Table of Contents
Introduction
Gone are the days when Human Resource Department (HRD) is merely in charge of hiring and benefits administration. With growing uncertainty in the economic environment and tightening competitive business situation, HR practitioners and business leaders are called to bring HRD at the forefront of strategic management to be able to contribute to the bottom line. The restaurant industry is no exception to this move.
HR experts project that the restaurant industry will be facing a challenging environment ahead, particularly in attaining and sustaining success. A key part of this goal is in hiring the right people. They recognize that while there is an abundance of people seeking employment, not all of them have the right skills and attitude that fit a restaurant business, or a specific restaurant company’s culture for that matter.
To focus on finding and retaining the right person for the business, HR departments are encouraged to pursue technological innovation. By moving away from paper-driven HR processes, and adopting Human Resource Information System or HRIS, HR leaders will be able to direct more efforts on strategic human resource management (Koteff, 2012).
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Business Assessment
The need for HRIS is exemplified in Castle’s Family Restaurant case. The business is in the middle-of-the-road position, and appears to have stagnated. It has eight restaurants across Northern California. Currently, it employs 300-340 employees; of which about 40% are full time and 60% are part time. To save on costs, the operations manager, Jays Morgan, also serves as the HR manager. Given his work condition, he spends a significant portion of his time performing HR functions rather than strategizing on how to grow the business.
Among his tasks include visiting each branch on a weekly basis to manage scheduling, recruiting, hiring, and responding to employees’ inquiries. He also oversees payroll through excel spreadsheet and a computer application for printing payroll checks. Occasionally, he receives complaints on delayed payout or error in benefits, i.e., vacation.
Aside from being overwhelmed with his paper-driven and manual HR processes, Mr. Morgan is concerned by the high turn-over of the employees and growing dissatisfaction among them when it comes to getting timely information on their benefits administration. He is also aware of some serious customer feedbacks about poor customer service in a three of the restaurant’s locations.
Identified Problems
Based on Castle Family Restaurant’s case, aside from not having a manager devoted to strategic HR management, the following are its identified major HR problems (Banach, 2015):
a. Compensation, benefits and rewards administration. This aspect of Mr. Morgan’s HR function is time-consuming given that he has to do it by himself and the process is mostly manual. This has caused his attention to be diverted from his other important responsibility, which is to strategize on how to grow the business. On the employees’ side, the slow process and possibly poor information system, i.e., on their scheduling and benefits, could be one of the main causes contributing to their work dissatisfaction.
b. Human resource planning. It is assumed that one of the root causes of the business’ high employee turn-over is the lack of information system that would facilitate monitoring and quick decision making when it comes to manpower scheduling and recruitment/hiring process. Since this is manually recorded in excel spreadsheets, the current system is prone to error.
c. Training and Development. Castle Family Restaurant currently has no formal training program for its employees. Since excellence in delivering customer satisfaction is crucial in ensuring the success of a restaurant business, they may need to institute a training and development program suited to the company’s vision, mission and values that it wants to advocate to the community it serves.
HRIS Needs Assessment
Given above HR challenges faced by Castle’s Family Restaurant, the following are its HRIS needs assessment (Rietsema, 2015):
a. Payroll and Benefit System. By automating its payroll and benefits system, the company would be able to efficiently manage its HR costs, as it would have the technology to track and control it in a timely manner. This may also eliminate the need to constantly travel in each branch as each branch manager would have the capability to manage their own manpower scheduling. Moreover, if the company would install an intranet where all employees can have access on their benefits information, it would help eliminate work dissatisfaction.
b. HR Compliance and Recruitment. This HRIS module could provide the solution for the company’s hiring needs. It can also facilitate the need of having the right/flexible database that would enable management have the employee reports they need to make strategic decisions on recruitment and hiring, as well as in ensuring compliance to labor regulations. For instance, it may lead to critical decision whether having 40% full time and 60% part time employee ratio is suited for the business requirement.
Integrated with the payroll system, some key insights on year over year HR cost may be obtained and enable decisions to be made on what measures can be done for improvement.
c. Training on Development. Depending on the business’ investment capability and business objectives, Castle’s Family Restaurant may opt to acquire a system for Training and Development HRIS module that could assist in the company’s training needs. This system can be used to facilitate annual performance review of employees, identify and track training needs of each employee, enable employees to pursue company training programs addressing their needs, and ultimately, build up core talent in the organization that could propel the company to a higher level of performance.
Conclusion
HRIS can provide the technological solution for HR practitioners/ business leaders to be able to respond appropriately and swiftly to their operational needs, in terms of managing human resources more efficiently and effectively. It is important however, to choose the right HRIS that would fit the company needs (Heathfield, 2015).
In the case of Castle’s Family Restaurant, aside from addressing its immediate HR administrative problems, it is critical to pick an HRIS that could be customized to cater to its vision, mission and values, as well as business objective of bringing the company’s performance to the next level. While the investment may entail initial capital outlay, it could be well worth it in the long-term to ensure and sustain success.
References
- Banach, A. (2015). The Roles of Human Resource Information Systems in Human Resource
- Planning. Demand Media. Chron. Retrieved from http://smallbusiness.chron.com/roles-human-resource-information-systems-human-resource-planning-66487.html
- Heathfield, S.M. (2015). Human Resources Information System (HRIS). Retrieved from http://humanresources.about.com/od/glossaryh/a/hris.htm\
- Koteff, E. (Jan 2012). HR Homeruns. Human Resources: FSR. Retrieved from https://www.fsrmagazine.com/human-resources/hr-homeruns
- Rietsema, D. (2015). What is HRIS? Retrieved from http://www.hrpayrollsystems.net/hris/
