chapter 2 - jan10
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Human Resource management SystemTRANSCRIPT
Chapter 2
REVIEW OF LITERATURE
Existing Process of Human Resource Information System
Each organization works towards the realization of one vision.
The same is achieved by the formulation of certain strategies and their
execution, which is done by the HR department. At the base of this
strategy, formulation lies within various processes and the
effectiveness of the former depends on the meticulous design of these
processes (Sourab, 2012).
In general, human resource management is a process for staffing
the organization and sustaining high employee performance. Hence,
human resource management function deals with recruitment,
placement, benefits and compensations of organizations workforce. It
involves practices, systems and procedures implemented to attract,
acquire, develop and manage human resources to achieve the goals of
an organization.
Like most any organization, British College International human
resources management is no different from others; it includes
recruitment, placement, benefits and compensation. The first process
of human resources begins with recruitment. Recruitment is the
process of locating, identifying and attracting highly qualified
applicants. Procedures in recruitment include advertisement,
preliminary contact with potential job candidates and initial screening
to create a pool of qualified applicants. (Rosal, 2011). The British
College International, commences its recruitment by coordinating with
the local chapter of the Department of Labor and Employment, this is
done in order for the job vacancy be included in the website of the
department. This is simultaneously done with a radio commercial on
air and TV placement to reach wider audience.
Next to recruitment is the selection which is defined as the
process of assessing candidates and appointing a post holder to ensure
that the most appropriate candidates are hired. Once applicant starts
to pool in, the human resources department of British College
International starts to assess the applicant qualification in congruence
with the minimum qualification set by the school. All the qualified
applicants are notified through email and text to inform them that they
are shortlisted. An appointment is set so as to screen them individually
through a certain criteria. All applicants is advised to fill up an
application form which will be attached to the resume including
credentials, certificates and other pertinent documents related thereto.
The screening process of British College International includes,
physical, emotional and intellectual screening. Physical screening
involves checking if the applicant is deemed fit to handle physical
stress brought about by the nature of the work. Emotional screening is
a test done by the human resources department to examine the
emotional stability of the applicant this is accomplished by
administering a standardized psychological test. Intellectual screening
is administered to test the mental capability of the applicant to
perform the required task. This is done by administering intelligence
quotient test. Once the applicant passes the entire administered test,
the applicant is now ready for placement.
After assessment is completed placement comes next, this is the
process where the applicant is hired and oriented for employment. The
human resource manager starts to train the new employee and to
assign their respective task. Also, the employee is advised to submit
authenticated copy of the transcript of records, diploma, seminar and
workshops, medical certificates, social security number, home mutual
development fund, and Philhealth for human F201 resources filing.
Once the employee is duly hired, fringe benefits and non fringe
benefits apply. Fringe benefits includes salary matrix for re ranking
should promotion occur or even lateral transfer. On the other hand non
fringe benefit includes filing of leave and loan application. There are
currently a few numbers of leaves offered by the management of
British College International. It includes sick, vacation, paternity,
maternity, and emergency leave. Leave application is done by
employee acquiring and filling up a leave form from the human
resource department of the British College International. One
important school policy to mention is observation of date filing,
application of leave is always done ahead of time for all kinds of leave
except sick calamity and emergency; this is done so the management
will be advised ahead of time for approval. The same process applies
for sick, calamity and emergency leave except that is filed upon
reporting to the office along with certificate certifying that the filed
leaves actually incurred. Sick leave requires medical certificate for
attachment to be valid.
With these being said, in denouement manual process is
immensely time-consuming and it can involve delegation of work
hence, a computerized upgrade is appealing due to improved
performance compared with manual process but it still requires a
users’ interaction. The online system is more upgraded than the
manual process and can be continually developed to satisfy any
changes within the organization therefore Human Resource
Information System is highly recommended for British College
International.
Functional and Non-Functional Requirements
System requirements explicitly define the characteristics of the
system that is to be developed. Requirements are usually divided into
functional and non functional. According to Marsic (2009), functional
requirements determine how the system is expected to behave and
what kind of effects it should produce in the application domain. In
layman’s term, it refers to the necessity that a system must
encompass whether in the business industry or in a university.
Non functional requirement is related to emergent system
properties such as reliability, response time and store occupancy.
Alternatively, they define constraints on the system such as
capabilities of input and output devices and the data representations
used in system interfaces (Sommerville, 2007).
A functional requirement simply specifies what the system
should attain. DeBono (2014), in his study of human resource
information system, states that the functional requirement should
include the business rules, administrative functions, authentication,
authorization level, audit tracking, reporting requirements, historical
data tracking, transaction corrections, adjustment and cancellations.
Furthermore, he presents in his study that the non functional
requirement specifies the system's quality characteristics, such as
performance, scalability, availability, environmental, data integrity and
usability.
Another study in human resource information system conducted
by OMNI information system (2012) claims that the functional
requirements should include production support for payroll, e-form and
e-verification. Non functional requirements should also include the
following: reliability, recoverability, maintainability, serviceability,
security, regulatory, and manageability.
According to Guilbret (2010), human resource management
information system holds the following requirement such as position
management, recruitment and staffing as well as personnel action
administration. Under the position management, the functional should
include generation of report. Functional requirements and staffing
includes the following: preparation of staffing plans, recruitment of
applicants, assignment of employees, issuing of referrals, application
of recommended pay scales and documentation of recruitment and
staffing actions.
The typical functional requirement for human resource
information systems (HRIS) provides management of all employee
information, reporting and analysis of employee information, employee
handbook, safety guidelines, benefits administration including
enrollment, status changes and personal information updates
completely integrated with payroll and other company financial
software and accounting systems and lastly, the applicant tracking and
resume management (Decemo, and Robbins, 2008).
Non functional requirement must ensure security, confidentiality,
integrity and availability of information. Proactive human resources
information security measures are required to achieve the best
balance of data integrity, confidentiality and accessibility for business
success. According to Thite, (2008) information security in HRIS is
protecting information from unauthorized access, use, disclosure,
disruption, modification or destruction. Human resource information
systems security policies and procedures provide a reference for
employees on how they are authorized to use the system and handle
sensitive and confidential data. It also specifies clear security policies
and procedures, implement them properly, publish them, train
employees on them and enforce them.
The functional and non-functional requirements presented in this
literature are based on existing general requirements of a system and
are essential guides to the developer because these have defined the
functionalities and characteristics of the system to be developed.
Features of the System
A human resources information system (HRIS) houses sensitive
employee data. With the nature of employee data being numerous, a
full pack featured human resource information system is a significant
milestone to consider. Feature-oriented software is a paradigm for the
construction, customization, and synthesis of large-scale software
systems. A feature is a unit of functionality of a software system that
satisfies a requirement, represents a design decision, and provides a
potential configuration option. The basic idea of feature development
is to decompose a software system in terms of the features it provides.
The goal of the decomposition is to construct well-structured software
that can be tailored to the needs of the user and the application
scenario.
One of the most important feature of a human resource
information system is the employee self service. With this feature
employees can access, update and modify their own records based on
established rules. This feature refrain human resource staff from
having to respond to employee requests for profile updates. Time and
talent are utilized more effectively and efficiently. This feature includes
ability to access and maintain one’s record, view leave reports and
leave balances, view all approvals and permission and access
announcements and collaborate through feeds.
Another feature that needs to be mentioned is the leave
management. Simplifying a very lengthy process of leave application is
one of the noteworthy features of a human resource information
system. Employee can apply and monitor all types of leave across
organization – vacation, sick, calamity, paternity, maternity and
emergency. Human resource personnel on the other hand can approve
and centrally view all employee leave information and in addition
allows for import and export of leave data.
Hiring better employee is another important feature that human
resource information system adapts. Elevating talent pool is made
possible by job posting within the system while allowing possible
applicant to submit and deposit their resumes. It also holds document
management, where documents are stored like images, resumes,
applications and reports in word, excel and pdf file format.
A good human resource information system also schedule
reminders for task that needs to be accomplished according to priority
so that deadlines are never missed out. This added feature is included
in the human resource dashboard.
The aforementioned features in this literature will help the
developer in developing the system for more efficient and effective
output.
Acceptability of the System
Acceptance testing is the final test action prior to deploying the
software. The goal of acceptance testing is to verify that the software
is ready and can be used by the end-users to perform those functions
and tasks the software was built to do. There are three common
strategies for implementing an acceptance test. They are formal
acceptance, informal acceptance or alpha test and beta test.
Acceptance tests represent the customer’s interests. The
acceptance tests give the customer confidence that the application has
the required features and that they behave correctly. It is a contract
between the developer and the customer (Miller, n.d).
Acceptance test do three important things for a software
developer. The acceptance captures user requirements in a direct
verifiable way and measures how well the system meets the
requirements. In addition, acceptance testing exposes the problems
that unit test misses. It also provides a ready-made definition of how
complete the system is.
After careful consideration of the development of the system,
developers must now consider taking the entirety of the system into
acceptability test of the system. In an article entitled Research-Based
Web Design & Acceptability Guidelines (n.d.), there are two major
considerations before performing acceptability testing. The first
consideration is that the best possible test methods must be
implemented. It was stated on the same article that it would be better
if a representative from the stakeholders will directly use the system.
The stakeholders shall serve as the tester of the system who will then
submit a test report to the developer after testing the system. The test
report contains the findings which includes both quantitative data and
qualitative observations information.
The second major consideration is the iterative approach. After
the initial system testing, the findings must be complied by the
developer by making the necessary changes. After making the
changes, the system will be tested and evaluated again by the tester
and give their findings.
User acceptance of human resource information system is an
important benchmark in ongoing efforts to develop distance learning
programs. Human resource personnel as well employee satisfaction
are a key component in developing user acceptance (Irons & Keel,
2002).
In an article published by Guillan (n.d), it was pointed out that
the use of technology to facilitate human resource information system
is accepted to be of value across educational institutions. A cursory
view of technology used in the human resource process across
different levels indicates that the range varies from the use of
personnel action plan to payroll and attendance system.
A study conducted by Pan (2008), presented scale where most of
the employees had a more favorable attitude with respect to Oracle
human resource information system, indicating that they liked the key
features of the system that was incorporated. In addition, Hindes’s
(2007) study regarding a HRIS indicated that employee’s attitudes
toward HRIS features are positive especially the aspects of
recruitment, payroll and leave application.
Another study reveals that human resource information system
is acceptable to 82% among large firms most especially system with
recruitment features. (Lukaszewski, et al, 2005).