Integrating HR Technology

October 2 2010 - HR Technology is a major growth market with increasingly sophisticated HR information systems (HRIS), HR management systems (HRMS), applicant tracking software and other IT products become available. Web-based HRIS is fast becoming a basic element of people management. Large corporations use HRIS extensively and more and more providers are addressing the potential of web-based HRMS solutions for medium and smaller businesses.

The 13th Annual HR Technology® Conference and Expo that took place in Chicago from September 29 to October 1 2010 saw a number of new and award-winning products on show. Among this year's developments is Aquire InSight, selected by Human Resource Executive magazine as one of its 2010 Top HR Products. Developed by workforce planning and analytics specialists Aquire, it is aimed to fill a void in the business analytics marketplace. It is claimed to improve HR planning decisions by delivering workforce analytics related to talent management initiatives and workforce trends directly to top managers. Aquire hosts a secure reporting engine enabling users to provide managers with access to workforce-performance metrics specific to their particular departments. The deal includes dedicated access to a certified workforce analyst, who can hypothesis test business drivers and link workforce trends to business trends.

Aquire InSight can integrate information from HRIS and talent management systems, presenting disparate data in a comprehensive format directly to decision makers when they need it. The Talent Pipeline shows the movement of talent throughout the organization and can focus on each individual manager’s staff development results. Aquire InSight also lets users match business events with workforce trends on a timeline.

Meanwhile, HumanConcepts has launched Workforce Monitor™ described as an intuitive, analytical dashboard that allows managers to analyze their organization based on measures such as organizational unit, headcount or span of control and dimensions including age, gender, tenure, salary and ethnic origin. As an example, users can look at the overall headcount of the organization and then analyze this by department to identify units which are out of alignment. The system can provide a visual representation of headcounts across departments, by ethnic origin, by salary ranges, and a host of other dimensions.

In a survey of 200 global enterprises and medium-sized businesses, SumTotal® Systems conclude that integrating 'talent functions' within one software platform can eliminate the need for separate data silos and make cross-functional reporting easier. This allows significant benefits as organizations can obtain more holistic views of workforce productivity and growth potential without time-consuming manual abstraction and collation of information. They identified the top five HR benefits of integration as:

• Reduced voluntary turnover
• Higher workforce productivity
• Better workforce alignment to overall business strategy
• Improved internal talent mobility
• Faster on-boarding (time-to-productivity)

SumTotal also looked at fifteen possible HR process integrations and concluded that the top five were:

• Employee Development & Succession Planning: Enable employee development planning for future roles
• Employee Development & Learning Management: Enable employee development plans to be executed via learning and training
• Learning Management & Performance Management: Enable learning and training activities as a key component of goal completion
• Reporting & Core HR: Enable a single, centralized reporting repository across all HR functions
• Performance Management & Compensation Management: Enable merit-based pay-for-performance

Christopher Faust, vice president of global marketing at SumTotal Systems, said:

"Seamlessly linking HR processes and technologies to facilitate real-time business intelligence for improved decision making is a critical priority for HR leaders today. More and more global enterprises are experiencing firsthand the business benefits that a single, complete talent platform can deliver. Our research continues to validate the top strategies that drive tangible business value which help organizations to accelerate their growth, retain their top performers, and improve overall workforce productivity."

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