Sooner or later, you will install an HRIS/HRM program. It might not be easy, but it will be necessary.
You simply cannot run a growing business, a multi-location organization, or a company with global expectations without the best, smartest, and user-friendly information technology. Here are seven
of the biggest HRIS challenges and how to best them.
The best technology does not assure you the best match for your needs. As the HR decision-maker, you cannot let the HRIS vendor determine your objectives. Your priority lies in finding that vendor who
values relationships and will partner with you in mapping the technology and scalability to your current and future needs.
If you are the decision-maker, you have to understand that making the deal does not reduce or shift
your accountability. Even though it takes on your administrative burden, the HRIS comes with new duties. Once HR becomes the data input center, it takes on the responsibility for accuracy and outcomes. It becomes your responsibility to determine the integration, select the reporting mechanisms, and communicate the outcomes effectively.
The best HRIS programs can do what you want, but it is up to you to make what you want clear. Moreover, the system will not deliver more than you have asked it to do. So, you do not want to sell the program to organizational leaders as able to do more than you asked. You need to know what you have and avoid raising unreasonable expectations among the end-users.
Handled poorly, the introduction of automated HR will create problems for you. Precisely because change promotes resistance, you need to be an effective champion of change. It’s not smart or fair to leave change management to the HRIS vendor. The transition is a cultural process that demands you work with the vendor representative to make the process participative and effective.
The transition is technological and cultural. It’s your job to form teams that facilitate collaboration between your information technology personnel and the system specialists provided by the vendor. In addition, you must train the HR personnel tasked with the input and monitoring as well as the entire workforce, treating these end-users as the real customers in this decision.
Decision-makers bear the responsibility for system errors and performance problems. Your best protection lies in configuring the system well and monitoring the performance in real time. You want to pursue system redundancy, train office personnel and on-site users, and create an emergency response reaction.
Such an operational and cultural change will go more smoothly only if you become its champion. This should begin with your own education. Anticipating that you will have to answer tech-related questions outside your expertise, you might remember that HRIS is a work in progress. As such, it can be broken down, charted, and measured. What HR has to do is communicate the change as a reconfiguration of workflow in terms that workers and operators understand.
The introduction of HRIS to your human resources operation may be the decision with the highest and broadest impact on your organization. Done without research and strategy, an HRIS installation will institutionalize errors and deliver short-sighted confusion. Done effectively, it will reconfigure the work you do, redirect the culture of your internal customers, and align and improve your corporate goals.
No college course can prepare you for the scenarios you may encounter. No conference can make the decisions for you. You can, however, secure consultant advice, solicit peer experiences, and collaborate with stakeholders to identify and prioritize your goals. And, you can use the free, easy and unbiased HRIS Selector Tool to narrow down your list of potential vendors to start your search.