Page 34 - DMGT106_MANAGING_HUMAN_ELEMENTS_AT_WORK

Managing Human Element at Work

Notes As mentioned in the introduction, the investments to implement e-HRM technologies are
high. Organizations thus have reasons to implement these technologies otherwise the
investments would not be justifiable. What are organizations trying to achieve with these
technologies? What are the goals of the implementation of e-HRM technologies?
Organizations strive for different goals to be achieved with the implementation of e-HRM
technologies. For recruitment, organizations are utilising their own web sites ever better
because of the rising costs of web advertising and decreasing ease of finding qualified
applicants. Some organizations strive to free HR professionals for more strategic tasks.

The HR professionals are enabled to spent more time on strategic aspects of HRM when are
freed from administrative day-to-day activities. Other organizations strive for a better
overall financial performance. A typical argument for the adoption of e-HRM technologies
is:

Use e-HRM and your organization can reduce process and administration costs. Fewer HR
professionals are needed because e-HRM eliminates the “HR middleman”. Furthermore,
e-HRM speeds up transaction processing, reduces information errors, and improves the
tracking and control of HR actions. Thus e-HRM improves service delivery.
There exists however a scientific framework of goals for justifying the implementation of
e-HRM technologies. This framework of e-HRM goals developed, it is based on the four
pressures placed on the contemporary HR department identified by Lepak and Snell and is
also focussed on the improvement of the HR system. The HR departments are forced to look
for alternative paths for the delivery of HR activities to meet the increasing demands placed
on the HR departments. These demands, or pressures, are:
• The increasingly strategic role of the HR departments.
• The greater demand of flexibility.
• The pressure to be as efficient as possible.

• Maintain the role as service provider to managers and employees.
These four pressures are reduced to three types of goals for the adoption of e-HRM technologies
to improve the HR system. However, in the case study conducted within five international
companies by the same authors, a fourth type of goal was found. The companies involved in
the case study had chosen standardisation and harmonisation of HR policies and practices as
a condition for globalisation. Globalisation was a driver for centralising HR policies
responsibilities at company headquarters, while responsibilities for applying HR responsibilities
were actually decentralised. e-HRM can be of support in integrating the dispersed HR function.
The four types of goals for organizations making steps towards e-HRM are therefore:
• Cost reduction/efficiency gains.
• Client service improvement/facilitating management and employees.
• Improving the strategic orientation of HRM.
• Allowing integration of a dispersed HR function (of different organizational units or
entire organizations).
2.4.1 Unfolding the e-HRM Goals

Although public organizations have other characteristics than private organizations, it is
expected that the e-HRM goals of public organizations are the same as those of private
organizations. Therefore, the e-HRM goals are used as a starting point for identifying the
e-HRM goals of the organizations involved in this research.

The e-HRM goals identified above could be related to the suggestion.

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