert’s knowledge. An expert system heips avoid the errors
that can result from fatigue and decision-making biases, such as biases in appraisiirg
ernployee performance, described in Chapter B. An expert system can increase effi-
ciency by enabling fewer or less-skilled employees to do work that otherwise would
require many highly skilled employees.

In modern HR departrnents, transac[ion processing, decision support systerns, and
expert systems often are part of a huinan resource information system. Also, these
technologies may be linked to employees through a network such as an intranel.
Information systems and networks have been evoiving rapidly; the foliowing descrip-
tions provide a basic introduction.

Human Resource lnformation Systems
A standard feature of a rnodern HRIS is the use of relational databases, which store
data in separate files that can be linked by common elements. These common ele-
ments are fields identifying the rype of data. Commoniy used fields for an HR data-
base include name, Social Security number, job status (full- or part’time), hiring date,
position, title, rate of pay, citizenship statlls, job history job iocation, mailing address,
birth date, and emergency contacts. A relational database lets a user sort the data
by any of the fields. For exarnple, depending on horv the database is set up’ the user
might be able to look up tables listing ernployees by location, rates of pay for various
jobs, or employees who have completed certain training courses. This system is far
more sophisticared than the old-fashioned method of filing employee data by llame,
with one file per employee.

The ability to locate and combine many categories of data has a multitude of uses
in human resource rnanagement. Databases have been developed lo track employee
benefit costs, training courses, and compensation. The system can meet the needs
of line managers as well as the HR department. On an oil rig, for example, manage-
ment might look up data listir-rg employee names along with safety equiprnent issued
and appropriate skili certification. HR managers at headquarters might look up data
on tl-ie same employees to gather information about wage rates or training programs
needed. Another popular use of an HRIS is applicant tracking, or maintaining and
rerrieving records of job applicants. This is much faster and easier than trying to sort
t}rrough stacks of r6sum6s.

‘S7ith relational databases, HR staff can retriet’e informa-
rion abo.rt specific applicants or obtain lists of applicants rvith specific skills, career
goals, rvork history, and employment background. Such information is usefr-rl for HR
planning, recruitment, succession planning, and career deveiopment. Taking the

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