New Network Can Streamline Hiring Process Service Gives Quick Answers To Human Resource Questions
The computer revolution, which has transformed so many areas of business, has reached another: human resource departments.
In the next few years, technology will speed up and, in most cases, simplify administrative tasks such as hiring and giving raises. It will also enable companies to keep closer tabs on what’s happening in the marketplace and to communicate more quickly with one another about a broad variety of personnel issues.
It’s already happening at a few Silicon Valley companies.
Cisco Systems, for example, is implementing a pilot project that will replace paper forms used in a variety of human resource functions with their electronic equivalents.
No longer will managers seeking to hire someone wonder where their job requisitions stand in the approval process. Instead, they can call them up instantly on their workstations.
And when managers allocate the money they have for raises, they won’t have to wrestle with calculators and salary planning worksheets that always seem to produce results that are either way over or under budget. Instead, they’ll be able to call up on their workstations a spreadsheet-like program that provides and calculates information related to employees who work for them.
The goal is to improve managers’ productivity, says John Radford, director of human resource corporate programs for Cisco. That’s also the reason human resource departments of 24 high-tech companies, most of them local, are testing a network created by Radford Associates, a benefits consulting and surveying subsidiary of Alexander & Alexander Consulting Group. (John Radford was one of the founders of Radford Associates but no longer works for the firm.)
The network is expected to help human resource executives in two ways: by allowing them to provide - and receive - survey data more quickly and easily; and by making it easier for human resource employees to communicate directly with each other.
High-tech companies, like those in many industries, develop compensation and benefit programs based on what others are paying for comparable jobs. The companies often get that information by participating in a survey conducted by a third party, which combines the data from many companies and summarizes it.
Traditionally, companies provide that information on paper or on computer disks and are given thick paper reports. That process can take four to six months, “not anywhere near real time,” says Bruce Schlegel, compensation and benefits manager for 3Com.
The Radford Network, the system being tested, allows companies to provide and receive the information electronically and may cut that time in half, Schlegel says.
This network will also allow human resource executives to communicate more easily than they can by phone.
Say, for example, that your company is creating a new position - perhaps manager of the firm’s activities on the World Wide Web, or Webmaster, as they’re called. Many companies are adding this position, and they wonder how to specify the duties and determine salary and benefits.
Normally, human resource managers would try to phone colleagues at other companies, a hit-and-miss process. With the Radford Network, a manager can pose a question and wait for responses to come in.