System Development Life Cycle

System Development Life Cycle: Phase III – Design

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Human Resource Information System (HRIS) or human resource management system (HRMS), is an intersection of information technology and human resource through HR software (Kavanagh & Johnson, 2020). It makes it possible for HR processes and activities to occur electronically. It can as well be viewed as a way through which businesses manage their processes which includes the ones related to payroll, human resource, accounting and management. It enables a company to plan for its human recourse costs a lot more effectively and as well to manage and control them without necessarily allocating a lot of resources towards them.

It is important to view HRIS in the perspective of data and processing. Data is important as it helps in improving the company’s performance, compliance, employee satisfaction among others. When we view HRIS in the perspective of data and processing, we find that HRIS makes the collection and management of data fairly easy. It collects and manages the data as it comes in (Kavanagh & Johnson, 2020). It helps the management to save time as they would have to file and organize their data. It ensures the data is input into a digital database which is easy to retrieve. Secondly, it presents data in various formats. After the collection of data, its review is quite easy as one can select a reporting style in which they wish to view it. It is possible to find some data which is easy to view in a list format or a graph while others are easy to view in a chart. HRIS in the perspective of data and processing gives one a chance to get access to a large number of reporting options and can as well offer customizable reports.

This perspective can as well help in communicating large volumes of information quickly. As Kavanagh & Johnson, (2020) indicate, the analytics tools make it simple to break down the data into a digestible format which makes it easy to communicate the available data across that organization. HRIS helps in this function as well as it makes it easy to send the analytics data along with communications and notes which transform the data from stagnant numbers to the actionable insights. It helps increase the consistency in organizations, especially the ones that operate in several locations.

The change team can use this information for various purposes. Since the system that is in place right now was used in the initial stages of the organization, it might not be able to communicate information in large amounts as quick and efficient as required. HRIS can thus be used for this reason to help improve on consistency in the organization. Secondly, as the company is increasing the number of its employees, they as well need to increase their storage since it is currently limited. The current HRIS is limited in terms of file storage capability for both employee and applicant records and is currently on it maximum storage capacity. The new HRIS is capable of collecting and managing the data in real time and thus prevents the extra work that is needed to organize and file data. It stores data in a digital database thus making it easy to retrieve. The company would thus not need a clerk to enter data manually as important data can be missed or miscommunicated.

The Human Resource department is a very crucial department in any organization. The main activities and processes of this departments include, employee selection and recruitment. This process involves attracting new talents who have the required skills to complete the tasks that will enable the organization achieve its goals. The process involves advertising the vacancy, filling out an application form by the applicant, analysis, selection of the resumes, interviews of the candidates, approval of the candidate, managerial approval and a finally a welcome email.

According to (Banfield et al 2018), the second function of the HR is New employee integration. This is the process of bringing in new employees into the company and making them familiar with the organizational operations. This process involves employee integration registration, provision of furniture to enable the employee feel welcome and ready to undertake their duties, provide communication resources, provide IT assets and grant access and finally integration.

Another key activity of the HR is handling travel requests. These requests need approvals at different levels both from the financial and department managers (Banfield et al 2018). Here, the flow involves several steps and starts with the employee quoting several ticket options and hotels and send them to the manager for evaluation. If rejected, the budget is returned to the administrative area where one will be required to make new quotations and submit a new budget proposal. Upon return, the employee needs to make an application for reimbursement of any other expenses. This can be done through sending of invoices and go through analysis by the finance department before release of the funds.

The final major responsibility of the HR department is employee termination. This can be done when a company is either going through a financial difficulty or is cutting costs by reducing the number of staffs or in cases whereby the employee is not competent enough (Banfield et al 2018). The process is quite long as it is a major decision. The employee is first made aware of the situation and given a chance(s) to make improvements, inform the HR of this situation and try to find an appropriate setting to make the employee aware of the termination. Prepare the words that will be said and the actions that will be taken. Schedule a meeting with the employee to pass this information and ensure the entire process is documented.

The flow chart below shows the process that the Human Resource uses in the selection of new employees. This design is used and can be broken down into smaller portions to ensure selection and induction of the best candidate. If one step is missed, the selection is likely to be flawed.

42767251600203181350112395138112593345New position requiredAdvertise the vacancyConduct selection process

129540098425293370088900Monitor performanceInduction ProcessSelect the employee

There are several HRIS vendors in the market. In this paper, we will assess three of them in terms of cost, capabilities and the HR functions and propose the best vendor. The first vendor is Ultimate Kronos Group (UKG) which makes UKG Pro. The company’s HR functions are: HR service delivery, improve HR effectiveness and provide workforce management solutions to help achieve better business outcomes. UKG Pro provides role-based access as well as functionalities for recruiting the new hires, processing, calculating and access pay, developing and coaching employees through performance, managing labour and time, learning, succession and compensation, provides advanced artificial intelligence and surveys to helps understand the emotions of employees about work and offering as well personalized and on-demand support for any HR related requests. This application can be accessed anywhere at any time via mobile device or computer and is available for Android and iOS devices.

UKG unfortunately does not publicize their costs and they need to be contacted directly for them to clarify their prices.

The second vendor is Paycor which creates the system, Perform. Its HR functions are Perform Payroll: Online payroll application; HR Management: HRIS application; Carrier Connect: Benefit carrier connectivity within the HR application; Time and Attendance; Applicant Tracking; 401(k) data services; Workers’ compensation; E-child support; Tax credit services (Power, 2018). Its main competencies are: it is easy to use as it has menus which help to navigate faster; provides an employee app thus making it easy to view their deductions, taxes, salaries and make direct deposits. It as well has in-person and online training. Paycor’s license cost starts from $99 per month.

The third vendor is Namely which is the sole proprietor of Namely HR Software. This software has been designed to cater for the middle-sized companies. It offers HR services like talent management, time tracking, benefits and payroll management, and also makes it possible for companies to manage every stage of their employees’ life cycle. It has a number of capabilities like: one-click census reports, payroll integration; unlimited roles and permissions; employee and manager dashboard; time tracking towards goals and the integration of benefits and payroll software. Namely has in place per-employee/per-month strategy of pricing. Namely costs approximately $50-$80 per employee per month.

My choice of HRIS vendor is Paycor as, if we can rate it on a scale of 1 to 10, it stands at 3.4. it is less expensive as compared to other similar software costs and offers a flexible plan to their customers. It as well has so many helpful onboarding features. The employee self-service that allows them to manage bank accounts and withholdings is quite favorable. It has decent reporting capabilities which includes customizable templates. The software is also user friendly and mobile friendly as. Finally, this software has been credited in doing greatly in tracking sick accruals and PTO as well as brilliant analytics which allows one to take snapshots of your labor, employees, the department and demographics.

References

Banfield, P., Kay, R., & Royles, D. (2018). Introduction to human resource management. Oxford University Press.

Kavanagh, M. J., & Johnson, R. D. (Eds.). (2020). Human resource information systems. SAGE Publications, Incorporated.

Power, B. (2018). Digital transformation through saas multiclouds. IEEE cloud computing, 5(3), 27-30.