HR, Role, Human Resources

The role of human resources

Over the past year, ARINSO International has observed a rising trend among customers to carry out benchmark studies before undertaking projects in the field of human resources (HR). These benchmarks give companies qualitative and quantitative insight into the role and activities of HR. One key finding is that companies want the HR department to play a more proactive, strategic role and spend less time on administrative issues. It is therefore important that the HR department evalu-ates the way it delivers services to both employers and employees.

Two other important issues are return on investment (ROI) and connectivity. For the first time, the HR department is asked to show its added value to the bottom line of the company in hard numbers. To do so, it needs to connect all its systems to be able to assemble comprehensive information and numbers.
Finally, customers express the need for "employee empowerment", giving employees everything they need in order to become more knowledgeable, serve their customers better and, in doing so, gain com-petitive advantage: HR evolves to employee relation-ship management (ERM). As a general trend, our experience with large multinational customers who carried out benchmarks and HR projects shows the following important findings:

Employers feel the pressure to participate
In this highly competitive labour market, where the 'war for talent' is an important issue, employers feel the need to become 'employer of choice' and there-fore invest in establishing a corporate image. This includes making employees self-sufficient, using Web technologies to give them real-time, person-alised access through an enterprise portal to all the information, applications and services necessary to carry out their duties any time, any place. Employees get a larger say in what they receive in benefits, and are offered individualised employee benefits (e.g. exchange vacation days for money, etc.) instead of having to accept the traditional 'one size fits all' ben-efits model.

Business intelligence plays an important role
Employers want to analyse services beforehand, decide on key performance indicators, and evaluate those later, based on more current figures. During the decision making process, benchmarking of busi-ness processes serves to agree on a base line that can be evaluated at regular intervals, making it possible to adjust processes if necessary. Benchmarking is also used to compare the results of the HR department to HR departments from comparable companies or the industry. This comparison results in an overview of most important processes or services to improve.

The changing role of HR
HR departments are struggling to fulfil their many tasks. Traditionally, they have spent a lot of time on administration, like updating a HRIS (Human Resources Information System). However, their added value is perceived to be involved in company strategy, and manager and employee support. New demands are placed on them, like introducing new methodologies that will further collaboration between employees within the company, supported by technology, e.g. knowledge management and collaboration systems. This means that HR profession-als must spend their time on defining new strategies that will make employees more knowledgeable and improve a company's bottom line: instead of per-forming HR processes, they must start managing HR processes.

A new service delivery model is appearing
In order to fulfil their new role, HR departments must change the way they deliver their services. This can be accomplished with the help of employee self-service and shared service centres. HR processes must be evaluated and streamlined, ensuring that employees can carry out tasks and transactions in a self-service portal that is connected to the back-office. HR call centres are established to screen and handle employee calls through a first and second line help desk. As a last step, specialists give personal advice to employees on high level issues that require specialised HR knowledge. Removing repetitive tasks from their duties will free up time for HR pro-fessionals, so they can get involved in strategic and consulting issues as demanded by their new role.

Any time, any place is key
Employers are moving services to the Web for ubiquitous access. Employees now have the freedom to, for example, research career opportunities, fill out expense sheets, and write evaluations from the privacy of their own home. The introduction of Internet-enabling technologies to enhance traditional applications and make them Web-enabled continues at high speed.

Integration and connectivity
Until now, companies have used numerous systems for employee information. This makes it difficult to get an overall insight on HR issues, not to mention accurate reporting. Many companies are exchanging their old HRIS for one comprehensive system, or are upgrading to new versions that can be connected, so all information can be viewed in an integrated way.

In the meantime, middleware solutions are used to establish connectivity between disparate systems and allow integration and exchange of data between various systems, usually based on the extensible markup language (XML). This also includes connectivity to third-party systems, like pension funds and other benefit vendors, allowing companies to offer their employees a comprehensive overview of their benefits through the corporate portal. Also, Web services will likely play an important role to offer third-party services within a portal.

HR-XML is here to stay
Most companies express the will to invest only in solutions that adhere to the HR-XML standard, and will enable them to connect various applications. Adherence to HR-XML will ensure that similar information can be exchanged between separate systems. Many providers of HR solutions have become members of the HR-XML consortium.

By Anita Lettink, ARINSO Nederland B.V.