HR and IT departments

The HR and IT departments have nothing much in common. One is geared towards building relationships with employees and managing them, while the other deals with building the kind of IT infrastructure that keeps a company going. Yet, when the management decides that the HR department should start using a new HRMS, confusion prevails.

The HR team often doesn’t understand the IT requirements and the IT department, which usually chooses the HRMS, does not understand the specific requirements of a company’s HR department. In order to bring a balance with these seemingly different departments of an organization, one must consider how best to meet the goals of both the departments.

What does the HR department need?
The HR department is responsible for recruiting the best talent available, making sure that they have an environment in which they can be productive, and making sure that day-to-day transactions between the organization and employees are kept frictionless. The HR department also takes care of employee termination, health insurance and other such matters pertaining to employees.
Whether an HR department has to manage personnel records or keep payroll records up-to-date, a robust HRMS is usually necessary. The HR department thus requires a software program that can help them to manage people better. An HRMS tool aims to reduce the workload of the HR department and ensure that most tasks are automated, if they can be.

What does the IT department do?
The IT department on the other hand, has to keep abreast with the latest in technology. They have to ensure that the company’s IT infrastructure does not fail. When an organization chooses to implement HRMS, the IT department usually gets to decide which one is better and how it can be implemented across departments.
IT departments also ensure that valuable data is not leaked outside the company and they take care of companies’ security and privacy interests as well. Moreover, they customize, fix and replace an organization’s software programs and the hardware that are being used.

How do we ensure that both the teams are happy?
In order to meet the goals of both the IT department and the HR department, there should be a brainstorming session. Both the IT and HR managers should discuss amongst themselves the requirements. Usually, it is better for the HR managers to provide a list of requirements to their IT counterparts, so that the IT managers can find an HRMS that best suits their needs.
Always, this process is a joint effort. Consultations need to be made between both the teams. Both the teams must have an ongoing relationship within the organization to ensure that the interface can be used easily by everyone, no matter how proficient or non-proficient an employee is, when it comes to using computers.

Brainstorm for success
It is not difficult to ensure that both IT and HR departments are kept satisfied. The only key is to get them to work together, before, during and after implementing HRMS. Decision makers have to ensure is that both the teams have an ongoing conversation about day-to-day issues that may occur while using an HRMS.
Brainstorming together is the key to making both IT and HR departments happy. If you are planning to complement HRMS in your organization, make sure both your IT and HR teams consult with each other, all the time. When there is a two-way communication between the HR and IT departments, HRMS implementations will succeed.