HR+Portals

 **//HR Portals//**


 * //To the HR Executive Team://**

My colleague and I first want to thank you for bringing us in to help you understand the value of HR portals for your business. Throughout our investigation and report of HR portal technology we will look at the development of HR portals by organizations to help streamline basic HR processes and allow employees to self-serve various HR tasks. We will look at some big name HR portal service providers, and see how portals are being utilized today by different organizations. We will also look at the different ways which an HR portal can be used, from basic tasks such as attendance and personal information updating, to much more strategic utilizations such as for applicant tracking, benefits, and recruiting. A few links to major HR portal websites will also be included, showing snapshots of different portals available for use today in various organizations. Another piece to look into will be the competitive advantage that could be had by organizations utilizing HR portals in an efficient and beneficial way. Finally, throughout our analysis we will of course look into the financial justification of utilizing HR portal technology, and highlight savings and cost benefits you will reap from implementation of this emerging technology.

To begin with we would like to give you an overview of what exactly a HR portal is, and provide you with some information on both the strengths and weaknesses of this technology. HR portals provide organizations the opportunity to integrate traditional HR activities with all other aspects of the organization, all at one convenient location. Proper use of HR portals eliminate wasted resources, empower employees, remove the isolated silos typically found in HR departments, and overall build a level of trust throughout the organization with your HR department that couldn’t be achieved without this technology (Karakanian, 2000).

There are, however, a few issues with HR portal implementation that we need to bring to your attention. We realize that all of your employees may not be computer savvy and might be initially resistant to the use of this new technology. Aside from this, the other major drawback would be the integration of your current data with this new portal. To address this we will include some websites that manage the implementation of the portal on the IT side, as well as provide you with a model to help manage the change that was successfully used by Hewlett Packard when they implemented their portal solution. In the end, we believe that the benefits of the HR portal will override any issues you might face during the implementation process. A quick reference of different websites that provide support for this type of organizational/human resource development that you might find helpful can be found in the document below:

media type="custom" key="4662777" So what are the benefits? The uses of an HR portal are vast, ranging from simple personal data updating, financial and investment tools, training schedules and resume storage, and e-recruiting and applicant tracking, all the way through strategic distribution of personnel and other vital resources. The ability to have all of this at your employees fingertips at one convenient log-in location provides financial benefits as well, from cutting down time spent by HR employees on daily tasks, to eliminating the need for paper forms. All of which ends up saving you money in the long run and justifies the initial expense necessary to implement a HR portal technology in your organization. We will include some external website links at the end of our investigative report to companies that specialize in implementing, training, and supporting HR portal technology in businesses such as yours. We now want to highlight how two companies, Microsoft and IBM, have both successfully implemented HR portal systems and immediately reaped the benefits not only in the increased efficiency of their HR functions but also in the cost savings aspect the technology provided. We understand that your organization is not as large as these companies, but by showing how large companies managed the change and pulled off the implementation successfully we hope to show how utilizing this technology is very achievable and will provide benefits to your organization even if it is on a slightly smaller scale.

Microsoft implemented an HR portal technology throughout their company in hopes of reducing time spent by HR managers within the organization on performing various daily HR tasks and eliminating the extensive use of paper in the HR department. We bring this up specifically as we are aware that you currently house your HR data in paper files stored in cabinets that are taking up valuable space and are very costly/labor intensive to maintain. Microsoft’s portal allowed individual employees to perform various functions on their own, including vacation/sick-time reporting, secure payroll functions (such as direct deposit setup), as well as tracking their investments with online tools such as benefit packages, 401K plans, and an employee stock purchase program. Through this portal implementation alone, Microsoft has streamlined numerous HR processes, eliminating over 200 paper forms and saving the organization over $1 million annually (Institute of Management & Administration, 2001).

Similar to Microsoft, IBM has also recently undergone a successful implementation of a HR portal system. The portal has been so successful in streamlining HR functions across their organization that IBM now offers a commercial E-HR portal solution they call IBM WebSphere Portal software (IBM, 2006). We have included the report on this software solution in our analysis for you to look over: media type="custom" key="4662807" We believe this report shows the many tangible benefits of a portal solution for your HR needs, both in the reduction of time and effort needed to carry HR functions from an employee level, as well as the financial savings your organization will realize by utilizing this technology.

Before moving on to how we would recommend handling the change management aspect of implementing a HR portal technology we wanted to give you an idea of how the portal could physically look to your employees when they log on to the website. Just to give you a visual idea of how a portal manifests itself as an end-user interface we have included a snapshot of a portal my colleague and I are very familiar with, the portal web page from our Alma-mater the University of Albany (University at Albany, 2009):

In the same way that we were able to find any information we needed as well as update our personal information in this one location with a single log-in screen, your employees would be able to access any data they needed to self-serve any functions necessary, including but not limited to all functions listed earlier when we discussed the Microsoft portal implementation.

As mentioned earlier, now that benefits (both functional and financial) and a visual idea of what a HR portal can offer have been reviewed, we would like to make suggestions as how to manage the change of implementing this technology in your organization. This is a crucial step in the process should you decide to implement a portal solution. Even if the IT side of the implementation goes perfectly, the overall competitive advantage of utilizing this technology will never be realized if your employees are not on board with the change. We would first like to show you a visual framework utilized by Hewlett-Packard when implementing their HR portal technology. This model clearly depicts how employee acceptance to the implementation of this IT technology is important to achieve and understand before the actual use of the technology will be accepted in the organization (Ruta, 2005):

In addition to this model, HP also utilized a widely accepted three step plan to manage the change throughout the implementation of the HR portal technology, originally published by K. Lewin in 1947. The first step was //unfreezing//. During this step it is important to make all of your employees aware of the change, and clearly show how this technology will provide benefits not only to the organization as a whole, but to the individual employees as well. The next step, named the //moving// step, involves getting your employees used to the new technology and developing new behaviors that incorporate the use of the new HR portal technology. Finally the last step, //refreezing//, is the step in which you need to ingrain this new technology into the culture of the company to help make the change stick (Ruta, 2005). This three step process for managing the change of implementing a new IT service, such as a HR portal solution, has been used successfully in several organizations and we recommend that you look into this methodology as well when undergoing your implementation.

We have now covered the benefits and change management strategies for what we believe should be a successful implementation of your own HR portal solution. We have also brought to your attention how different well-known organizations have also successfully implemented HR portals and are now reaping the benefits that your organization soon could be. My colleague and I want to provide you with a few helpful websites that we mentioned at the beginning of our report that will help facilitate the implementation process of a HR portal should you choose to go in this direction:
 * S mall business human resource portal deployment/integration/support/consulting services:

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 *  Online HR Portal containing job postings for HR professionals. Your organization could use a similar type portal for posting jobs internally in your company:

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 *  This website explains the use of HR Portal for recruiting the top talent. Gives several links to ways to enhance the effectiveness of HR through internet technologies:

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Lastly we have included a short series of 10 steps developed by John Wuich, Vice President and National Client Manager of ADP, in which he describes how you can get the most out of your newly implemented employee self-service HR portal:

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My colleague and I sincerely hope that we have provided you with the necessary information to make an informed decision about your implementation of a HR portal technology solution at your organization. We believe that with proper planning and leadership that you will successfully reap all of the benefits that this emerging technology can offer to your business.

=Works Cited = Hexaware Technologies. (n.d.). //Human Resource Information Technology//. Retrieved October 25, 2009, from HR Portals and Self Service: http://www.hexaware.com/new_hrportal.htm HR Portal Inc. (n.d.). //Human Resource Portal//. Retrieved October 25, 2009, from Human Resource Portal: http://www.hrportal.com/ HR Village. (n.d.). //Human Resource Village//. Retrieved October 25, 2009, from http://www.hrvillage.com/human-resources/ IBM. (2006). //E-HR: Increasing Human Resources Efficiency With a Proven Portal Solution.// Cambridge: IBM Corporation. Institute of Management & Administration. (2001). How Microsoft Built a Cost Effective HR Portal. //HR Focus//, 4-6. Institute of Management & Administration. (2004). Ten Ways to Get the Most From Self-Service. //HR Focus//, 5-7. Karakanian, M. (2000). Are Human Resource Departments Ready for E-HR? //Information Systems Management//, 35-39. Ruta, C. D. (2005). The Application of Change Management Theory to HR Portal Implementation in Subsidiaries of Multinational Corporations. //Human Resource Management// //, 44// (1), 35-53. SME Toolkit. (n.d.). //Small Business HR Portal Solutions//. Retrieved October 25, 2009, from Small Business HR Portal Solutions: http://us.smetoolkit.org/us/en/content/en/2207/Small-Business-Human-Resources-Portal University at Albany. (2009, October 25). //My UAlbany//. Retrieved October 25, 2009, from My UAlbany: http://www.albany.edu/myualbany/ Zhang, K. (2003). Web Sites for Human Resource Development and Organizational Behavior. //Journal of Business & Finance Librarianship//, 181-186.