This article is written by Aditi Vaid pursuing Diploma in Labour, Employment and Industrial Laws for HR Managers. This article is edited by Shreya Pandey. 

This article has been published by Sneha Mahawar.​​

Introduction 

In today’s fast paced and competitive business environment, every organisation is seeking a way to enhance employee performance and productivity. To address this quest, companies are adopting different ways of implementing strong performance strategies to monitor employee progress and productivity. But have you ever thought about why there is so much stress on performance? Why has it become a buzzword in the business industry?

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Employee monetary benefits, career growth, and motivation all depend upon their work performance; in fact, organisation efficiency is also linked to employee performance. In other words, in most organisations, work is termed as performance. So what is the best approach to increasing employee as well as organisation performance?

In recent years, two systems that have gained the attention of various HR leaders and are considered effective in the organisation are HPWS (High Performance Work Systems) and  HRIS (Human Resources Information Systems). This article provides you with an understanding and impact of HPWS and HRIS. 

What is High Performance Work System (HPWS)

The High Performance Work System (HPWS) is a combination of all the HR activities implemented with the aim of enhancing organisation culture and employee experience. High competence and high involvement are the essence of executing HPWS, as it involves high performance work practices. Some of the characteristics of HPWS are –

  1. The purpose of using HPWS is to adopt people orientated human practices instead of process oriented.
  2. The culture of HPWS emphasises employee involvement and reflects a work environment of trust, cooperation rather than controlled and closed culture.
  3. Employees are encouraged to be highly competent and constantly engaged in productive work activities.
  4. Managers play a key role in implementing a high performance work system in the organisation. It is the manager’s duty to act as a coach for their employees and guide them periodically. Manager must set the clear expectations from their employees and inform them how their goals are aligned to organisational goals

Examples of High Performance Work Systems (HPWS) 

  1. Organisation culture- HPWS promotes a healthy work environment and open work culture. Employee empowerment is the essence of effective organisation culture under HPWS. The management encourages employees to put their ideas and innovations to boost business performance. They are involved in the business decision making process. Employees feel a sense of belongings, trust, and commitment which are critical for success in the modern organisation.
  1. Smart Hiring – Before initiating the recruitment process, ensure that all your actions must be aligned to your recruitment strategy then only it will be called Smart hiring. In today’s time there is high demand for talented candidates, and many companies are using several ways to attract these candidates. So you cannot expect great results in recruitment without adopting a good recruitment strategy and including attractive perks and benefits. It means the Talent acquisition manager must have a hiring plan (workforce plan) before actual work starts. Identify the open job requirements, regularly updated job descriptions, treating candidates as customer and have strong business relationship, providing some interview tips or tricks to the candidate before their round with the hiring manager, regular update your company’s social media pages, employee referral schemes and many more strategies can be in order to enforce smart and selective recruitment as a part of HPWS.
  1. Automation in HR – Humans and technology go hand in hand.  I don’t think any area, or industry left not using technologies in the form of software’s, tools, CRM etc. Whether it is a HR industry or manufacturing or hospitality or health & care etc. all are shifting to use technology in their work.  AI, Chat Bots, HRM’s , ERP’s all are buzzwords in the business world. Then why should the HR industry remain the last one to adopt technology? Actually, it is not. To smooth the work flow from bottom to top or vice versa, for creating employee experience many companies are moving from manual process to automation. This ultimately leads to high performance work culture in the companies who  are adopting automation in HR

Examples

During my career journey, I had the opportunity to handle two HR automation projects, which I thoroughly enjoyed and learned a lot from. So the management of my company wanted us to focus on automation in the onboarding and L&D functions. With the right plan of action, process flow, and people support, I successfully delivered automation for onboarding and learning and development functions. As a result, employee engagement has increased, onboarding has been hassle free with a consistent Net Promoter Score between 70 and 75, participation rates have improved from 90 to 95% in L&D activities, and it is easier to track and monitor learners’ progress.

Apart from the above examples, other HR activities include in HPWS  are-

  1. Analytics and Reporting– Providing insights on HR metrics to do diagnostic analytics, prescriptive and predictive analytics to the management to take the wise decision which promote business growth
  2. Competitive Compensation– Develop attractive compensation benefits that rewards employees for their efforts and recognition to increase retention
  3. Performance Management– PMS must be planned, monitored, observed, and documented. Managers play a crucial role in driving effective PMS, as they act as a mentor or coach for the employees to improve employee job performance and productivity, and provide them feedback.
  4. Comprehensive Development Plans– HR and leaders identify the gap skills and plan training programs to boost employee productivity as well as organisation performance. 

Impact of HPWS on employee performance

  1. Open communication

HPWS promotes open communication flow  from bottom to top which means employees to management openly communicate ideas, share views, and are involved in important business decision making processes. 

  1. Boost Business productivity and employee performance 

The implementation of a high performance system in an organisation leads to high motivation in employees which results in improvement in performance and boosts productivity. Happy, well trained, motivated workforce work hard for their own performance and benefit of the company.

  1. Organisation performance

As organisational performance is directly linked to employees performance hence, as the employee performance increases, overall organisation performance also goes up. Hence, an employee’s motivation and contributions results in the company’s success.

  1. Increase employee engagement 

It has been researched that companies using HPWS in their HR practices, have higher employee engagement than others. An individual in the company  knows what he is doing and why he is doing and how his efforts are important to the organisation goals. Employees have a  clear understanding of their goals and objectives and how they are part of the organisation’s bigger goals. Continuous constructive feedback from their managers helps them  to enhance their potential and achieve goals.

  1.  Employee fast career growth

When we develop comprehensive training programs keeping business growth and employee’s skill gap in mind , it results in higher job satisfaction among the employees. Regular L&D activities including training, enablement programs, workshops help in upskilling employees, increase confidence to take additional responsibilities , and give monetary benefits. Highly competent employees are likely to attract more salary than unskilled employees.

  1. Compensation and Benefits 

Developing systematic and attractive compensation and benefits systems has a great impact on employee’s performance and organisational productivity. It helps in attracting top talent, increase employee retention, promote positive culture and enhance employee well –being.

With the change in time and trends in the HR industry, it is significant to adopt people’s approaches and execute strategic HR activities  in order to enforce a High performance work system in the organisation. This can be a powerful and effective way to succeed in a competitive business environment if used with the right approach.

HRIS and its impact on employee performance 

Introduction and HRIS concepts

In traditional HR practices, any information related to HR, any query, or  any request is addressed solely by a HR practitioner or HR expert in the company. However, with the increase in business complexity, the HR industry is getting more advanced and quick  too. Companies are widely choosing HR software to make the people process more efficient and effective for the employee experience.

Human Resource Information Systems (HRIS), here “systems,“ refers to HR information processes conducted electronically or digitally. HR software or an online HR solution that is intended to centralise all HR data, provide employee self- services and manage employee data.

What is HRIS

HRIS stands for Human Resource Information System. It is a software solution that collects, stores, maintains, manages, and processes employees’ detailed information and data. It encompasses the basic functions that are needed for end-to-end HRM. It is a “two-way street,” wherein the data of employees is delivered into the system, and, conversely, sent back to employees. This system eliminates paper-based manual procedures. It provides seamless, streamlined, efficient, and direct interaction between employees and the company. This system lowers the burden on HR professionals so that they can focus on strategic and high-value work processes for the company’s growth and better performance.

Some of the prominent HRIS systems are Workday, Oracle’s PeopleSoft, SAP’s SuccessFactors, Ultimate Software, Ceridian, and ADP, etc    

The HRIS Analyst supports HRIS by researching and resolving problems. It acts as a liaison between business parts such as finance and payroll.

SAP is an Enterprise Resource System that keeps a track of a company’s resources such as financial assets, etc. SuccessFactors is a module of SAP’s HRIS. It is any knowledge, skill, trait, personality, or other personal characteristics that are required of the applicants for the job or role. It also differentiates solid from superior performance. Success factors are of two types: behavioral and technical. Behavioural are the personal characteristics that specify how to perform the job or role. The technical factor includes the technical knowledge or skill needed to perform the job or role effectively.

Stages for HRIS implementation

Following are the stages of HRIS implementation:

  1. Search- To identify the needs of the stakeholders and select appropriate HRIS providers.
  2. Plan and align- In this stage an implementation team and a steering committee. Steering committee comprises senior delegates from the chosen HRIS provider, HR director of the company or business, internal project manager, and a senior user from the business or company.
  3. Define and design- In this stage, user groups, procedure and work flow is defined. 
  4. Configure and test- In this stage there is a need to create a core test team to check and verify the HRIS and provide feedback for potential improvements.
  5. Train and communicate- Technical staff needs to be trained. A communication plan, Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs), and support documents need to be prepared.
  6. Deploy and sustain- After following the above mentioned procedures, HRIS can finally be launched. There is always a scope of improvement, therefore, constant feedback and updating training material is important.   

Impact of a High Performance Work System on employee performance

  1. Increase Process Efficiency

HRIS plays the most important role in streamlining the HR process. With the use of HRMS tools, processes become more organised and smooth to manage. Multiple HR activities can easily be managed with the help of these tools. This leads to an increase in process efficiency which can’t be ignored as it is one of the approaches to develop employee experience.

  1. Increase Employee empowerment 

HRIS brings automation in HR practices that make the entire function faster, smoother and error free. People expect timely and accurate responses from HR on their concerns. The HR software helps in closing employee concerns and queries faster than the manual process. It takes care of HR administrative work and allows HR focusing on strategic HR decisions. Also, a portal like employee self service enables employees to refer, update, edit or access their documents without any dependency on the HR team. By giving employees easy access to their information, HRIS empowers them to control their career decisions leading to increase in job satisfaction and motivation.

  1. Increase Employee Productivity/Engagement 

Because of the multiple features and work capabilities, HRIS helps in increasing employee engagement. Employees and other stakeholders can track the level of work engagement and act accordingly. Learning Management Software or Performance Management modules help employees to keep a track of their performance, provide measures to fill the skill gaps, ultimately lead to increase in career growth.

Conclusion 

This article concludes and makes it very clear that HPWS and HRIS systems have a powerful impact on overall organisation performance. First, HR experts must develop the HR policies and procedures aligned to HPWS systems and then by introducing HRIS in the organisation, unlock the capabilities and potential of employees to contribute to the company success.

Reference

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