Feature
Developing HR Technology
Skills for the 21st Century:
The Importance of HRIS
Education
By Richard D. Johnson, Ph.D., HRIP, Hal G. Gueutal, Ph.D. and
Janet H. Marler, Ph.D., University at Albany, SUNY
“As e-HR technology and applications expand and
practice continues to change, so must the skill sets
required for career success in HR.” (Gueutal, Marler &
Falbe, 2007, p.10)
his statement is probably truer today than it was
even five years ago. Technology is continuing to
evolve at what can seem like an ever-increasing rate.
Human Resources technology, which started out as
“simple,” mainframe-based systems with limited capabilities, are now complex, Web-enabled enterprise systems
that are increasingly integrated with all HR and organizational processes. For example, at the dawn of the millennium, few could have imagined that our phones would
become a major source of our daily information or that
Web-enabled social networking tools would become an
important component of an organization’s HR strategy.
According to a recent report by the Society of Human
Resource Management (SHRM), this technological evolution is driving several key trends in HR delivery and practice, such as the increased use of social media, a shift from
“on-premise” software solutions to cloud-based solutions,
the growth in compliance, and the use of business intelligence tools (Johnson & Gueutal, 2011).
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To these trends, we would add the increasing adoption
of HRIS by smaller organizations. Whereas on-premise
solutions were often too expensive for smaller firms, the
growing popularity of Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) and
cloud computing means that even organizations with fewer
than 10 employees are able to quickly gain access to capabilities that they previously could not afford. More
employees, HR professionals, and organizations are now
affected by HRIS than ever before. In response to these
changes, additional roles are emerging for HR professionals. These new roles focus on tasks such as aligning HRIS
services with HR and organizational strategies, managing
technological change and software implementations,
managing vendor and outsourcing relationships, and
ensuring that software applications are regularly updated
to support compliance with ever-changing state and
federal regulations such as the new health care laws
(Gueutal, Marler, & Falbe, 2007). To perform these new
roles, HR professionals will need additional HRIS-related
skills. Moreover, because these skills will continue to
change as technology evolves, HR professionals will need
to be adaptable and committed to continuous learning.
New Skills for HR and HRIS Professionals
What skills will be most valuable to HR professionals in
the next few years? We interviewed three highly successful, technically sophisticated HR professionals at different
career stages and in different types of organizations to get
their perspectives. These included Roy Wood, a senior
executive at HCL-AXON, Jeff Miller, a senior manager at
Deloitte Consulting, and Katie Garippa, an HR generalist
with Time Warner Cable. Taken together, they provide an
insightful perspective on the changing e-HR workplace.
We briefly provide their answers to the question, “What
skills, experience, or knowledge do you feel will be most
important for HR technology professionals five years from
today?” We also urge you to read their perspectives in the
online version of this article at http://www.ihrimpublications.com/.
Roy Wood
Five years from today, HR technology professionals
are going to have to be very knowledgeable in the
analytics side of HR information. As an industry, we
have moved from implementation to support/upgrades
and in the future to having a keen focus on getting the
most of all this data that’s been collected and manipulated for the past 20 or so years. Analyzing data is key
for future competitive advantages and this will fall on
the HR technologist to manage. It’s another great
opportunity for HR to show their value to their corporate peers. In addition, mobile devices in HR will be
critical in five years time. Being able to put data at
employee finger tips in real-time wherever they are,
whenever they need it, is going to result in some challenges for the HR professional. The skills to support are
the same as they were 20 years ago – learning on the
fly, dealing with ambiguity, technical learning, innovation management – but the stakes will be higher as
more business value will be expected quicker, cheaper,
and in a way not disruptive to the core business.
In addition, five years from today the working population will be very different. There will be more international players, resulting in immigration and visa-type
issues. There will be more remote workers with no tie to
a home base, and there will be a bigger focus on social
networking – changing everything from the recruiting
process to data privacy. The HR professional is going to
be expected to be on top of all of these areas, as well as
keep up with changing laws (which is very dependent
on the current presidential administration and composition of congress).
Jeff Miller
First and foremost are the basics outlined in the earlier
question: Projects and methods to approach them,
problem solving, HR functional area knowledge, and
hands-on technology experience. In the next few years, I
believe we will see continued focus on reduction of HR in
size and scope, along with significantly more emphasis on
technology and positioning of self-service. To that end,
HR technology professionals will need to be much better
versed in the functional areas of HR, delivery models,
and the technology options and deployment strategies
that best support business objectives.
Katie Garippa
Web 2.0 (social networks, blogs, wikis, etc.) will
continue to be critical to HR professionals, especially in
the areas of recruitment, branding and employee
communications. Human Resources professionals must
be able to gather, analyze and provide timely information to business leaders in order to proactively impact
organizational change. Organizations should constantly
look for new technologies to better their overall
programs and to stay competitive.
Based on the results of our interviews with these HR
professionals, as well as our review of the trends in HR
technology, we have briefly outlined five skills that will
grow in importance to HR professionals in the coming
years.
1. HR Analytics and Metrics Skills – Accurate,
timely, and actionable HR metrics are key to assessing HR’s contribution to organizational effectiveness.
Despite the capabilities available in today’s HRIS,
organizations often still use simple, cost-oriented
metrics based upon the most conveniently retrieved
data, rather than determining the most appropriate
It is not simply enough to ask
sophisticated questions and develop
better metrics.
metrics for a given setting. With better analytics and
metric skills, HR professionals can more effectively
communicate the key human capital drivers of
success to managers, and work with them to develop
metrics that focus on business value, organizational
effectiveness and return on investment (ROI).
2. SQL and Reporting Skills – It is not simply
enough to ask sophisticated questions and develop
better metrics. Human Resources professionals will
increasingly need to know where the data is stored,
how to extract the data from the system, and how to
present this data in a form appropriate to each
manager’s needs. Unlike early metrics, the most
informative and effective metrics today are complex
calculations requiring sophisticated queries. Human
Resources professionals will increasingly use
advanced tools such as report generators and structured query language (SQL) to generate these
metrics.
3. Social Networking Skills – Organizations are
increasingly using social networking tools such as
Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, blogs, and wikis in the
marketing, sales, and support of products and
customers. Human Resources is also heavily utilizing
these tools in recruiting, selection, training, and
support of employee relations. The challenge is that
it is not simply enough for HR to make the tools
available in the organization. Instead, HR professionals increasingly need to understand when, where,
and how to use these tools to support HR, as well as
the legal implications of their use. New opportunities
and positions that focus on the use of these tools by
the HR function will continue to emerge.
4. HR Content and Strategy Knowledge – A key
requirement for HR professionals today is to couple
the specific, detailed, functional knowledge about
their organization’s HR practices with an understanding of how they fit within the broader organizational strategy. This skill-set becomes even more
critical for organizations implementing cloud-based
solutions, because these solutions are often based
upon general, industry-wide best practices and are
not customized for each organization’s specific
needs. Without in-house HR experts, the organization not only risks adopting an unsuitable HRIS,
which reduces productivity and effectiveness, but it
also risks the firm essentially “outsourcing” their HR
expertise to the vendor.
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tions, and Future Directions (Kavanagh, Thite, &
Johnson, 2011).
The implementation of any new
HRIS brings with it the need for
organizational change.
5. Change Management Skills – The implementation of any new HRIS brings with it the need for
organizational change. Organizations are most likely
to maximize the ROI of their HRIS when they are
able to match the technology change with an operational change. For this change to be successful, HR
professionals will need to have the knowledge necessary to help the organization navigate and implement
business process change. In addition, HR professionals will increasingly need skills in project management to support the change initiatives. Finally, HR
professionals will need to have interpersonal
communication and training skills to manage the
relationship with software vendors and consultants
to ensure that the process of adoption and implementation goes smoothly and the software meets the
needs of the organization. Change management skills
will only continue to grow in importance as organizations continually look for new ways of maximizing
their investment in HR technology.
Building Skills through HRIS Education
and Training
For HR professionals to successfully develop or
enhance their skills, they will need to have access to the
latest training. The challenge is that it is not feasible for
corporations to provide all the training necessary to meet
these needs. Instead, professional associations (such as
IHRIM and SHRM), universities, and individual HR
professionals will each need to make contributions. Let’s
highlight some of those contributions, beginning with
professional associations.
1. IHRIM’s CORE – This informal knowledge sharing
and social networking tool allows IHRIM members to
ask questions and receive answers on topics across
the HRIS spectrum.
2. The IHRIM Foundation promotes scholarships,
research, and education that drive innovation and the
use of technology in the support of HR.
3. Both IHRIM and SHRM regularly sponsor research
studies regarding the use of HR technology by organizations and publish these results for their members.
4. Members of both IHRIM and SHRM also publish
books on eHR, such as The e-HR Advantage
(Waddill & Marquardt, 2011), The Brave New World
of e-HR (Gueutal & Stone, 2005), and Human
Resource Information Systems: Basics, Applica-
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In addition to professional associations, universities are
making several important contributions to HRIS knowledge. First, they move the field forward through research.
For example, in the last 10 years, there have been over
200 scholarly articles focusing on the use of HR technology in organizations. The SHRM Foundation recently
published a research report which summarized some of
the key findings and their implications for the use of e-HR
in organizations (Johnson & Gueutal, 2011). The second
important way that universities are contributing to HRIS
knowledge is through formal education. For example, the
University at Albany offers an MBA concentration in HRIS
that is in alignment with SHRM's HR curriculum guidelines. In addition, over 50 universities throughout the
world offer courses on HRIS. Finally, HRIS content is
slowly being integrated into introductory and advanced
courses on HRIS.
Based on nearly three decades of experience teaching
MBA students about HR technology, we have found that
rigorous coursework alone is not sufficient. Students need
experience in working with HR technology in actual business settings. For example, in the Albany program,
students work one day per week over the academic year in
a wide range of corporate settings. This allows students to
better understand the application of HR technology to
real-world business challenges. These “field projects” are
highly rated both by organizations and students and are
recognized as one of the most important parts of their
educational program.
Investing by Giving Back
The most effective advances in HRIS knowledge will
come through significant investments of time, talent, and
resources by each of us as HR professionals. Although
there are certainly many ways for us to contribute to these
advances, we will focus on two specific areas which may
not be as obvious. First, invest your time by partnering
with a university that has a commitment to HRIS education. Few universities are able to deliver the level of HRIS
training they desire (Gueutal, Marler, Falbe, 2007) and
would value opportunities to partner with HR professionals and their companies.
The most effective advances in
HRIS knowledge will come through
significant investments of time, talent,
and resources by each of us as
individual HR professionals.
New trends in HR technology such
as social networking and cloud
computing are driving changes to the
skills needed by HR professionals.
Second, consider investing your resources by financially
supporting the IHRIM Foundation or a local university. By
doing this, you will be investing in research initiatives,
education initiatives, and the professional development of
the field. By investing financially at your local university,
you also support opportunities for student learning and
scholarships for those majoring in HRIS and benefit from
their education afterwards.
Conclusion
New trends in HR technology such as social networking
and cloud computing are driving changes to the skills
needed by HR professionals. Successful HR professionals
will need to continually look for opportunities to upgrade
their skills. But, for the field to successfully support our
professionals, a combination of formalized university
training, formalized professional training, and informal
knowledge sharing is needed. We must each actively invest
our time and resources into HRIS education, because
without our investments, there will be a shortage of skilled
and knowledgeable professionals who can inform organizations how to best leverage the potential of e-HR. What
knowledge and skills can you invest in our future?
References
H.G. Gueutal, J.H. Marler, & C.M. Falbe, “Skill Sets for
the e-HR World,” IHRIM Journal, XI (2), 9-15, 2007.
H.G. Gueutal & D.L. Stone (Eds.), The Brave New World
of eHR: Human Resources Management in the Digital Age,
San Francisco: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2005.
R.D. Johnson & H.G. Gueutal, Transforming HR
through technology: The use of eHR and human resource
information systems in organizations, SHRM Effective
Practices Guidelines Series, 2011.
M.J. Kavanagh, M. Thite & R.D. Johnson (Eds.),
Human Resource Information Systems: Basics, Applica-
tions, and Future Directions, (2 ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA:
SAGE Publications, 2011.
D. Waddill & M. Marquardt, The e-HR Advantage: The
Complete Handbook for Technology-Enabled Human
Resources, Boston: Nicholas Brealey Publishing, 2011.
About the Authors
Dr. Richard D. Johnson, HRIP, is an associate professor
of management at the University at Albany. He has
published more than 30 academic and practitioner articles
on topics such as e-HR, e-learning, and the psychological
and sociological impacts of technology at work. His
research has been published in leading journals such as
Information Systems Research, the International Journal
of Human-Computer Studies, and the Journal of Managerial Psychology. He is a co-author of the book, Human
Resource Information Systems: Basics, Applications, and
Future Directions. Dr. Johnson teaches courses on human
resources and HRIS in the MBA specialization at the
University at Albany. He can be reached at
drj_hris@verizon.net.
Dr. Hal G. Gueutal has published more than 50
academic and practitioner articles, and regularly speaks at
both scientific and practitioner conferences. Recently, he
co-edited The Brave New World of eHR, an invited
volume for the Society for Industrial and Organizational
Psychology’s (SIOP) Professional Practice Series and
served as editor for a special issue on HR technology for
the Journal of Managerial Psychology. His research has
been cited in publications ranging from The Wall Street
Journal to USA Today. Professor Gueutal leads the
Human Resource Information Systems MBA specialization
at the University at Albany. He can be reached at
h.gueutal@yahoo.com.
Dr. Janet Marler is an associate professor and Management Department chair at the University at Albany where
she also teaches MBA programs in HRIS, HR, and
Compensation Strategy. Her research centers on the
strategic use of HRIS, compensation strategy, and work
and family and has been published in several leading
academic journals and book chapters. She has served on
the Oracle and PeopleSoft Academic Advisory Boards. In
addition, she has presented her research related to e-HR
at national and international conferences. She earned her
Ph.D. from Cornell University. She can be reached at
jmarler@albany.edu.
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