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1. Introduction
Electronic
Human Resource Management (Virtual HRM) is a web-based tool to automate and
support HR processes. The implementation of Virtual HRM is an opportunity to
delegate the data entry to the employees. Virtual HRM facilitates the usage of
HR market places (e-Recruitment) and offers more self-service to the employees.
Virtual HRM is a collection of many different technologies. At the first the
growing attention of companies on the factor knowledge is mainly driven by the
evolution of information technology. Information systems like Virtual HRM
solutions that network information enables companies to get a consistent
concept for their knowledge management. Virtual HRM will improve HRM quality in
organizations by freeing staff from administrative burdens and allowing them to
undertake critical people-management activities”
1.1.
Significance of Virtual HRM
To undertake
such an analysis, first define the role that HR can play in supporting the
company’s primary objectives (in this case, cost cutting, but it could also be
improved services or productivity). Second, determine how the company can use
Virtual HR to help support the objective. For example, when our business needs
to expand into new markets, your HR team must develop a relocation plan for
existing employees, a recruiting plan to staff up in the new market, or both.
In this example, Virtual HR can help by easing relocation with online tools
that allow employees to model the cost of living in the new area, or through
Internet recruiting to help identify candidates at the new location. In both
cases, Virtual HR approaches can save costs over traditional methods even as
they speed and improve your outcomes.
As demonstrated in the range of
potential solutions, Virtual HR’s biggest savings potential comes through
reducing the operating costs of HR itself — through curtailing labor costs,
outside services and printing and distribution. Access to HR services over the
Internet and other Virtual HR delivery channels now allow HR functions to
distribute these savings over a large population while reaching even a widely
dispersed work-force. Today’s technology is more than just faster than before.
It is qualitatively different in its global reach; features attractive,
easy-to-use content; and provides transactional power to handle sophisticated
HR processes with speed and accuracy.
1.2 Importance of Virtual-HRM
New research indicates that
companies with the most high-performing HR function behave differently when it
comes to the use of HR technology, and this may be the most convincing reason
for HR professionals to improve their knowledge and skills in this competency
domain. A recent study from a global business process advisory firm, the
Hackett Group, found that "a significant cost gap exists between
world-class and typical companies, with world-class companies now spending 25%
less than their peers." The high-performing companies examined for this
study, which were defined as companies ranking in the top 25% in efficiency and
effectiveness metrics, also operated with 16% fewer HR staff. More efficient use
of IT was considered a major factor behind the ability of these companies to
operate with lower costs and fewer HR employees. Self-service technology
appeared to play a role in these higher levels of efficiency and productivity,
but another key factor was that the HR leaders in these companies had a deep
understanding of technology and made a strong effort to derive as much value as
possible from the technologies they implemented-often through simplifying
systems. Another finding from the research was that HR leaders from the
companies performing in the world-class category were more likely to report
directly to their CEOs. This could mean that HR leaders with direct access to
their CEOs may be in a better position to ask for the resources needed to
implement highly effective HR technology systems. Although economies of scale
could play a role in bringing costs down, given that these world-class
organizations actually showed less technology expenditures per head, another
possibility could be that demonstrating HR's value through cost reductions and
improved productivity through the effective use of HR technology helps HR
leaders prove their strategic value to the top leadership of their
organizations.
Cost reduction without loss
of effectiveness or decline in customer service also seemed to be the main
benefit of the use of HR technology in an empirical study of five large
companies using Web-based human resource management. The researchers use the
term e-HRM, which they define as "a way of implementing HR strategies,
policies and practices in organizations through a conscious and directed
support of and/or with the full use of Web-technology-based channels." The
findings indicate that the most significant way that the use of e-HRM brings
down HR costs is through the elimination of administrative HR positions and by
enabling HR professionals to spend more time on strategic decision-making that
ultimately leads to more efficient HR practices that further save costs. This
is in line with the two most commonly stated goals the five organizations
reported in relation to the use of e-HRM: to achieve cost reduction and to
improve administrative productivity rates. Standardizing HR practices across
operations and borders was another key goal. This was particularly relevant to
organizations that had operations in many different countries, especially in
the case of widely varying employment legislation. With the pace of
globalization continuing to accelerate, it seems likely that the goal of HR
practice standardization will become more important.
1.3 Objectives of study
According
to the study authors, there appears to be a gap between the Virtual HRM that is
made available and the actual adoption of it by employees and line managers.
This makes it more difficult to measure the actual impact Web-based HR
applications have had on easing the administrative burden. If these tools have
simply pushed HR tasks out onto an unwilling employee and management population
that do not make full use of them, the adoption of these technologies as a way
to improve efficiency may be less successful than it may at first appear. In
spite of these caveats, the organizations studied continued to invest in these
technologies due to their overall perception that they had met their primary
goals of cost reduction and the easing of the administrative burden.
Web-based
technologies are fundamentally changing the way human resource management is
being conducted. Virtual HRM refers to the data, transactions and tools that
organizations use to help manage and provide services for their applicants,
employees and retirees. These services can impact every area of human resources
including:
- Recruiting
- Selection
- Performance Management
- Compensation
- Benefits
- Training and Development
- Surveying and human resource research
- Employee and manager Self-service
- To
study the origin and growth of Virtual HRM.
- To
study the functional area of Virtual HRM.
- To
evaluate the Virtual HRM practices in the current scenario.
- To analyze the various software packages available in Virtual-HRM.
We probably have heard the
phrases, B2B (business to business and B2C (business to consumer), but a
relatively new player on the e-commence block is to B2E (business to employee).
The B2E market for e-hr related services is growing at an astounding rate.
2. Elements of Virtual HRM
2.1 Greater
Access to HR Technology by Non-HR Professionals
As great as the
impact of technology is on HR professionals themselves, one of its most important outcomes may be that
it allows non-HR professionals to get involved in some tasks that have
traditionally been concentrated in the HR department. The development of
self-service technologies for managers and employees to manage their benefits
is one obvious example, but there are also other ways this is occurring.
2.2.Workforce Analytics and
HR as a Decision Science
Not only does the
development of workforce analytics such as cost per hire, time to fill, absence
rates, benefit costs per employee and other metrics change the way human
capital issues are viewed outside of the HR function, it is also helping to
transform HR into what is known as a "decision science." HR as a
decision science means that as a function it has analytical rigor and empirical
precision with a measurable impact on business results. The use of workforce
analytics supports this by helping to define what is to be measured in order to
better understand the return on investment of HR programs and processes and
using the data derived from these measurements to make further improvements and
drive change as it relates to human capital and talent. As Boudreau and Ramstad
write in their work on a decision science for human capital talent, "the
marketing decision science enhances decisions about customers, and the finance
decision science enhances decisions about money, so a talent decision science
should enhance decisions about talent, both within and outside the HR
function."
2.3. New Roles and Competencies
In addition to creating new
HR technology specialist roles, the interface between HR and IT processes and
the growing complexity of managing HR technology systems could also influence
the types of competencies required within existing HR specialist areas
discussed below.
2.4.
Metrics and Measurement
The SHRM Human Capital
Measurement/Metrics Special Expertise Panel listed workforce optimization and
productivity as one of the key trends in its 2006 trends update and explained
that "the measurement of workforce productivity will become a critical
issue for the HR function. Over the short term, the focus will be on the skills
of the workforce, but over the long term, the focus will be on talent
management and will involve technical tools to facilitate workforce
optimization." Technology has been viewed by economists as a major
contributor to the productivity leaps over the past decade, but with the
growing emphasis on human capital as a driver of productivity in the knowledge
economy, understanding the way these two factors interact with one another to
boost productivity rates will be crucial to organizational success. This will
require HR professionals to have an in-depth understanding of technology in two
crucial ways: as a driver of employee productivity and as a way to assist in
measuring the effectiveness of human capital interventions.
Workforce analytics can
track a wide variety of metrics, such as revenue and expense per employee,
compensation, benefits, workers' compensation as a percentage of expense, cost
of hire, time to fill, absence rates and more. Clearly, the more rigorously
human capital factors can be measured, the better the impact of HR initiatives
can be understood. The drive for simplicity will make finding ways to integrate
data an ongoing objective. For organizations that use a number of different
applications from a single ERP vendor, this task will be very different from
those companies that have data housed in a number of different systems. In this
case, reporting on various different metrics will be via a data warehouse
rather than an ERP. For many organizations this will present an ongoing
challenge and will be further motivation to find ways to link systems so that
they truly work together to create meaningful, usable data.
In addition to in-house data
and information gathered either via ERPs or the company data warehouse, general
labor market information is also growing richer. Some of this is due to the
development of a wider array of employment indicators, and much of that data is
gathered from HR and recruitment professionals themselves. New indicators such
as the Leading Indicator of National Employment™ (LINE), developed through a
partnership between SHRM and Rutgers University, and employment
indicators developed through online job brokers are creating new sources of
data on total employment, total vacancies, recruiting difficulty, new-hire
compensation and hiring expectations at the industry and regional levels. This
wider array of more detailed employment indicators may help HR professionals
better forecast labor trends and hiring needs. Developments in technology and
data collection are also making it easier for HR professionals to benchmark
themselves against similar organizations at a lower cost than was previously
possible. For example, in 2005 SHRM developed a Customized Human Capital
Benchmarking Service comprised of critical data from more than 1,500
organizations. The data enable organizations to create an organizational
profile based on revenue, industry, staff size, geographic region and other
categories and create customized reports on issues such as cost per hire, time
to fill, HR-to-employee ratios, health care expenses per all or covered
employees, annual salary increases, turnover rates, etc.
With the cost of storing and
comparing data going down, more HR professionals-even those working for small
and medium-sized organizations-will be able to use human capital metrics to
make a case, make decisions and show return on investment. A broader range of
data sources and improved ease of use may also enable workforce analytics to
empower employees further down the chain of command to make decisions based on
shared data. In some cases, this may require changing organizational culture to
one that better supports virtual collaboration. It almost always requires a
strong effort to better educate managers and other employees on how to
understand and use workforce analytics.
3. Approaches
to Virtual HR
1. Understand and leverage the link from virtual HR to the business strategy.
You and your company’s decision-makers must view HR services and systems in the context of helping to achieve business objectives.
2. Quantify the current cost of delivering HR services.
You must know where you are today before you can identify opportunities for cost control and project expected cost savings.
3. Define how virtual HR will change the delivery of HR services.
Establish a vision and articulate what that vision will mean in terms of people, process and technology.
4. Work closely with your finance organization to develop the required analysis.
Typically, this includes a business case containing a combination of measures, such as net present value, rate of return and payback period.
5. Establish measures/targets to maintain focus and assess progress.
As the saying goes, "What gets measured gets done." You want to guarantee that you can demonstrate results down the road.
6. Pre-sell your business case to members of the executive team.
Educate key decision-makers along the way so they can more quickly evaluate initiatives when it comes time to ask for funding.
1. Understand and leverage the link from virtual HR to the business strategy.
You and your company’s decision-makers must view HR services and systems in the context of helping to achieve business objectives.
2. Quantify the current cost of delivering HR services.
You must know where you are today before you can identify opportunities for cost control and project expected cost savings.
3. Define how virtual HR will change the delivery of HR services.
Establish a vision and articulate what that vision will mean in terms of people, process and technology.
4. Work closely with your finance organization to develop the required analysis.
Typically, this includes a business case containing a combination of measures, such as net present value, rate of return and payback period.
5. Establish measures/targets to maintain focus and assess progress.
As the saying goes, "What gets measured gets done." You want to guarantee that you can demonstrate results down the road.
6. Pre-sell your business case to members of the executive team.
Educate key decision-makers along the way so they can more quickly evaluate initiatives when it comes time to ask for funding.
4. Functional areas
HR Programs and activities Supported by HR Technology Systems
Along with improving
efficiency and user-friendliness, simplifying IT systems is primarily viewed as
a cost-saving measure. In a study of 250 companies, the Hackett Group found
that companies that did not reduce the complexity of their IT systems spent
around 30% more on finance operations and 18% more on human resource functions.
Overhead costs at companies that had 10 or more finance applications or did not
have a global standard for HR applications were found to be much higher. The
findings suggest that customization or a large number of applications may be
less cost-effective than less complicated systems, since those companies that
spent less were able to bring their projects in on time even with fewer staff.
Service Applications via the Internet
One important way that HR
technology is opening up the HR space is through accessing standard business
applications on the Internet via the use of the application service provider
model, which involves using a third party to manage and distribute
software-based services. This type of "software-as-a-service" was one
of the top trends identified by the SHRM Technology and HR Management Special
Expertise Panel in 2006. Many technology experts point to this as a significant
trend because it has lower upfront costs than licensing software and because it
concentrates responsibility for the management and upgrade of computer systems
in the hands of the service provider rather than the buyer. This is
particularly important in an environment where the speed of technology
development is getting faster every day. Instead of organizations investing in
licensed software and adding their own customized features and upgrades, which
can take a long time to test and implement, the service provider uses the
continuous developments in technology to enhance service on an ongoing basis
and make updates immediately available to its customers. Advocates of this
model say that this encourages faster innovation from service providers and
also helps keep costs down in a competitive market.
Until now, only the largest
companies were able to afford the costs of a major investment in licensed HR
software. In addition to the initial license fee, companies pay annual
technical support and upgrade fees that frequently amount to millions of
dollars for the largest companies. According to Forrester Research, maintenance
fees will account for more than 40% of company spending on enterprise resource
planning (ERP) software in 2006. At the moment, the licensed ERP software
market is relatively competitive, so larger organizations will potentially be
able to benefit from cost savings on software and on maintenance fees in the
short to medium term. But even though their emphasis will continue to be on
licensing standardized platforms to their largest customers, now some of the
biggest HR licensed software providers are also experimenting with different
types of Internet-based services. Here, some of the most important developments
may occur in on-demand software aimed at small and medium-sized businesses.
One reason that small
businesses may hesitate to use some types of on-demand software is because the
prices are often based on the number of expected users. For this reason, rather
than small businesses interfacing directly with on-demand HR software service
providers, they may instead benefit from the shift to on-demand HR software
mainly through the companies they outsource their HR tasks to. On-demand HR
software providers may increasingly work together with HR outsourcing companies
to enhance their services.
It could take some time to
see how the on-demand or software-as-a-service HR software market will
influence the management of human resources in small and medium-sized
businesses. If on-demand HR software reaches a point where it is easily bundled
into on-demand software packages aimed at small businesses or through low-cost
outsourcing services that use on-demand software to keep costs down, many small
businesses may benefit from more efficient HR processes than they ever had
access to before.
As cost barriers come down
and familiarity with the technology grows, the small and medium-sized business
consumer of HR technology may grow more sophisticated and use a wider array of
HR technologies. This could, in turn, free up small businesses from the
administrative side of HR and, by improving the decision-making tools available
to them, such as workforce analytics, encourage them to consider the more strategic
possibilities of successful human resource management.
ERP and E-HRM
Even while the demand for
simplicity grows, managing HR technology systems on a large scale is likely to
remain sufficiently complex, and HR and IT specialists that can translate data
into actionable steps that bring results will be in strong demand. This could
create further levels of specialization within the HR profession. As the use of
ERPs becomes more embedded into company operations, finding a way to bridge the
gap between IT and HR specialists is resulting in the creation of jobs that
straddle both functions. Organizations using this approach believe that it
encourages a more collaborative way of working between the two groups, which
ultimately results in more efficient human resource and technology management.
A growing consensus that the interface between human capital and technology is
the point where the biggest productivity gains can be made-especially in a
technology-driven knowledge economy-is making it clear that specialists who
understand both sides of this equation are needed.
The need for professionals
who have an in-depth understanding of IT and human capital issues is a real
concern in situations where the drive for simplicity threatens to remove
workforce management as a top priority in ERP systems. This may be occurring as
companies move to systems created through the consolidation of ERP applications
and tools provided by a single vendor-something that is happening more and more
due to vendor consolidation in general. Because human capital applications may
be more complex and involve data that is more difficult to capture, there may
be a temptation to use ERP systems that disregard the underlying processes that
determine the value of organizational and human capital, especially when the
implementation of such systems is led by the finance and IT departments with
little input from HR. HR specialists who understand not only the use of
existing ERP software but also the workforce management potential of new upgrades
will be in a better position to ensure that human capital strategies are not
overlooked in the push to simplify.
HRIS and E-HRM
The need for HR information
system (HRIS) specialists could also be encouraging the continuous growth of
the HR outsourcing trend. Watson Wyatt estimates that HR outsourcing is growing
at around 30% per year and many of the organizations that are outsourcing HR
processes are doing so in order to improve their HR technology systems.
Outsourcing advisory firm TPI recently reported that HR outsourcing was the
fastest growing and largest segment of the business process outsourcing market.
By tapping into the ongoing technology advances of their external HR business
process providers rather than keeping things in-house, companies are seeking to
avoid some of the problems associated with system upgrades and system
integration while still having access to high-quality reporting and analysis.
World-class
talent management organizations often rely on multiple software applications to
manage business processes. Assessment, employment verification, payroll, HRIS,
benefits systems: your talent data very likely moves through a variety of
systems.
We know
the value of sharing this data between applications - and the cost of not doing
so. Integration ensures that you have data to make decisions and improves the
experience for all end users: recruiters, HR staff, candidates, and employees
alike.
Recruiting
The use of technology to speed up and
streamline the recruitment process is likely to be a key area of focus in the
war for talent, and the Internet will continue to be the main tech driver
related to recruitment in the years to come. According to the Conference Board,
three out of five job seekers now use the Internet for job hunting. Eighty-eight
percent of the job seekers read help-wanted ads posted online, 60% submitted a
resume or application online, nearly half used the Internet to research
potential employers and over 40% used online job boards to post their resumes.
A survey by Career roads and CareerJournal.com found that over 90% of job
seekers said that they were likely or very likely to view an organization's Web
site in order to obtain more information and look for job postings. The trend
toward online applications seems to be growing even for non-college graduates
in the service sector. A handful of companies hiring primarily service
employees in the retail and the hospitality industries are moving exclusively
to online recruitment strategies. Some feature computer kiosks in retail
locations as a way of tapping into this group even if applicants do not have
access to the Internet at home.
Better data mining software
is also making it easier for employers to sort through the large numbers of
applications to hone in on the candidates with the right skills needed for a
particular job. Tech analysts believe that these types of technologies are
steadily growing much more sophisticated and search technology that goes beyond
key words and looks for underlying patterns and comparisons continues to
advance. These developments may make it easier for recruiters to decrease the
amount of time it takes between creating a new vacancy and hiring. Workforce
analytics are also making it easier to forecast where potential recruitment
difficulties could occur based on region, industry, skills or job role, as well
as keep better track of applicant demographics.
In 2000 the Electronic
Signatures in Global and National Commerce Act was signed. It allows electronic
signatures to be used in place of hand-signed documents in certain situations.
The law, known as E-sign, is now helping a growing number of employers that
need to process a large number of applications, job offers and acceptances over
a short period of time to speed up this process. Though the number of companies
using this technology is currently fairly small, several trends could increase
its use. First, the relative ease with which job seekers can now fill out
online applications may be driving up the number of applications recruiters must
deal with. In addition, an increasing number of jobs are filled on a contract
or just-in-time basis. This could also add exponentially to the number of
applications and job offers that recruiters must deal with. In both cases,
electronic signatures could help recruiters move faster. Differences in state
laws regarding e-signatures could be one reason this technology has not moved
forward as quickly as some tech market analysts expected. However, it is
possible that over time there will be a standardizing of laws, at least at the
state level, and this could encourage the use of e-signatures, at least for
larger organizations.
Tactical recruitment issues
- The effectiveness of your current
recruitment process
- The role of recruitment technology
within your organization
- A clear workforce planning strategy
- Change management planning
to support new recruitment initiatives and programs
Benefits of VIRTUAL HRM on
recruting
- Comprehensive project planning
- Thorough process analysis and
reengineering
- Change management planning and
execution
- On-site recruitment support (as
needed)
- Process training, rollout, and
ongoing management
- Tailored recruitment programs
(referral, diversity, and more)
- Talent pool creation for future
hiring needs
- Applicant relationship management
- Metrics tracking and key
performance indicators
- Optional full outsourcing of your
recruitment process
- Manage recruitment agency contract
details including referral rights, fees, and contact information
- Receive candidate submissions from
approved agencies via your Enterprise system
- Automatically reject and flag
agency submissions for candidates already in your database
- Eliminate duplicate referrals with
automatic submission logic technology
- Limit agency access to only those
requisitions they've been approved to source
- Reduce unsolicited agency
submissions with restricted access to Agency Manager
- Reduce communications with
real-time candidate status viewable by agencies
- Maintain a record of e-mails sent
between recruiters, agencies, and candidates
- Evaluate agency performance and
increase ROI with Agency Score Card
- Share notes on top- or
under-performing agencies with your HR team
- Provide agency policy and terms
information to recruiters while they are establishing their sourcing
strategy
- Search jobs and submit candidates
to requisitions
- Confirm the status for active
candidates for each requisition
- Check on candidate submissions in
progress
- Receive quick notification of
rejected submissions
- View their rejected submissions
- Review your organization's agency
policies
- Access answers to frequently asked
questions
- View information about your
organization's benefits, locations, and culture
- Track candidates to confirm they
have completed job questions
- Receive messages on the welcome
screen and access help
- Submit a request to retract
submissions should candidate availability change
- Receive candidate resume/CV
submissions in many formats
- Configure job-specific screening
questions to solicit critical data from candidates and score applicant responses
based on your desired scale
- Automate candidate profile creation
and ensure data accuracy via our proprietary extraction technology
- Maintain contact with candidates
who have access to a Web connection and browser is available
- Your global online recruitment
presence
- Reduces the data entry burden on
your staff
- Eliminates the cost of erroneous
data due to data entry mistakes
- Maximizes the value of all of your
HR systems by enabling them to work together
- Creates a fluid, cohesive
experience for applicants and employees
Selection process
With Enterprise,
every individual in your talent database has a Talent Record that centralizes
information from many sources, including:
- Resume/CV data
- Profile information
- Work samples
- Background check results
- Assessment scores
- Training information
- Certifications
- Performance reviews
- References
- Communications
- Application history and notes
Talent
Records are automatically generated from submissions to your Enterprise
Gateways, capturing data from forms, questions, and other options. Our
Talent Data Center can also create them from your paper and email resumes,
offering you fast access to quality data. Data collected online in a
disconnected system can be imported to create or update Talent Records.
Our proprietary
extraction technology analyzes the data submitted via email and sends it back
to the candidate in the associated database fields. Candidates are asked to
verify the data in an easy online step so they, and your recruiters, can have
confidence in the quality of their data.
With
full search capabilities on Talent Records, you will be able to:
- Consistently and more quickly
create candidate matches
- Identify top performers in any
talent pool
- Mine your own talent database
before placing new job ads
- Manage, track and report on your
candidate activity
Technology
Search
Mining your Enterprise
data as part of your Workforce Selection process
Searches
are a key part of locating candidates from every possible source and maximizing
your return on your recruitment investment by looking first at candidates
already in your system. With our robust, state-of-the-art search technology,
you can pinpoint the best candidates in your Enterprise database by
searching on:
- Enterprise Gateway fields
- Extracted fields (candidate
contact, employment, education information)
- Skills and keywords
- Custom questions and form fields
- Candidate types
- Codes (job requisition, source, and
custom)
- Ideal or sample candidates to match
Enterprise FocusPoint allows full text, wildcard, rank, Boolean and date range
searching. It's the industry's first search technology that combines literal
and conceptual search capabilities. FocusPoint analyzes your search criteria to
match and rank your query results with unprecedented speed and accuracy. With
so many options, results can be refined to better target that perfect
candidate. Search criteria can be saved, shared with other team members or
scheduled to run overnight.
Training and Knowledge Management
Knowledge management systems
may be increasingly concerned with stemming the tide of knowledge loss due to
the loss of key individuals through layoffs and retirement. A recent report
from IBM Consulting Services listed the different ways that knowledge
elicitation could be used to "increase both the visibility and retention
of an individual's knowledge by preserving it in some form of repository."
These include things like expert systems, subject matter expert interviews,
after-action reviews and knowledge mapping. According to the report, though
knowledge elicitation techniques focus on "transforming tacit knowledge
into explicit knowledge, knowledge exchange efforts focus on helping
individuals make connections with subject matter experts" and include
techniques such as orientation, training, communities of practice, expertise
location, mentoring/peer assist and alternative work arrangements. Tech-based
knowledge management systems will continue to be a cornerstone of these
strategies, but HR professionals will need to monitor whether this technology
is really successful in managing information and knowledge in a way that is
useful on the ground.
Dealing with human capital
issues as they relate to global intellectual property is likely to also be an
ongoing concern for HR professionals. Along with government programs aimed at
cracking down on intellectual property infringement overseas, businesses are
coming together in consortia to try to find ways to deal with the problem. Most
of these infringements are either technology-enabled or involve the theft of
some form of technology itself. In other cases, businesses may worry that
employees are more likely to endanger company intellectual property as well as
the company brand through Internet-enabled communications such as blogs. HR
will continue to need to focus on human capital strategies that help protect
competitive knowledge and intellectual property from infringement.
E-learning
E-learning technology
continues to develop and become better integrated into overall tech-based human
capital management systems. Another tech-related area in the training field
that appears to be undergoing strong growth is the use of simulations. Improved
technology is helping e-learning programs that use simulation as a learning
tool become more realistic. These learning simulations help assuage the need to
use the actual application environment and in this way save costs. Depending on
the industry and training need, the improvement in technology that supports
learning simulations could eventually be a major training cost saver. Along
with lowering training costs, saving time-or at least helping employees in
training better manage their time-may also is an important factor. Perhaps for
this reason, more employers are making use of online education. Some higher
education analysts believe that one of the main reasons behind the growing
popularity of online education is the support it receives from employers. As
workforce skills and education become even more critical to business success in
a global market, more employers may look to online education to help employees
improve their education levels while remaining on the job, and according to the
American Society for Training and Development, many organizations see offering
online education as a way to boost employee job satisfaction and retention.
Compensation and Benefits
HR legal experts may
increasingly make use of technology to help ensure compliance with a complex
network of state, national and regional employment legislation that relates to
benefits. For example, when the IRS announced a new policy aimed at boosting
the use of flexible spending accounts (FSAs), many HR technology providers
attempted to capitalize on it by upgrading their software offerings to reflect
the changes and to help employers manage them. Other changes in rules relating
to benefits are likely to encourage a similar response from software providers.
Employers may be slower to pick up on these new products than vendors are in
creating them, but it seems likely that the growing complexity in legal compliance
will continue to inspire tech vendors to create products aimed at easing this
burden. Once again, this could lead to a trend of more widely available tools
to help ensure compliance, and these tools could eventually become accessible
to smaller organizations on a fairly wide-scale basis. Additionally, the
growing complexity of creating and managing these systems will create the need
for professionals with highly developed legal, HR and technology skills.
HR technology, especially in
relation to workforce analytics, may also be encouraging HR professionals to
begin to speak the same language of business as the C-suite, particularly in
the area of compensation and benefits as calculations of health care cost per
employee or pay and/or benefits as a percentage of operating expense become key
measures impacting the bottom line. The improved use of portals to administer
benefits will continue to support the shift to self-service benefits
administration by helping employees view and manage their benefits in one place
that is truly integrated and supports the company employee brand, rather than
just a series of links on the company intranet. This will be more important if
both health and retirement benefits move toward employee-managed accounts such
as FSAs and HSAs.
Employee
Relations
Use of technology to
communicate with employees without causing information overload continues to be
a challenge for HR professionals. The growth in the use of mobile technology
will continue to have an impact on the way organizations communicate to
employees and the way employees communicate and collaborate with each other.
According the SHRM Technology and HR Management Special Expertise Panel, this
is the number one HR tech trend for 2006. As the cost of handheld devices that
receive wireless e-mail anytime anywhere goes down, more employees will use
them and functionality will increase. Constant connectivity could make
employees feel as though they are never able to fully disengage from work and
could lead to frustration as more employees feel constantly "on
call." According to the panel, "HR professionals will need to be
proactive and progressive in establishing and communicating policies regarding
handheld devices, consider equity issues if the company supplies devices to
selected employees and determine any requirements to track imputed
income."
HR professionals will also
have to pay attention to the way that employee data is stored and protected.
Security is becoming an increasingly important job satisfaction factor, and
with identity theft as one of the fastest growing crimes, companies are at real
risk of liability if they are in any way negligent when it comes to employee
data security. HR professionals will need to stay up to date on the
technologies being developed to protect employee details from theft.
In all electronic
communications and tools available for employee use, communicating the company
brand will be of growing importance. Not only will the message itself
matter-how it is communicated as a way of reinforcing the employer brand will
be critical.
Enterprise reporting
Enterprise gives you the ability to create
accurate reports on key performance metrics, such as time to fill and cost per
hire, as well as create customized ad hoc reports.
Enterprise reporting features allow you to:
- Use configurable displays and
filters to customize your data view
- Run report agents in the background
and deliver reports via email
- Suppress duplicate results that
would cause erroneous data
- The TRM Dashboard displays key system
metrics in graphical format
- Determine a report output format
from a variety of options (PDF, MS Excel, etc.)
With Enterprise report
scheduling, you can:
- Schedule recurring standard reports
to run automatically
- Establish a schedule frequency,
such as daily, weekly, or monthly
- Establish a schedule Range of
Recurrence (duration)
- Establish a distribution list of
users who will receive the report results
- Establish a library of frequencies
(per-user) for future scheduling
Standard Enterprise
reports include:
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If your
organization is multi-national or multi-divisional Enterprise now
allows you to display localized Location/Division and Department fields on
Standard reports, using these two filters, as well as in report results, on the
following standard report types:
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Improved
reporting will better enable your company to track its return on investment,
identify bottlenecks and inefficiencies in the workflow process and improve
overall recruiting performance. Reports can be run ad hoc, prioritized, or
processed in the background.
The power of eLink
for Hiring and Onboarding
With
eLink, our patented email-based collaboration tool, users can send and receive
feedback, information requests, job requisitions, Talent Records, and candidate
notes to anyone on the Web - regardless of whether they use Enterprise
or not.
The collaboration tools in Enterprise
will:
- Foster a highly efficient
collaborative hiring team
- Allow all users in the recruitment
process to interact
- Engage remote users
- Bridge communication gaps
- Enhance collaborative workflow
- Enrich Talent Record data
- Include and capture all information
in Enterprise
Time is
precious throughout the hiring process. eLink can help you stay on top of your
requisitions and engage valuable candidates as soon as they apply. You can
customize eLink to notify you when a candidate applies to a position or when an
applicant ranks highly on screening questions.
Email and Paper Mail Communications
The
Communications Module enables you to communicate with candidates via:
- E-mail - Create template messages
that can be used repeatedly and can be sent on demand or according to
automated rules to one or multiple candidates, with or without embedded
eLink forms.
- Letters - Create standard form
letters in Microsoft Word that merge data fields from Enterprise. Letters
can be sent on demand or stored for batch mail merge processing.
The
Scheduling Module will assist you in communicating with hiring managers and
facilitating candidate interview schedules. The module integrates with
Microsoft Outlook 97 (or higher) giving the recipients the ability to download
the interview details into their Microsoft Outlook Calendar.
Conclusion
Understanding
and effectively using HR technology is now an integral part of the success of
all HR professionals and will only increase in importance. Based on the use of
HR technologies in high-performing organizations, it seems likely that the main
drivers in the use of HR technology will continue to be reducing costs and the
administrative burden, and this, over time, could reshape the HR profession and
create the need for new kinds of HR specialists. In its recent report, 2015:
Scenarios for the Future of Human Resource Management, SHRM developed four
potential scenarios on the future of the profession based on interviews and
surveys of HR leaders and stakeholders. Though one of the scenarios examined
how the profession might look if technology became the central force in the
workplace and in HR administration and strategy, all four scenarios had
technology playing some role in the future of human resource management. In the
tech-based future, reengineering, creativity and new competency models are all
considered necessary for HR professionals to succeed, so it is clear that HR
professionals must closely monitor developments in HR technology and develop
their competencies in this domain accordingly. Regardless of which future lies
ahead, a good understanding of the role technology plays in supporting human
capital management is likely to be a key factor in determining the success of
both the HR function and HR professionals.
