Advanced Technologies and Human Resource Management-Juniper Publishers

Annals of Social Sciences & Management Studies-Juniper Publishers

Introduction

For a time, human resource management was almost firmly an administrative function, with the professionals focusing their attention on completing repetitive tasks and serving as personal consultants to employees. Until 1970s most of the Personnel departments were considered as a place which hire people and keep personnel tracking. Through those records, the companies were able to get information on newly hired employees to the organization, fired, promoted and transferred while producing reports on present and to some extent on the past. There is no depreciation of importance and effect of the human resources management at all. Recently, management of human resources and its needs are becoming the center of the attention of each individual employer in every organization. The orientation of company on human resources starts to be one of the key tasks of a strategic management and human resources play an important role in all strategic decisions. Managers of human resources ask for more strategic position of their department within the organization with the aim to get to the essence of the problem how to manage, to motivate and to increase the performance of organization. The importance of human potential for company increases proportionally with the speed of changes which appear in the business area because human capital represents a basic parameter of success of any changes. Following that, human resource management must aim at achieving the competitiveness of the company in the field of human resource by means of affording constant training and educational programs for personal development of employees. Human resource managers must perform four tasks: change management, administration, employee support and strategic planning. Empirical studies on human resource technology find that technology has increased human resource involvement with the business and change management. But so far, little work has been done on what difference human resource increasing involvement makes at the level of corporate performance. Human resources are to be more efficient on the following competencies:

Assisting the organization business model to compete for business in the product and service markets in which it operates.

i. Acquiring basic business literacy in corporate finance, marketing, accounting, information technology, and general management.

ii. On its functional areas within human resource, such as legal requirements, recruitment, staffing, training and development, performance management, compensation and benefits, labor and employee relations, and occupational safety and health.

iii. Listening skills, as well as the courage to raise difficult issues with senior executives.

iv. Improving its skills as a strategic business partner by creating an overall talent, creating a human resource strategy that aligns people, processes, and systems Cascio [1]. New research indicates that companies with the highest performing human resource functions act differently when it comes to the use of human resource technology and this may be the most convincing reason for human resource professionals to improve their knowledge and skills in this competency domain.

The impact of technology on human resource management

To keep speed in an increasingly competitive business world, companies need to function as efficiently as possible. Technology can do wonders but only to the extent of helping people to do their tasks better. We should keep in mind the fact that technology cannot replace the intelligence that human carries with him. Even the best technology cannot replicate the convincing human resource manager who can motivate an employee to give his best, understand complex human problems and provide solutions, show empathy to employees, etc. With technology, you will be at an advantage with speed, efficiency, and accuracy. Industries across the world have witnessed notable changes over the last two decades Chanda et al. [2]. With the initiation of development in information technology, the nature of work that people are engaged in along with the necessary skills, knowledge and abilities have undergone a shift. Human resources management is among those professional work segments that technological changes had influenced. Technology has transformed the role of human resources professionals to a large extent. More and more human resource functions within the human resource department are being performed electronically to improve the administrative efficiency and responsiveness of human resource to their internal clients.

like employees and managers. Web-based technology is also being used widely for almost all key human resource activities such as employment application establishment, employee benefits enrollments and training using e-learning based resources Mathis & Jackson [3]. Due to the above-mentioned automation of human resource activities the human resource professionals are getting more time for other aspects of their jobs. In this way technology is support organizations in amending the time management practices of their human resource department and subsequently enhancing their efficiency. Walker declared that human resource technology can help organizations meet their business goals and objectives today and in the future by helping managers organize their workers more efficiently, ensuring that workers receive proper training and development, offering new insights on how to increase productivity, enabling employees and managers to receive needed information faster, reducing human resource administrative costs, and assisting with better employee appraisal and selection Walker [4]. Lewin wrote that recent studies of human resource management and business performances have found that human resource adopted high involvement practices have resulted in considerably positive associated improvement on market value, rate of return on capital employed, revenue growth, revenue per employee rate, productivity, product and service quality, and even organizational survival. Therefore, the use of technology by human resource has proven to assist on the improvement of business performances. However, although we expect all businesses to have embraced this high involvement on technology, only about one of every eight business has done so Lewin [5]. As technology is establishing its presence within human resource department, human resource professionals have experienced more intelligibility, simplicity, and comprehensiveness of information employed by them Gardner et al. [6] In addition to information responsiveness, human resources management also includes human resource professionals to be aware of latest trends in policies, activities, and employment practices in their industry. In addition, they need to have current information on the related laws and regulations because this helps them in expressing flexibility in the event of unexpected changes. Further, this characteristic enhances the value and contribution of human resource to the organization. Therefore, in order to keep pace with the constantly changing laws the information must be again and again sought out. Technology has enabled organizations to connect to the internet to interact with other professionals in organizations in their industry. Thus, it has supported human resource professionals in gathering information that they need to remain informed to show the desired characteristics and ability. These facts also suggest that technology has not only enabled human resource professionals to access and share out information but also has influenced what is expected of them. Ivancevich [7] wrote that prior to the Industrial Revolution most people worked either close to or in their homes. However, mass production technologies changed this and people began to travel to work locations or factories. Today, with increased computer technology, there is a move for many to work from anywhere, people are no longer necessarily anchored to one place. Computer technology, especially the Internet, changed that. The trends in technology which directly or indirectly have an impact in HRM are:

i. Growth in knowledge needs. World trade is growing over three times faster in knowledge-intensive goods and services such as biomedicine, robotics, and engineering.

ii. Shift in human competencies. Some predict that in 2015 almost all net employment growth will be in knowledge workers.

iii. Global market connection. Technology is dissolving borders and creating an interconnected marketplace.

iv. Business streamlining. Easy to use communication, electronic mail, electronic conferencing, and databases are creating instantaneous dissemination of data to make better decisions to geographically dispersed workers.

v. Rapid response. Technology permits quicker communications, which allows faster decision making.

vi. Quicker innovation. Teams of marketing, engineering, and production personnel working in parallel with computer provided files, data, and information develop products faster.

vii. Quality improvement. The concept of building quality into the entire process of making, marketing, and servicing is enhanced by computer monitoring systems and through robotics (Ivancevich, 2001).

How technology can improve human resource

Technology is the practical application of science to commerce or industry, the study of or a collection of techniques, a particular technological concept, the body of tools and other implements produced by a given society (Luck, 2010). Technology is here and will continue to progress. To understand the role technology plays on today’s human resource management we first have to understand business technology. Business technology refers to the integration of computer and communications technologies in support of administrative applications and procedures within an organization. It is constantly evolving and required for a successful business. It is no longer enough for human resource management to maintain a narrow operational focus, view its activities as restricted to the limits of its own organization, or to limit itself to traditional human resource responsibilities Rebore [8], human resource should go above and beyond. The human resource field has evolved over time and at the present time human resource is under more assessment and is more accountable than ever. There is little room for mistakes, which can be overwhelming costly. human resources have a great importance in the strategic business partnership with the organization, and for this challenge to be won there is an increasing need for technology to be inserted on its daily operations and on its decision-making considerations. There are three ways in which technology could improve human resource management:

i. It can rationalize operations.

ii. It can improve relations with other departments through more timely and efficient service.

iii. It can play a transformational role by removing barriers to horizontal integration within and outside the firm [9,10].

The last consideration is most important. Technology is transforming human resource because it is varying the way that firms departmentalize. Whereas in the past firms allocated tasks or differentiated internally, technology facilitates differentiation externally, it facilitates outsourcing. While it is true that technology has facilitated outsourcing and reduced the need for transactional work, outsourcing creates the need for controls and administrative supervision of a complicated nature. Bell, Lee and Seung have found that companies can reduce transactions costs by up to 75% and that 70% of companies report that technology has improved service quality. They found that the transactional aspects of human resource have become less important, while knowledge of the business and delivery of human resource functions like staffing have become more important. It is not that human resource managers have become more tech confidence. Rather, they have increasingly needed to work with service vendors and the internal IT function. Technological expertise should have added to the list of human resource competencies. One area in which technology has made a big difference is in moving the role of human resource generalists away from basic transaction processing and answering elementary questions. Generalists now give higher levels of support and they rely on technology. As a result, they can participate in corporate level planning and integration of human resource at the line management level. Increasingly integrated systems will create the need for more generalists.

Conclusion

To keep speed in an increasingly competitive business world, companies need to function as efficiently as possible. Technology can do wonders but only to the extent of helping people to do their tasks better. Today, human resource management is presented with the challenge of becoming more effective and productive, and managers are accepting this challenging by turning to technology as a mean to improve their performance. The role technology plays on human resource management is most elemental when used as part of an organization’s business strategy. There is specific technology designed for human resource management decision making, however the efficiency of these decisions remain dependent on the human training and skills.

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