Effect of e-HRM on the overall Performance of the Organization
1. Introduction
The information technology is very important tool in the human resource management in the organization. It is very necessary to incorporate it in the HRM department since it makes the management to be run in amore efficient and cost effective way (Fermelis & Haurtel, 2007). Its integration minimizes the management cost and makes it to maximize benefits which results from good management performance. It is reported that the technology enhanced the management of human resource to make some important steps towards achieving its strategic goals. It is therefore important for the human resource management to adopt the use of software and web based programs to support its management. This improves the management efficiency and effectiveness when performing its functions.
2. Literature Review
There have been very many research studies which have been done to create the relationship between information technology and the performance of the organization. The result of very many studies has not revealed the benefits of information technology in the organization but its effects have not been incorporated in the evaluation of performance (Deveraj & Kholi, 2003).The human resource unit is supported when focus is made by the fact that there is a constructs in the organization which changes according to the nature of administration and the kind of business enterprise which is located within a given site (Fermelis & Haurtel, 2007).It is therefore very difficult for thorough organization investigation to reveal the overall variation that the availability of information technology can provide in the organization. It is also very difficult to measure the benefits of IT since it improves customer service which cannot be quantified by the management. Several research works indicates that information technology in the organization is very conceptual in the context of technology, its degree of penetration and its operation cannot allow easy measurement of its payoff. It is very important to consider the penetration of the technology and the assessment of IT aided Human resources applications together with 78 inventory materials (Deveraj and Kohli, 2003). This method is different with other techniques such as HRIS and other methods of survey which assess the benefits of technology and the implementation of IT hardware. It also conflicts with others in terms of the presence of its limited number of uses which makes it to function in a unique way. In the study a single item scale is used to find the measurement of the application HRIS systems in conjunction of a response format that does not automate its functions to a system which is a fully integrated human resource with Information technology.
The summary of (Henson, 2005) indicates that the employee’s workforce and the availability of the technology in the organization is the most important functional part of human resource management in current business organization. Human resource management is the department in the organization which is directly in charge of the management and creation of workforce and information technology is the branch that supports the HRM department to fully meet its objectives. The recent studies indicate that there are three important reasons why HRM department must incorporate IT in its functions. The reasons include the ability of information system to enhance the processing system of the organization and the efficiency of result deliverance (Cardy and Miller, 2005).The organization is only sustainable when it has the ability to manage its operations faster enough to catch up with time. It is therefore very necessary for the organization to have information technology to compute, store, retrieve and categorize its information faster and efficiently to improve the performance of human resource management. The impact of the information technology in the organization reduces the cumbersome work of the line management which causes monotony on the part of their task (Fitz-enz & Davison, 2002). This gives them the opportunity to concentrate of their work which they fully qualified for in the organization therefore there will be an added value in the performance. The efficiency which is provided by the information technology increases the competitive advantage influenced by the Human resources management. With IT, the organization has the possibility of achieving high economies of scale, high performance accuracy and management efficiency (Cardy and Miller,2005)The organization that incorporate its human resources with IT also minimizes costs and maximizes its benefits since the operating activities are reduced in the organization. The organization also becomes sustainable and this provides it with the ability to evolve its system to meet the varied needs of the organization (Cappelli, 2001).In the studies of (Cappelli 2001) examined that between 70% to 90% of most organizations use e – recruitment system and almost 96% of the rest of the firms plans to adopt the system in the future. It has also become necessary for most large organizations to use computerized performance monitoring technology to improve the appraisal system of Human resource management (Dickter andRussell,2005).This provides the organization with an opportunity to evaluate the performance of employees online thereby reducing the voluminous use of paper work.
3. Research questions
- How is the application of IT and HRM performance related in relation to the firm’s productivity?
- Is there any relationship between the application of IT and the functionality of HRM performance in regard to firm’s efficiency?
- Can e-HRM in the organization provide the opportunity for firms to run its operations in a cost effective manner?
4. Research Hypotheses
i. It was projected that the functional performance of human resource management in terms of productivity would be higher when the application of information technology is higher.
ii. It was also predetermined that the performance of HRM in regard to efficiency would be higher when there is higher use of the information technology.
iii. It was examined that the performance functionality of the HRM in relation to cost effectiveness which rises with the rise in the use of IT in the organization.
5. Research Objectives
i. The research is to ascertain the effects of incorporation of information technology in the organization.
ii. To determine whether IT can improve productivity, efficiency and cost effectiveness of the firm.
iii. To determine whether the e HRM can improve the performance of management strategies in the organization.
6. Methodology
This research used questionnaire and secondary sources to obtain information that answered the research questions. Questionnaires were used because of the following reasons:
- They provide a standard way of collecting information. They are therefore more objective compared to other methods such as interviews
- They provide a quick way of collecting data as respondents do not need to engage directly with those collecting data
- It enables collection of required data or information from a large group
Secondary sources such as text books, journals, and online databases were used after thorough consideration of the credibility of authors and publishers. Most of the secondary sources used were from evaluated scholarly articles to ensure quality of the research. Secondary scholarly sources were chosen because of the following reasons: They usually pass through expert evaluation before publishing to ensure they meet the desired academic standard; they contain references, footnotes, and endnotes that support them; and contain descriptions of methodologies used to gather the data used to write them.
7. Research Project Timetable
Activity Start Date Target Date
Select topic 5/15/2013 11/9/2013
Select readers 5/15/2013 11/9/2013
Obtain literature 6/20/2013 11/25/2013
Complete lit review 7/25/2013 11/30/2013
Develop research question 8/9/2013 11/30/2013
Complete draft proposal 9/1/2013 12/27/2013
Develop research methods 10/4/2013 12/27/2013
Revise proposal 11/11/2013 1/7/08/2014
Submit Human Subject 12/13/2013 1/3/2014
Proposal approved 1/21/2014
Human Subjects approval 1/28/2014
Finish first draft of paper 3/22/2014 4/7/2014
Submit revised draft 4/21/2014 4/28/2014
Final Oral Exam 5/12/2014
Masters Research Project approved 5/19/20-14
9. Discussion
The research indicates that incorporation of IT in the HRM department increases productivity, efficiency and makes the organization to be cost effective. The IT should be positioned higher in the entire hypotheses to increase the functionality of human resource management. IT should be adopted throughout the life time of the organization for it to have the potential of solving perpetual challenges which have greater magnitude and complexity in the HRM department to improve the overall performance of the firm. This provides the IT with added advantage re-asses its ability, organize its scarce resources and add value to the management of the organization aggressively. Hypothesis 4 shows that the application of IT and the performance of HR should not be misaligned in the organization and exclusion of the transformation effect of IT in the HR tasks leads to loss of fundamental correlation between implementation gap of IT and the HRM performance. Therefore the firm must ensure that IT-HRM realignment is properly enhanced to influence the smooth running of the organization. It is very important for both the practitioners of the entire department to respect each other in all the practices.
10. Conclusion
The development of information technology in the department of human resource management had brought a great change in the management performance (Drucker, 2001). It is important for all large organizations to use IT in the human resource department because it increases the efficiency and accuracy of the data processing in the organization (Deveraj and Kohli, 2003). The organizations which have adopted its use have a great success it its productivity, efficiency and reduction of cost of administ
