Chapter 2

REVIEW OF LITERATURE

Existing Process of Human Resource Information System

Each organization works towards the realization of one vision.

The same is achieved by the formulation of certain strategies and their

execution, which is done by the HR department. At the base of this

strategy, formulation lies within various processes and the

effectiveness of the former depends on the meticulous design of these

processes (Sourab, 2012).

In general, human resource management is a process for staffing

the organization and sustaining high employee performance. Hence,

human resource management function deals with recruitment,

placement, benefits and compensations of organizations workforce. It

involves practices, systems and procedures implemented to attract,

acquire, develop and manage human resources to achieve the goals of

an organization.

Like most any organization, British College International human

resources management is no different from others; it includes

recruitment, placement, benefits and compensation. The first process

of human resources begins with recruitment. Recruitment is the

process of locating, identifying and attracting highly qualified

applicants. Procedures in recruitment include advertisement,

preliminary contact with potential job candidates and initial screening

to create a pool of qualified applicants. (Rosal, 2011). The British

College International, commences its recruitment by coordinating with

the local chapter of the Department of Labor and Employment, this is

done in order for the job vacancy be included in the website of the

department. This is simultaneously done with a radio commercial on

air and TV placement to reach wider audience.

Next to recruitment is the selection which is defined as the

process of assessing candidates and appointing a post holder to ensure

that the most appropriate candidates are hired. Once applicant starts

to pool in, the human resources department of British College

International starts to assess the applicant qualification in congruence

with the minimum qualification set by the school. All the qualified

applicants are notified through email and text to inform them that they

are shortlisted. An appointment is set so as to screen them individually

through a certain criteria. All applicants is advised to fill up an

application form which will be attached to the resume including

credentials, certificates and other pertinent documents related thereto.

The screening process of British College International includes,

physical, emotional and intellectual screening. Physical screening

involves checking if the applicant is deemed fit to handle physical

stress brought about by the nature of the work. Emotional screening is

a test done by the human resources department to examine the

emotional stability of the applicant this is accomplished by

administering a standardized psychological test. Intellectual screening

is administered to test the mental capability of the applicant to

perform the required task. This is done by administering intelligence

quotient test. Once the applicant passes the entire administered test,

the applicant is now ready for placement.

After assessment is completed placement comes next, this is the

process where the applicant is hired and oriented for employment. The

human resource manager starts to train the new employee and to

assign their respective task. Also, the employee is advised to submit

authenticated copy of the transcript of records, diploma, seminar and

workshops, medical certificates, social security number, home mutual

development fund, and Philhealth for human F201 resources filing.

Once the employee is duly hired, fringe benefits and non fringe

benefits apply. Fringe benefits includes salary matrix for re ranking

should promotion occur or even lateral transfer. On the other hand non

fringe benefit includes filing of leave and loan application. There are

currently a few numbers of leaves offered by the management of

British College International. It includes sick, vacation, paternity,

maternity, and emergency leave. Leave application is done by

employee acquiring and filling up a leave form from the human

resource department of the British College International. One

important school policy to mention is observation of date filing,

application of leave is always done ahead of time for all kinds of leave

except sick calamity and emergency; this is done so the management

will be advised ahead of time for approval. The same process applies

for sick, calamity and emergency leave except that is filed upon

reporting to the office along with certificate certifying that the filed

leaves actually incurred. Sick leave requires medical certificate for

attachment to be valid.

With these being said, in denouement manual process is

immensely time-consuming and it can involve delegation of work

hence, a computerized upgrade is appealing due to improved

performance compared with manual process but it still requires a

users’ interaction. The online system is more upgraded than the

manual process and can be continually developed to satisfy any

changes within the organization therefore Human Resource

Information System is highly recommended for British College

International.

Functional and Non-Functional Requirements

System requirements explicitly define the characteristics of the

system that is to be developed. Requirements are usually divided into

functional and non functional. According to Marsic (2009), functional

requirements determine how the system is expected to behave and

what kind of effects it should produce in the application domain. In

layman’s term, it refers to the necessity that a system must

encompass whether in the business industry or in a university.

Non functional requirement is related to emergent system

properties such as reliability, response time and store occupancy.

Alternatively, they define constraints on the system such as

capabilities of input and output devices and the data representations

used in system interfaces (Sommerville, 2007).

A functional requirement simply specifies what the system

should attain. DeBono (2014), in his study of human resource

information system, states that the functional requirement should

include the business rules, administrative functions, authentication,

authorization level, audit tracking, reporting requirements, historical

data tracking, transaction corrections, adjustment and cancellations.

Furthermore, he presents in his study that the non functional

requirement specifies the system's quality characteristics, such as

performance, scalability, availability, environmental, data integrity and

usability.

Another study in human resource information system conducted

by OMNI information system (2012) claims that the functional

requirements should include production support for payroll, e-form and

e-verification. Non functional requirements should also include the

following: reliability, recoverability, maintainability, serviceability,

security, regulatory, and manageability.

According to Guilbret (2010), human resource management

information system holds the following requirement such as position

management, recruitment and staffing as well as personnel action

administration. Under the position management, the functional should

include generation of report. Functional requirements and staffing

includes the following: preparation of staffing plans, recruitment of

applicants, assignment of employees, issuing of referrals, application

of recommended pay scales and documentation of recruitment and

staffing actions.

The typical functional requirement for human resource

information systems (HRIS) provides management of all employee

information, reporting and analysis of employee information, employee

handbook, safety guidelines, benefits administration including

enrollment, status changes and personal information updates

completely integrated with payroll and other company financial

software and accounting systems and lastly, the applicant tracking and

resume management (Decemo, and Robbins, 2008).

Non functional requirement must ensure security, confidentiality,

integrity and availability of information. Proactive human resources

information security measures are required to achieve the best

balance of data integrity, confidentiality and accessibility for business

success. According to Thite, (2008) information security in HRIS is

protecting information from unauthorized access, use, disclosure,

disruption, modification or destruction. Human resource information

systems security policies and procedures provide a reference for

employees on how they are authorized to use the system and handle

sensitive and confidential data. It also specifies clear security policies

and procedures, implement them properly, publish them, train

employees on them and enforce them.

The functional and non-functional requirements presented in this

literature are based on existing general requirements of a system and

are essential guides to the developer because these have defined the

functionalities and characteristics of the system to be developed.

Features of the System

A human resources information system (HRIS) houses sensitive

employee data. With the nature of employee data being numerous, a

full pack featured human resource information system is a significant

milestone to consider. Feature-oriented software is a paradigm for the

construction, customization, and synthesis of large-scale software

systems. A feature is a unit of functionality of a software system that

satisfies a requirement, represents a design decision, and provides a

potential configuration option. The basic idea of feature development

is to decompose a software system in terms of the features it provides.

The goal of the decomposition is to construct well-structured software

that can be tailored to the needs of the user and the application

scenario.

One of the most important feature of a human resource

information system is the employee self service. With this feature

employees can access, update and modify their own records based on

established rules. This feature refrain human resource staff from

having to respond to employee requests for profile updates. Time and

talent are utilized more effectively and efficiently. This feature includes

ability to access and maintain one’s record, view leave reports and

leave balances, view all approvals and permission and access

announcements and collaborate through feeds.

Another feature that needs to be mentioned is the leave

management. Simplifying a very lengthy process of leave application is

one of the noteworthy features of a human resource information

system. Employee can apply and monitor all types of leave across

organization – vacation, sick, calamity, paternity, maternity and

emergency. Human resource personnel on the other hand can approve

and centrally view all employee leave information and in addition

allows for import and export of leave data.

Hiring better employee is another important feature that human

resource information system adapts. Elevating talent pool is made

possible by job posting within the system while allowing possible

applicant to submit and deposit their resumes. It also holds document

management, where documents are stored like images, resumes,

applications and reports in word, excel and pdf file format.

A good human resource information system also schedule

reminders for task that needs to be accomplished according to priority

so that deadlines are never missed out. This added feature is included

in the human resource dashboard.

The aforementioned features in this literature will help the

developer in developing the system for more efficient and effective

output.

Acceptability of the System

Acceptance testing is the final test action prior to deploying the

software. The goal of acceptance testing is to verify that the software

is ready and can be used by the end-users to perform those functions

and tasks the software was built to do. There are three common

strategies for implementing an acceptance test. They are formal

acceptance, informal acceptance or alpha test and beta test.

Acceptance tests represent the customer’s interests. The

acceptance tests give the customer confidence that the application has

the required features and that they behave correctly. It is a contract

between the developer and the customer (Miller, n.d).

Acceptance test do three important things for a software

developer. The acceptance captures user requirements in a direct

verifiable way and measures how well the system meets the

requirements. In addition, acceptance testing exposes the problems

that unit test misses. It also provides a ready-made definition of how

complete the system is.

After careful consideration of the development of the system,

developers must now consider taking the entirety of the system into

acceptability test of the system. In an article entitled Research-Based

Web Design & Acceptability Guidelines (n.d.), there are two major

considerations before performing acceptability testing. The first

consideration is that the best possible test methods must be

implemented. It was stated on the same article that it would be better

if a representative from the stakeholders will directly use the system.

The stakeholders shall serve as the tester of the system who will then

submit a test report to the developer after testing the system. The test

report contains the findings which includes both quantitative data and

qualitative observations information.

The second major consideration is the iterative approach. After

the initial system testing, the findings must be complied by the

developer by making the necessary changes. After making the

changes, the system will be tested and evaluated again by the tester

and give their findings.

User acceptance of human resource information system is an

important benchmark in ongoing efforts to develop distance learning

programs. Human resource personnel as well employee satisfaction

are a key component in developing user acceptance (Irons & Keel,

2002).

In an article published by Guillan (n.d), it was pointed out that

the use of technology to facilitate human resource information system

is accepted to be of value across educational institutions. A cursory

view of technology used in the human resource process across

different levels indicates that the range varies from the use of

personnel action plan to payroll and attendance system.

A study conducted by Pan (2008), presented scale where most of

the employees had a more favorable attitude with respect to Oracle

human resource information system, indicating that they liked the key

features of the system that was incorporated. In addition, Hindes’s

(2007) study regarding a HRIS indicated that employee’s attitudes

toward HRIS features are positive especially the aspects of

recruitment, payroll and leave application.

Another study reveals that human resource information system

is acceptable to 82% among large firms most especially system with

recruitment features. (Lukaszewski, et al, 2005).