What is a HRIS and why Should I Care?

10 Oct What is a HRIS and why Should I Care?

The acronym ‘HRIS’ (which stands for Human Resource Information System) is used more in the office nowadays than ever before.

The common HRIS has seen a transition from a focus on being a mere physical information storage system to a multi-facet, cloud-based software offering diverse components, catered to assist with almost all inherent organisational tasks; and more recently, has even become a source of competitive advantage.  To the standard employer though, the HRIS spells a system that knows their workforce and them better than they might know themselves and often, the employer is left wondering “why should I even care about our HRIS?”.

THE IMPORTANCE OF AN HRIS

Organisations hold impressively vast quantities of information, most of which centralises on the internal operations of the organisation (such as its employees).  Organisations rely on this information and because of this, the primary objective of an HRIS is to manage this information in an effective and efficient means.

At a base level, the benefits of an HRIS include:

1.  efficient and effective means of storing company and employee information;

2.  removing complications associated with physical documents including:

3.  assisting employers in meeting their employer obligations, while simultaneously reducing associated risks, such as:

4.  acting as an HR administrator;

5.  increased organisational efficiency through ease of information access and scope of offerings; and

6.  offering additional components outside of traditional information storage and payroll functions.

Although, nowadays an HRIS can do even more than these benefits.

Thanks to the marvels of the internet, cloud-based systems are a reality and have increased the access to, capacity of and offerings that an HRIS has.  Typically, a cloud-based HRIS can now also offer functions for employee onboarding, learning, training, leave, performance management, WH&S, document creation and inter-company communication, and support numerous components of the business.

SO WHY SHOULD EMPLOYERS CARE?

With organisations becoming more globalised, data-focused and increasing in employee headcount the subject of ‘big data’ is rapidly becoming a critical issue for organisations.  Everything an organisation does creates data, and the data sets and amount produced is only growing bigger.

When data becomes larger it becomes more difficult to analyse, sort and keep secure but mainly, the problem arises of how to effectively and efficiently manage and store this quantity of data.

Professionals from all industries now agree that the companies who are prepared for the issue of big data will hold the greatest competitive advantage within their respective arenas. 

With many considering the human resource function to be an organisation’s most essential internal (and arguably often external) asset, the HRIS acts as the backbone to the human resource function and therefore is almost as equally essential to organisations.

With the future of technology and data paving the way for business, the result is increased organisation interest and demand to develop one’s own or use an outsourced HRIS.

Do you now know why you should care about an HRIS?

For more information on how HR Business Assist can assist your company with an HRIS solution, please contact us on 1300 138 551.