Use of E-HRM Deliver more Cost Effective Service

INTRODUCTION

Huub J.M Ruel and Tanya Bondarouk defines e-HRM as a way of implementing policies, strategies and practices in organizations through the conscious support and with the full use of channels based on on-line technologies on the web. Throughout Europe E-HRM has been a common practice and two thirds of all the organizations in Europe have already adopted them. The major determinants of adopting e-HRM are the size, work organization and configuration of HRM." (Stefan Strohmeie, Rüdiger Kabst(2009). "Organizational adoption of e-HRM in Europe" Journal of Managerial Psychology - vol 24. no-6p p482-501) The main goal of E-HRM is actually to improve the efficiency of the human resource's administration to achieve reduction in cost within the organization by using various e-HRM processes like using e-HRM to recruit employees etc. cuts the manual cost of the whole recruitment process as it is done digitally. In this essay we are going to be discussing about the use of E-HRM and how it delivers low cost service to an organization and why it was adopted or why it is preferred, what is expected out of it, what are its advantages and disadvantages? How it functions? Is it actually helping in cutting the cost of the organizations a lot? What are the outcomes? What exactly is E-HRM? Well, it is basically the "planning, implementation and application of information technology for both networking and supporting at least two individual or collective actors in their shared performing of human resource activities" ( N. Venkateswaran Asst. Professor, Department of Management Studies, Panimalar Engineering College, Chennai, 2007 ). Here the word "implementing" has a very broad meaning, for example to make something work or to put something into practice in order to have it realized.

LITERATURE REVIEW

E-HRM is a fast way of "doing" HRM .It was adopted or in other words discovered in the first place, for both the profit and the non-profit organizations, they have replaced the online - based HRM tools with the face to face HRM for the employees and the managers since the 90's. Organizations generally prefer E-HRM because of its numerous advantages. In order to have better productivity and efficiency gradual implementation is adopted in organizations, another important feature of e-HRM is its nature of adapting to any client, and as the basis for strategic decision-making it collects information for it, and it also collects information for all the other basic and support processes in the organization. E-HRM also helps in giving a prompt insight into reporting and analyzing the organization's functions, it also has a main role in giving a better continuous workflow in the process of the business, its efficiency, productivity and better employee satisfaction. Since E-HRM is a decisive step towards a paperless office, it helps in lowering the business costs more effectively and efficiently. According to ( N.Venkateswaran, department of management studies, Panimar engineering college, Chennai, 2007 ) for a more cost effective benefit, most of the organization's choose E-HRM as compared to the other available options because of its modularity and the solutions can also be accessed and used in a web browser.There is a good level of data security and access to individual modules are protected .It records the documents and their component parts, has a parametric and customizability character, access to archived records and documents, the interface is user-friendly and there is a good level of connectivity with the client's existing information system for example the enterprise resource planning, payroll accounting, attendance registration, document systems and lastly it also has a multi-language support. In order to standardize and harmonize the HR processes and policies the multinational companies also appear to use the introduction of e-HRM. Therefore from the above mentioned details we can sum up the reasons or goals of organizations in making steps toward e-HRM .There are mainly three of them, firstly to improve the strategic orientation of human resource management, secondly to Reduce the costs of the organization and thirdly to improve the Client service by facilitating the management and the employees. By now we are aware that the use of e-HRM helps in reducing the cost of the business, but we are not aware of how e-HR Management reduces the cost of the business. Here we will be discussing about how it does so. Basically e-HRM automates the key human resource business process which in turn reduces the services delivery costs, it also reduces the correction costs by improving the accuracy of the human resource information, since the information's are available on the web to the employees the printing and distribution costs are eliminated, which might also be found as an "eco-friendly" plus and the employees productivity is also improved by providing universal access on 24/7 basis, lastly it enables more cost effective decision through improved analysis of human resource information (John Storey, (2007) "Human resource management" 3rd edition ). Based upon Beer et Al.'s suggestions about the expected outcomes of human resource management, it is crystal clear that a certain set of outcomes are aimed to be achieved by e-HRM . The e-HRM goals are usually confused with the e-HRM outcomes but actually there is a huge difference between the goals and outcomes. As mentioned earlier, E-HRM is an approach of carrying out HRM, It is a way of thinking about and using HRM strategies, policies and practices. Most of the organizations expect to achieve certain goals by following specific E-HRM guidelines, like "to make progress in the Human Resource's strategic orientation, an improvement in consumer focus and satisfaction, and a decline in costs or an increase in efficiency. These goals can lead to expected outcomes. Along with the set up goals ,depending upon the way in which individuals and common parties want to be affected by e-HRM, the outcomes will to some extent change the state of HRM within the organization and through individuals or groups it will actually end up in a fresh HRM state. (Academic review - Ruel, HuubA andA Bondarouk, TanyaA andA Looise, Jan KeesA (2004)E-HRM: Innovation or Irritation: An Explorative Empirical Study in Five Large Companies on Web-based HRM.A Management Revue, 15 (3). pp. 364-380) Therefore we can draw that though E-HRM has its disadvantages, for example the use of e-HRM can lead to the separation of staff members in the organization that needs personal support, the need for interaction among the staff members and the manager also reduces i.e. the managers and the staff members have lesser face-time and the risk of 'losing touch' with the staff members also increases, it is also Subject to corruption, hacking and data losses as it is done using IT. Yet the advantages takes over its disadvantages as it helps the organizations to deliver a more cost effective service to its business and it is indeed a boon to any organization especially the multinational or very large firms as it gets very difficult to manage the employees at different levels and to gather massive amount of information about them, their achievements, history of career, analyzing it, comparing etc. becomes very difficult, therefore E-HRM makes it easier for the organizations to function smoothly by improving the HR's administrative efficiency to achieve cost reduction, by helping to improve the employee competences, resulting directly in cost reduction and a reduction of the administrative weight. Nowadays we have a whole range of products that we can implement in a company HR department that will support all analytics and decision making and make our life easier. Software and its major benefits that I am writing about are HRMS/HRIS platform solutions, complete Talent Lifecycle management, you can record and manage personnel records, automatically generate reports and letters etc. Basically from recruitment, pay reviews, salary analysis and trainings up to stock options, succession and career and creation of HR Character, You can do more than you can imagine, but we have to remember to first find out quite a lot of time to make a market research for the best software or pay big amount of money to make your own bespoke one, but especially in big corporations Return of Investment of this purchase is very high, after a while you will ask yourself "how could I work without it?". E-HRM saves you time every aspect of HR management is encouraged for a more collaborative approach

CONCLUSION

Therefore in layman's language we can conclude by stating that e-HRM is the next "it" thing and a boon for huge companies as it makes their work more efficient by making all the work "just a click way"!

BIBLOGRAPHY

(Stefan Strohmeie, Rüdiger Kabst(2009). "Organizational adoption of e-HRM in Europe" Journal of Managerial Psychology - vol 24. no-6p p482-501) ( N.Venkateswaran, (2007) "e-HRM"department of management studies, Panimar engineering college, Chennai, Academic review - Ruel, HuubA andA Bondarouk, TanyaA andA Looise, Jan KeesA (2004)E-HRM: Innovation or Irritation: An Explorative Empirical Study in Five Large Companies on Web-based HRM.A Management Revue, 15 (3). pp. 364-380) John Storey, (2007) "Human resource management 3RD edition

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