Design and Implementation of Human Resource Management System
Chapter One
Objective of the Study
In view of the problems mentioned above, this project is aimed at implementing a human resource management system which will exclusively:
- Automate every task carry out in an establishment
- Leave management,
- Manage every human resource details
- Manage system access and roles on the system
- Manage every users of the system
CHAPTER TWO
REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE
Core Concept of Human Resource Management
By the end of the 20th century, the managerial philosophy that defined the personnel function has undergone radical changes. Over the past 100yrs, the scientific approach and the human relations approach appeared and then disappeared too. Pre- World War II- The personnel function was limited to a “caretaker” function, mostly involved in record keeping of employee information. The prevailing management was “Scientific approach”, the central thrust of which was to maximize employee productivity with tools like piece rate systems. As a result of a very few government influences in employment relations ,employee abuses such as child labour and unsafe working conditions were common which resulted in setting up labour welfare and administration department by the some employers. The human relations movement after the world war emphasized that employees were motivated not just by money but also by social and psychological factors, such as recognition of work achievements and work norms. The concept of Job description, trade unions and employment laws evolved during this period. The personnel departments started having specialist divisions, such as recruitment, labour relations, training and benefits and government decisions.
Social issues era (1963-1980)-This period witnessed an unprecedented increase in the amount of labour legislation that governed various parts of the employment relationship, such as prohibition of discriminatory practices, occupational health and safety, retirement benefits and tax regulation. It was about this time that personnel departments were beginning to be called Human Resource Department and the field of human resource management was born. The increasing need to be in compliance with numerous employee protection legislations made senior managers aware of the importance of the HRM functions. The personnel function transformed into a “protector” rather than a “caretaker” function. Cost Effective Era (1980 to the Early1990s)- The increased administrative burden intensified the need to fulfill a growing number of legislative requirements , while the overall functional focus shifted from employee administration to employee development and involvement. In addition there was a growing realization within management that people costs were a very significant part of their budgets. Some companies estimated that personnel costs were as high as 80% of their operating costs. Emergence of Strategic HRM (1990 to present) – The economic landscape underwent radical changes throughout the 1990s with increasing globalization, technological breakthroughs particularly Internet – enabled web services) and hyper competition. Business process re-engineering exercises became more common and frequent with several initiatives, such as right sizing of employee numbers, reducing the layers of management, outsourcing etc. Firms today realize that innovative and creative employees who hold the key to organizational knowledge provide a sustainable competitive advantage because unlike other resources, intellectual capital is difficult to imitate by competitors. Accordingly, the people management function has become strategic in its importance and outlook and is geared to attract, retain, and engage talent. With the growing importance and recognition of people and people management in contemporary organizations, Strategic HRM (SHRM) has become critically important in management thinking and practice. SHRM derives its theoretical significance from the resource-based view of the firm that treats Human Capital as a strategic asset and a competitive advantage in improving organizational performance (Becker & Huselid, 2006).
Understanding HRM
Because this section has been devoted to HRM definition, it is logical to start with the Definitions given by the founding fathers of the human resource management school, namely Beer et al. (1984) and Fombrum et al. (1984). Beer et al. (1984) defined HRM as involving all those management decisions and actions that affect the nature of the relationship between the organization and the employee. Important to note about this definition is the inclusion of the phrase “action’. This has made Beer and his colleagues the first to declare that conducting effective HRM practices is the responsibility of line managers (Blyton and Turnbull,1996; Armstrong, 1998). A particular definition of HRM which this study has found very interesting, is the one provided by Miller (1987) when he defined HRM as “those decisions and actions which concern the management of employees at all levels in the business and which are related to the implementation of strategies directed towards creating and sustaining competitive advantage”. This definition of HRM is interesting because it encompasses the main parts involved in the relationship between HRM practices and aspects of organizational performance. We can see that this definition stipulates the availability of HRM practices, performance standards or strategies, and a way of linking the two issues together in order to have these combinations work. To give further elaboration on the comprehensiveness and clarity of this definition, hospital management, for instance, can develop and implement comprehensive HRM practices but it cannot claim that organizational performance will improve without having performance strategies or standards established and an approach to manage these two issues together.
Edwin Flippo defines HRM as “planning, organizing, directing, controlling of procurement ,development, compensation, integration , maintenance and separation of human resources to the end that individual, organizational and social objectives are achieved.” “HRM is a distinctive approach to employment management which seeks to achieve competitive advantage through the strategic deployment of a highly committed and capable workforce, using an array of cultural, structural and personnel techniques.” Storey (1995: 5). Although there is no consensus on the definition or the characteristics of HRM it can be seen from the above definitions that HRM is a combination of people-oriented management practices that views employees as assets, not costs; and its main aim is to create and maintain a skilful and committed workforce to gain competitive advantage.
The differences in the interpretation of HRM have created two different schools of thought: soft and hard variants of HRM (Storey, 1992). Soft and hard HRM are also often defined as two main models of HRM. Soft HRM focuses on employee training, development, commitment and participation. It is used to define HR functions aimed to develop motivation, quality and commitment of employees; hard HRM, on the other hand, concentrates mostly on strategy where human resources are used to achieve organisational goals. It is also associated with cost control and head count strategies, especially in business processes like downsizing, lowering the wages, shortening comfort breaks, etc. (Beardwell and Claydon, 2007). Although HRM is a relatively new approach, this should not imply that it does not have its own roots in the old perspectives relevant to the management of human resources. When we start reviewing the HRM models, we will see that the HRM School has links with other management schools such as the Human Relations School and the Scientific Management School.
HRM Models
This section reviews some of the HRM models which have been recognized as sources in adopting HRM practices which could be linked with aspects of organizational performance.
- The Harvard Business School HRM Model;
- The Michigan Business School HRM Model; and
- The Best Practice HRM Model
CHAPTER THREE
SYSTEM DESIGN METHODOLOGY
Introduction
This chapter focuses on the system design methodology and covers areas such as requirement specification, which is aimed at stating the system requirements meant for the proposed system. System design will also be looked at, it covers areas like activity diagram, class diagram and use case diagram. At the end of this chapter the structure of the database design will be shown.
System Requirement Specification
In order to design and implement an efficient system, there are some basic requirements that are crucial and must be considered; this system requirements includes the following:
- The system should have security access controls that enforce users to sign in before accessing any function or feature of the system.
- For any member to access the system he/she should be dully registered as a staff on this platform.
- The system should have a staff management page through which the system admin can dully administrate the entire system process.
- The system should be able to register task and allocate task appropriately
- The system should also allow users to maintain an online profile.
System Design
Designing a human resource management system entails translating the requirements specification into a physical form which requires using different patterns to realize the intended system.
Logical Design
The logical design converts the system requirements specification into system model, by implementing the major features of the system.
CHAPTER FOUR
SYSTEM IMPLEMENTATION
Introduction
This chapter focuses on the implementation of the system. The features of the implementation languages used in this research- PHP and MYSQL will be discussed extensively. The system testing strategies, the target computer requirements as well as the software maintenance issues that would arise in the system would be discussed also.
CHAPTER FVE
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION
Summary
The aim of this research is to create a human resource management system which will make human resource and task management in any organization more flexible and reliable. The existing types of human resource management were discussed and it was narrowed down to human resource leave application, accepting and rejecting leave by senior managers, staff management, task management, and roles management which is the main thrust of this project. The history of human resource management where highlighted. The system design was made suitable to the system requirements. Embedded in the system design is activity diagram which shows the activities and actions in the system. The implementation of the software was successful.
Conclusion
Human resource management System improves business activities in large, medium and small enterprise. Hence it is advised that all companies that deals with managing his/her human resources in Nigeria should adopt this system which is more reliable, flexible and result oriented.
The resulting software would be of benefit to individuals who which to manages his / in a firm
Recommendation
The software developed for the implementation of this research can be used by any company to manage staff and allocate task appropriately. The following recommendations are proposed:
- Admin should ensure to update staff records appropriate and administer roles to authorize personnel for leave approval.
- Admin should create passwords with long characters so as to make password hacking difficult.
- System users should ensure safekeeping of password since it provides access to the system.
REFERENCES
- Becker, B. E., & Huselid, M. A. (2006). Strategic human resource management: Where do we go from here? Journal of Management, 32(6), 898–925. [2].
- Becker, B. E., Huselid, M. A., & Ulrich, D. (2001). The HR scorecard: Linking people, strategy, and performance. Boston: Harvard Business School Press.
- Beckers, A. M., & Bsat, M. Z. (2002). A DSS classification model for research in human resource information systems. Information Systems Management, 19(3), 41–50.
- Bussler, L., & Davis, E. (2001/2002). Information systems: The quiet revolution in human resource management. Journal of Computer Information Systems, 42(2), 17–20.
- Greer, C. (1995). Strategy and human resources: A general managerial perspective. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.
- Haiyaf Salih Al- Amri ( No 2001).Human Resource Management practices and Performance Indicators in Hospitals
- Huselid, M. A., Becker, B. E., & Beatty, R. W. (2005). The workforce scorecard: Managing human capital to execute strategy. Boston: Harvard Business School Press.
- Huselid, M. A., Jackson, S. E., & Schuler, R. S. (1997). Technical and strategic human resource management effectiveness as determinants of firm performance. Academy of Management Journal,40, 171–188.