HRIS

An HRIS - Human Resources Information System – is a computer program that allows a company to store information about employees in an electronic way.  It is generally a collection of databases that integrate together to form a vast record of all employee issues that exist within a company.  The HRIS generally includes both HR and payroll data and will store information, including:

• Employee name and contact information
• EEO information, such as ethnicity and race
• Current and past job title and status information
• Current and past salary history
• Performance Review data and scores
• Disciplinary Actions
• Benefit chooses and premiums
• Training received
• Paychecks received, amounts, and deductions
• Tax withholding information
• Child support or other garnishments in place

The HRIS system will also allow complex reporting and pulling of data that may be needed for various government reporting or for tracking employees throughout the organization.  This can include things from affirmative action reporting to budget reports by department to employee anniversary or birthday reports.

In addition to the storing of data, the HRIS system also allows certain tasks to be completely more easily than they would be by hand, as well as reducing the amount of paper that HR departments must store.  These areas include:

• Payroll Administration – in the days before a company used an HRIS, payroll could be a very tedious and long process that had the potential for many errors, as employers calculated the number of hours worked, then calculated pay due to an employee, and deduction percentages and rates that needed to be removed from a paycheck.  With the use of an HRIS, this process can become a much smoother one where the payroll staff member may only need to enter the hours worked (or possibly not even that for companies that use an electronic time clock that integrates with the HRIS) and then the system will use a series of steps and procedures to do all of the calculations for the employer.  Checks are then quickly printed and distributed.

• Manager Self Service – companies are often requiring managers to play a larger role in the management of employee and business data.  Use of an HRIS can make this an easier task for both the manager and the company that needs to provide access to needed information.  The manager can be giving access to portions of the HRIS that may provide employee information, such as contact information, job title and salary, benefit choices, and other key information.  Managers can be given the ability to simply view the information or be given permission to made changes that can then be routed to HR for verification before it becomes part of the employee’s record. 

Managers can also be given access to recruiting tools, performance evaluation forms and training, task/project management tools, and business intelligence tools through the HRIS.  All of this information can reduce or even eliminate the amount of paper that must flow back and forth from the department to HR.

• Employee Self Service – employees are also being asked to take a more prominent role in understanding, accessing and updating their HR information.  An HRIS can give employees the ability to view information, such as employee handbooks and other company documents, access to forms, benefits and compensation information, performance reviews, and more.  Again, employees can be given the ability to only read information or to request changes by filling out a form in the HRIS that is then routed to HR staff members.

• Benefits Administration – the managing of employee benefit plans generates a great deal of paperwork and data, which can be better managed through the use of an HRIS.  The system can track benefit eligibility dates, trigger reports to remind HR to notify employees, allow benefit choices to be quickly inputted, and deductions triggered on the payroll side of things.  All of which reduces the communication and paper flow between HR and payroll staff and reduces the likelihood of errors being made at any step in the process.

• Workers Compensation – this is an area that requires a great deal of data collection and management, including details about the injury or illness, which staff or witnesses were involved, what medical staff found in examinations, restrictions that are placed on the employee, and government reporting to name a few.  All of this data can be easily managed within the HRIS and allow secure storage and retrieval of data as it is needed.

An HRIS is a cornerstone of a successful HR department and allows the efficient and cost-effective processing and storage of the data that HR must track in order for a company to be successful.  A company that is not utilizing an HRIS is at risk for costly errors and HR staff members who are wasting time on paperwork and tracking data in ways that reduce their ability to be successful in other areas of their job.

HRIS stands for human resource information system. We have developed a very simple and easy to use HRIS system to use for several of your human resource needs. This can include payroll processing, employee benefits administration, workers compensation administration, employee self service, manager self service, insurance, and more. Please call us today to discuss your business' specific needs and wants and how our HRIS system can help.

What is Employee Self Service?

In an increasingly online, automated culture, people are becoming accustomed to having the information, services, and answers they need at their fingertips 24x7. You can see a canceled check from your bank, file your taxes, purchase auto insurance and register your vehicle—all in your pajamas at 2 AM without ever setting a pen to paper. It’s no wonder that employees are beginning to expect the same degree of service and convenience from their Human Resources departments at work. Go to the HR office and fill out a form? That’s so 20th century! Employee self service is the answer. It is a system that enables employees to manage most of the HR functions over which they have control from a personal computer, anytime, anywhere.

Typical Services Regarding Employee Self Service

Employers have a great degree of flexibility in deciding which services to automate and what information to make available to their employees. Some industries and some employers prefer to keep a tighter control on personnel information, while others prefer to let employees handle such things themselves to the extent possible. Many HR functions do not have security implications, so it makes sense to free HR staff by turning such functions over to employees, and making key information readily available. They might include:

• Managing tax exemptions (W-4 form)
• Finding and printing benefit claim forms
• Instructions, training, and policies
• Employee handbooks
• Specific requirements deriving from regulations such as OSHA, HIPAA, and others
• Contact info for benefits providers
• Updating personal information such as address and phone number

Some other information and functions need to be more carefully monitored, or need the involvement of a manager. While Employee Self Service Systems should contain information and instructions about these items, employers may not want to grant employees full access and control. These include such items as the following:

• Employee work schedules
• Employee leave coordination
• Evaluations and other personnel file information
• Payment requests and reconciliation
• Time card adjustments

The power, flexibility, and customization of your Employee Self Service system are limited only by your budget and your software vendor’s imagination. You can let your employees manage much of their own information, improving the productivity of your HR department personnel, who will no longer have to spend time on such mundane tasks as copying claim forms for employees.

If Employee Self Service sounds good to you, but you don’t have the time or budget to implement it, you should look into HR outsourcing. A Professional Employer Organization, or PEO, specializes in all aspects of the employee-employer relationship, acting as a secondary employer to handle all HR functions. A modern PEO such as Workforce Solutions will already have comprehensive and efficient Employee Self Service systems in place; they own and manage the software, saving you money, and the hardware is at their site instead of yours, protecting you from liability and maintenance requirements.

If your HR staff is busy—but not productive—with the day-to-day maintenance of personnel information and tasks, look into Employee Self Service and HR outsourcing so you can get on with the important job of growing your business.

 

What is Manager Self Service?

New web-based technologies and the ever-increasing volume of information available digitally are changing the way employees, managers, Human Resources departments, and employers interact. Human resources functions that require the involvement of a manager or other sign-off party traditionally required a manager to visit the HR department, fill out the necessary paperwork, walk it around the plant for appropriate signatures, and return it to HR for processing. That’s where Manager Self Service comes in.

Manager Self Service brings many tasks associated with managing or supervising employees to the manager’s personal computer 24x7. Instead of going to HR to fill out a form, a manager can now download the form, append relevant data—even electronic signatures, if permissible—and file the complete form with HR, all without leaving her office. Manager Self Service is a boon to manager productivity, making information, policy, regulations, and forms easily available with a few clicks. 

Typical Services for Manager Self Service Systems

Manager Self Service systems can vary widely in their offerings, but all bring some degree of automation and convenience to management functions. Businesses can customize their systems depending on their specific needs, and most offer such functions and information as the following:

• Staff scheduling
• Personnel action forms
• Employee evaluations and other personal information
• Employee leave coordination
• Payment requests and reconciliation
• Time card adjustments
• Software access rights
• Security privileges
• Job descriptions
• Hiring and firing requirements and procedures
• Management of employee application pool
• Salary and benefits analysis

Additional Information

The services mentioned above relate directly to the management of personnel—issues typically associated with HR departments. High quality Manager Self Service systems also facilitate the job performance aspects of the managers tasks—those tasks that relate more directly to the team’s performance and the achievement of organization and production goals. These are business functions rather than HR functions, and can save managers a great deal of time and tedium:

• Task management and workflow
• Performance statistics
• Report generation
• Team calendaring
• Analysis of metrics with business intelligence tools
• Project management

Both lists above include functions that are important to managers and that used to require much more time and expense. Now, thanks to Manager Self Service systems, managers can perform tasks more efficiently in both aspects of their jobs.

While the HR functions of a manager’s job are vital, they are not the activities that grow your business. If a manager is busy taking care of employee minutiae, she cannot be productive at the core tasks in which your industry must compete. That’s where Human Resources Outsourcing services come in. Professional Employer Organizations, or PEOs, specialize in all aspects of the employee-employer relationship, acting as a secondary employer to handle all HR functions. A PEO can handle all of tasks in the first list so your managers can work more effectively on the second list.

A PEO such as Workforce Solutions becomes a high-level partner of your business and is the HR interface for your employees, freeing your management staff for more value-added pursuits, and sharing your liability. If you prefer a more detached relationship with a PEO, it can simply provide access to the Manager Self Service system to improve the efficiency of HR functions. You don’t have to deal with software or hardware vendors—the PEO owns the software and hardware.

Look into HR outsourcing and Manager Self Service today; you’ll be pleased by the Return on Investment when your managers can concentrate more fully on sharpening your competitive edge