Emerging Issues and Challenges of HRIS: A

Review
Manoj Kumar Behera
Assistant Professor in Commerce,
P.G.Dept. of Commerce, VikramDeb (Autonomous) College, Jeypore, Odisha. India.

Abstract:- Keywords: HRIS, MIS, recruitment, personnel

data, ethical issues etc.
Human Resource Management is an essential
function of every organization. Information 1. Introduction:-
technology has been introducing in the every field
of human effort. Information technology has In last decades the organisations are start using of
influence human resource management to a great technology in various functions and in various
extent. Now a day,IT hasbeen usedwidely across departments due to effect of globalisation and
the organizations to perform different functions competitive environment. Human resources
like,recruitment, training, maintenance and management is one of the departments that mostly
development etc. IT is not only used in everywhere use the technology called as management
but also creates a vital role in every field of information systems and human resource
management in an organisation. Human resource information system. Generally HRIS helps in many
information system is one of the contributions of IT activities like identification of potential employees,
to the area of human resource management; this keeping all the data/information of existing
leads the organisation to a new trend in HRM. It is employees, helps in preparing the effective training
being observed that the technology brought program for employees development .it also helps
changes in the existing working systems in the top level managers to do human resource planning
organisations and also creates the link between the for the organisation in order to meet the
two valuable assets (human resource and organisations objective/goals. Middle level
information technology. By the introduction of this management uses HRIS to monitor the recruitment
HRIS to the organisation, it enhanced the potential process, job allocation and fixation of
of the organisation by changing the traditional way compensation of employees. Where-as the
of working in theOrganisation. Its increase the operational managers uses this HRIS for tracking
organisations ability to collect, store and the employees‟ placement and the recruitment etc.
utilisation of data/information related to the human HRIS also helps in various HR practices in the
resource in the organisation. Though the organisation like planning, staffing, budgeting,
organisations are getting benefited by the help of forecasting of employees salary, compensation
this technology to a great extend but the increasing programs etc.
use of computers in the business leads to so many Human resource managers are always dealing with
issues and challenges in front of management like the heavy task like recruitment, training and
ethical issues of employees and their rights. development programs, doing performance
appraisal of employees and keeping all the
Because ofexcess use of Human resource
necessary records of the employees for the future
information system in most of the organisations, the need and for this they have to work harder to
employee data are being used in a non traditional manage all these activity effectively and efficiently.
manner. Though the use of HRIS can increase the Nowtechnologies help human resource managers to
efficiency level of the organization but also create do all the activities with ease and effective. And
conflict within the rights and interest of people in also helps to gather and maintain huge amount of
the organisation and also with the stakeholders and data related to all employees. Dawes finds out that
today‟s managers required a different skills and
the societytoo. Here in this paperthe issue,
level of technical sophistication to not only to
challanges facing by the organiations due to HRIS recording the data but also how to use those
have been discussed and tries to find out the effectively. HRIS is a database of personal
probable solution for those issues and challenges. information about every employee.HRIS is a type
of information system which deals with the data
and information of all employees in an organisation no specific regulation or law has been formed to
.it helps to gather, store, process of the employee‟s protect the privacy issues of employees in the
data like employee‟s performance, salary, age, organisation. Some researcher concludes that, the
skills etc.basically HRIS is based on a database
employees leave their constitutional rights at the
which enable these functions very effective. This
has been used in human resource planning, organisational door.(Webster,1994)
recruitment process, fixation of salary to the
employees in the organisations. It also provides the 4.1.2. Relational databases:-
essential information or reports to the different
stake holder of the organisation like share holders, The basic purpose of using HRIS is to provide the
government for their respective requirement. right information at the right time to the right
Apart from this above mentioned function , the person. As the HRIS is being used by different
HRIS is also helps in other non-personal- levels of people in the organisations, it uses the
management activities like organisational relational database to store the data which has a key
restructuring, enhancement of productivity, strategy element on the basis of which the data can be
formulation and its implementation, enhancement retrieved from the different interrelated database by
of quality and also merger & acquisition different people. As a result any kind of security
decisions.(walker &Moorhead,1987).for this arrangement to protect the stored data is worthless.
activities the data or information requirements are
4.1.3. Data access;-
differ from the personnel management function. So
HRIS deal with different databases to store these As HRIS is being used by all the levels of people in
different types of data for which the different the organisation like corporate executives, line
computers and sources are need to be linked and mangers, recruitment directors etc.and they also
share the data between each other, this leads to can access those information which are private data
some ethical issues. Because of this interrelated for the HR department only like employees
databases with interconnected computers access by address, contact number, salary, medical data etc.
more number of people for their own purpose and even in some companies it has been allowed to
also lead to need for data security. Therefore HR every employees to change or modify the data
managers should be aware of the ethical and social stored in the database to update their information,
issues with the using of those data in HRIS. however this type of information should not be
available to all because it contains private lives
2. OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY:-
information of all employees and these are not
1) To recognise the issues and challenges of being protected effectively in those organisations.
human resource information system that the
4.1.4. Privacy issues:-
organisations are facing.
2) To find out the probable solutions by the help Most of the privacy issues are found out related to
of which HR manager can able to overcome what information of employees should be stored in
these challenges. the system, who can access those data or software
and who can have the authority to change or
3. METHODOLOGY:-
modify the data in the database.
The study is based on secondary data and it has
Some steps the companies should take to secure an
been collected through various sources like
HRIS
journals, books and websites.
 Training need to give to all how to use and
4. ISSUES AND CHALLENGES:-
handle the data, information in surely
4.1.Issues;- manner.
4.1.1.Ethical issues:-  Train the employees to switch off the
computers after the use.
According to the some researchers like Kurt  Tell the employees not to disclose their
Decker states that, the employers should take the passwords to others.
responsibility to protecttheemployee‟srights,
privacy issues are developed in 1990s.as there are
  Guide the employees how to change their may charge extra cost. In case for updating the
passwords and suggests them to change existing system also the vendor may charge extra
their passwords frequently. cost. So it‟s important to choose a customer
 Suggest them always run any software oriented vendor, who will always cooperate to cost
through a virus-detection program. and quality product.
 Train the employees to take backup files
 Ensure that all files, software are used 4.2.2 Responsibility:-
only by authorised users.
There is a common wrong conception about HRIS
 Using of edit controls to limit employees
that, this will HR manger such a way that, he will
access to data.
be relieved form his responsibilities and it can help
4.1.5. Data transfer issues:- to HR manager to do the transactional tasks up to
some extent. But with new system, it creates new
Generally the barriers in data transfer happen in responsibilities for the HR manager like he has to
two ways like technological and political. ensure that whether the new system implemented
Technological barrier means the physical inability properly or not, train the employees to operate this
of transfer the data e.g. in underdeveloped effectively and responsibilities of cooperating with
countries may not have reliable telecommunication the vendor etc. successful operation of any system
facilities to support the modern way of data transfer depends of the HR managers.
like through electronic or satellite transmission,
because of this it is difficult to transfer the data 4.2.3. Resistance to change:-
electronically rather by hardcopy report. At this
Employees are always emotional attached to the
point the computerised HRIS is facing difficulties.
existing system. They try to enjoy the inadequacy
Political barrier includes the regulation and statutes
in the processes of manual system. Therefore they
created by the government regarding data transfer
always resist changing, especially when they have
across the boundaries.
to learn a new skill. This resistance leads to
4.1.6. Data integrity and data security issues:- decrease in enthusiasm and cooperation of
employees in implementing the systems. This
Global HRIS is different from the domestic HRIS responsibility for bring change lies with the client
in terms of the data security and integrity issues. In but some cases vendors offers some supplements to
global HRIS the standards and the procedures are their services.
different from the domestic HRIS. So it is highly
essential that the organisation should ensure that 4.2.4. Training requirements:-
the data integrity and accuracy standards and
As the HRIS system is being introduced in the
procedures are matching with the global HRIS. All
organisation for the first time, it demands some
transmission channels and networks should be
level of skills from the employees to operate this
checked regularly to ensure that unauthorised
and because of lack of skills the employees may
access in not occurring. The organisations need to
feel anxiety and may show discomfort to use the
set the corporate standard for regular checking or
system. This leads to decrease in production or
changing the data field like employee ID.
service and increase the dissatisfaction among the
4.2 The challenges:- employees. So it is highly essentials in part HR
mangers to provide the necessary training to the
The following challenges are faced by the user. A good vendor can help HR manager to solve
organisation regarding HRIS. this issue by providing the training to some of the
key personnel and also provides the online help to
4.2.1 Selection of the right vendor:- the employees to learn the system.
For an organisation it is very important to choose 4.2.5 Configuration and Data transformation –
the right vendor for implementing the HRIS as all
software vendors are not the best HR solution Configuration of software according to the need of
providers. Usually to operate those systems for the organisation and transform the existing data
specific skills are required for which the vendors /information into HRIS is another issue of HRIS.
Because the existing data are available in hardcopy 5.3Flexibility-
manner or in excel files .this problem can be solved
by the vendor itself by obtain the data as per the HR should adopt such technologies that can be
required format from the client. flexible in nature as required by the changing
nature of the economy and existing policies of the
4.2.6 Work Flow Changes – organisation.

Generally when an organisation implement HRIS 5.4Technical training-

software, it affect the existing work flow of the
organisation, because the new system brings some Any kinds of change require the proper training for
new HR practices and workflows, that are globally the employees to accept the change effectively. The
accepted. And the employees may not feel comfort HR should focus on what kind of training need to
to use or work in a new system for the first time. be provide to the employees to operate the HR
This kind of issues needs to be handled very software effectively and keep the employees
carefully because it has an emotional impact on the updated to all technical changes.
employees. The employees having negative impact
5.5 Communication-
should be given much time to adjust with the new
system. To operate the HRIS or any other software
effectively the communication should be there with
4.2.7 Technical limitation-
the employees regarding the impact of the new
Every technology has its own limitation so systems so that the process of working in the new
organisations should not depend completely on any system will be smooth.
technology or software to control every activity to
6. LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY:-
HR. Software cannot replace a skilled employee
ever. The limitations are as follows:

5. RECOMMENDATIONS AND  The study is restricted to the secondary

SUGGESTIONS data only it can be done by some empirical
study in any organisation.
The above mentioned issues and challenges are
 As the scope of HRIS is vast and here in
crucial. Therefore theyshould consider very
this paper all areas could not be discussed
carefully while operate with HRIS in an
due to time factor.
organisation. To solve those issues and challenges
these steps need to be considered. 7. CONCLUSION
5.1 Motivation- The HRIS implementation and operation process
are handled in an effective manner then it leads to
HR manger should motivate the employee towards
the growth and development of the organisation in
the use of HRIS in the organisation. He should
the long run. The HRIS provides real time
motivate the employees towards the growth and
information to the mangers to help them to lead an
development of the organisation by providing not
effective management of employees. An effective
only financial motivation but also other
HR activity helps to do the work with speed,
motivational factors to be provided to the
accurately with less paperwork and also cost
employees.
effectively. And this can only happen when the HR
5.2 Adaptability- managers able to solve the issues related to
implementation and operation of HRIS and can
HR should create such environment to adapt itself face the challengeseffectively. This paper tries to
to the changing environment and technology .they show the possible issues and challenges regarding
should opt for requisite technological supportability HRIS in an organisation this shows the path to
of equipments and resources. further research on these issues in empirical study
in different organisation to find out the effect of
each issue of HRIS.
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