Technology for Human Resources Management: Seven Questions and Answers

Abstract

Public management is slowly being transformed by information technology. Technology today is the driver of new government processes for dealing with citizens and suppliers. But it is also reshaping important functions and processes that only those inside government may care about such as accounting, payroll, and personnel administration. Taken together, the internal and external impact of new technologies is changing the way governments manage and make decisions.1 This article examines the current state and future trends in human resource management systems (HRMS). Such systems are related to a broader “digital government” effort that seeks to apply technology to streamline government processes. The underlying architecture for digital government is the Internet and integrated administrative management systems (which are more commonly known as enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems). This article describes the technology and functional features of such systems and focuses specifically on the business benefits provided by the human resource management system (HRMS) components. Questions examined include: ▪ What are the challenging issues facing HRMS? ▪ What is the current state of HRMS technology? ▪ What is ERP? How is it related to HRMS? ▪ What are the major technology features of modern systems? ▪ What specific functions are encompassed by HRMS? ▪ What are the major business benefits of modern HRMS? ▪ What are some of the major risk factors in implementing HRMS solutions?