Bmo3420 | Human Resource Information Assessment Answer

Westpac has been always known as one of the four “big banks” in Australia that has over 14 million customers and over 40000 people are working for the company. The vision of the bank is to become a popular and established service company and provide help and support to the customers and ensure its growth and development in the future (westpac.com.au, 2018). It is also known for its sustainable banking activities globally, which has been possible somehow with the integration of HRIS with its processes of recruitment and selection. Nagendra & Deshpande (2014) believed that with the presence of a huge workforce consisting of bankers, the HR functions must be managed properly to form a positive work culture and promote higher business performance through HRIS implementation. The essay has been written for discussing the impact of HRIS integration on the basic functions of HR, i.e., recruitment and selection processes and can bring potential good results (Nagendra & Deshpande, 2014).

Body

According to Gupta (2013), the HRIS implementation at Westpac has brought huge transformation of HR functions with the implementation of new technologies. This has streamlined and simplified the HR processes and remove paperwork and use of written documents, which saved a lot of cost and time and involved the employees together. The recruitment and selection processes are benefited along with the management of present employees across various situations in their life cycles like joining, delegating the roles properly, managing leaves and approvals, performance, etc.  Kumar & Parumasur (2013) also agreed to the fact that one of the benefits of HRIS is its ability to use the IT for managing databases, enterprise resource planning or ERP and transforming the HRM data to electronic HRM. Not only the HR managers find it easy to access information, but also they can obtain information that they need legally and ethically for fostering the development of employees at Westpac (Gupta, 2013). The external environment is supported by HRIS by making people acknowledged with the Government laws and rules from the EEO-1 report, employee composition and court decisions documents to create community awareness and overcome privacy issues too (westpac.com.au, 2018).

The HRIS technology influences the job analysis and designing process for presenting information to the candidates about the vacant positions. The job positions at Westpac are informed to people through job portals and other job related aspects, based on which, the candidates have sent their resumes applying for the post of personal bankers (Al-Dmour & Zu’bi, 2014). Westpac has saved a lot of money with the HRIS system implementation integrated with the recruitment and selection and the tech savvy individuals have found it suitable to apply for the post (Kumar & Parumasur, 2013). The costs incurred while printing the job applications and posting it on newspapers are saved along with other recruitment related expenditures for maintaining a proper budget.

Based on the statements drawn by Kumar & Parumasur (2013), there were arguments regarding the issues surrounding the implementation of HRIS including the management of databases, which has caused redundant data, lesser involvement of individuals due to lack of HR expertise in designing the job, ineffective control between the human resources and information systems and the social and managerial issues have affected the recruitment and selection processes. With the ease of accessibility to employee information, the complaints from employees regarding the job roles have increased, which has slowed down the system and created complexities while assessing the resumes of candidates to select the most suitable people within the workplace (westpac.com.au, 2018).

Dery et al. (2013) also argued that the switching between the automated systems and manual HR functions becomes difficult and with HRIS implementation within quick time, the system may fail. The development needs of individuals remain unidentified, which can make the new employees selected for working at Westpac unable to adapt to the new system due to absence of training facilities and discrepancy arisen. With the data redundancy, the evaluation of information becomes difficult that can affect the HR decision making and restrict access to vital information (Dery et al., 2013). The employee related data and information are normalized to determine the relationships between the attributes of job position and qualifications of employees and issues have arisen with the HRIS’ MS Access database usage. Al-Dmour, Masa'deh & Obeidat (2017) though agreed that Westpac has tried to create a vision and set appropriate goals by complying with the legal obligations to manage successful business operations. Due to slowing down of systems, the information about legal requirements present in the databases may not be accessed by the employees and other HRIS users, which can make the organization vulnerable to risks (Al-Dmour, Masa'deh & Obeidat, 2017).

Recommendations

• I recommend the application of HRIS not only for saving the expenses of managing recruitment and selection, but also for the use of automated systems and managing accurate data and information.
• It is recommended to provide adequate training support for enhancing the skills and knowledge of workers and make them knowledgeable about the system’s adaptability for the maximization of return on investments and following company laws, regulations and policies while working.
• To overcome the lack of security issues, the company should analyze the gaps using the HRIS need triangle and make a decision to implement a secured server for keeping information safe and secure.
• According to me, the SDLC is important for planning, analyzing, designing the blueprint of system, checking its feasibility, implementing and finally maintenance to regulate changes.

Conclusion

The essay based on concepts of HRIS was prepared to discuss about the various HR functions and how the recruitment and selection process were influenced with the implementation of a HRIS system at Westpac. The issues associated with HRIS implementation affected the business functioning and created difficulties to obtain sensitive data and information. Effective training and maintaining the software development life cycle would check the feasibility of the system at first and then make effective decisions to use a secured server integrated with the database for managing the recruitment of employees who could be suitable for the roles of bankers in Westpac, Australia.

References

Al-Dmour, R. H., & Zu’bi, M. F. (2014). Factors motivating and inhibiting the practice of HRIS in business organizations: An empirical analysis. International Business Research, 7(7), 139.

Al-Dmour, R. H., Masa'deh, R. E., & Obeidat, B. Y. (2017). Factors influencing the adoption and implementation of HRIS applications: are they similar?. International Journal of Business Innovation and Research, 14(2), 139-167.

Dery, K., Hall, R., Wailes, N., & Wiblen, S. (2013). Lost in translation? An actor-network approach to HRIS implementation. The Journal of Strategic Information Systems, 22(3), 225-237.

Gupta, B. (2013). Human resource information system (HRIS): Important element of current scenario. IOSR Journal of Business and Management, 13(6), 41-46.

Kumar, A. N., & Parumasur, B. S. (2013). The impact of HRIS on organizational efficiency: random or integrated and holistic?. Corporate Ownership and Control, 11(1), 567-575.

Kumar, N. A., & Parumasur, S. B. (2013). Managerial perceptions of the impact of HRIS on organizational efficiency. Journal of Economics and Behavioral Studies, 5(12), 861.

Maier, C., Laumer, S., Eckhardt, A., & Weitzel, T. (2013). Analyzing the impact of HRIS implementations on HR personnel’s job satisfaction and turnover intention. The Journal of Strategic Information Systems, 22(3), 193-207.

Nagendra, A., & Deshpande, M. (2014). Human Resource Information Systems (HRIS) in HR planning and development in mid to large sized organizations. Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences, 133, 61-67.

westpac.com.au. (2018). Retrieved from https://www.westpac.com.au/