Maintaining the HRMS
Chapter 7
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Human Resources Management
Systems: A Practical Approach
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By Glenn M. Rampton, Ian J. Turnbull, J.
Allen Doran
ISBN 0-459-56370-X
Carswell
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Maintaining the HRMS
General (Cont’d)
Successful implementation of a new
HRMS is often regarded as the
conclusion of a project, and,
indeed, it is. But it is not the
end of the larger issue of managing
human resource data, or of ensuring
that the system remains up-to-date,
and effective – it is the beginning
of this ongoing and continuous
maintenance process.
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Maintaining the HRMS (Cont’d)
No matter how good the hardware and software
contained within an HRMS are, nor how well
the project team has completed its
responsibilities, there will be problems and
issues arising. These “maintenance” issues
include continually monitoring the effectiveness
of, and upgrading or replacing hardware,
software, communications (networks), and
business processes.
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Maintaining the HRMS
General (Cont’d)
Unlike many software systems,
HRMS products are often updated
quarterly to accommodate
legislative changes. Each new
update, or “release” as they
are commonly known, brings the
potential for problems.
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Maintaining the HRMS
General (Cont’d)
Compounding these problems is
the fact that most HRMSs are
being used continuously, so
that it may be difficult or
impossible to shut the system
down for any length of time
while upgrades are being made
to it.
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Maintaining the HRMS
General (Cont’d)
Further, the project team which
was dedicated to the
implementation will probably no
longer exist; the members of
the team either moving on to
other projects or returning to
whatever job they held prior to
the commencement of the
project.
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Areas Requiring Maintenance
Hardware and Communications
 Software
 Business Processes
 Functional
 Technical
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Hardware and
Communications
Hardware and communications
network(s) – the physical body
and neural links of the HRMS –
require maintenance like any
other electrical or mechanical
device. They suffer from wear
and tear, and must be
maintained regularly or they
lose their effectiveness.
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Software Maintenance
Lientz and Swansen (1980)
categorize software
maintenance into three types:
 Corrective
 Adaptive
 Perfective
60%
25%
15%
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Software Maintenance
(Cont’d)

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Corrective maintenance is defined as fixing problems
which prevent the system from working as intended.
These are not just "bugs" (programming errors), but
also include poor definition of requirements, design
flaws, coding flaws (true bugs), and various other
problems.
Adaptive maintenance refers to modifications to the
HRMS in response to changes in technology,
government regulations or external forces.
Perfective maintenance is seen as modifications to
the system in response to user and/or technicians’
requests.
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Business Process Maintenance
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Just as software must be maintained, so
must the business processes of an
organization.
The individuals responsible for
maintaining an HRMS must continually
work to stay up-to-date with business,
human resources, and technical trends
and, in fact, be prepared to act as
proactive change agents in their areas
of responsibility.
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Functional Maintenance
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No sooner than a HRMS is implemented changes will occur.
Union agreements will be settled, court decisions will
require special reports or retroactive adjustments, and
so on.
Modern HRMSs are constructed with tables containing
information that is “date specific”, for example: salary
compensation (ranges, steps, ...), benefit amounts,
deductions and taxes, performance criteria, and so on.
Each of these tables may change annually, or more often,
and will need to be updated and otherwise “managed
effectively", which in turn requires a degree of
functional expertise.
In addition, there are number of additional data
management considerations that must be taken into
account. These considerations can be specific to one
application (e.g., payroll, human resources/strategic
planning, pension and benefits, training and development,
occupational health and safety, etc.), or to many.
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Technical Maintenance
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Computer structures are never static for long.
Even if a specific software package remains
completely unchanged over a year, the computer
that runs it, and the communications network
that provides input into it, and ensures that
its output gets to wherever, and to whomever it
needs to, may be shifting constantly.
Performance demands on the HRMS or other
systems, backup, disaster recovery, the number
and nature of central processing units, data
storage units, and communications networks all
require constant management. This is true
whether the organization is using its own staff
to maintain the system or is contracting someone
external to do it.
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Functional /Technical Maintenance
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If the HRMS in question has been purchased from an
external software supplier or “vendor”, the vendor
usually provides regular programme “updates”. These
updates can contain changes in the way the system
handles human resources issues, but also may contain
system changes of a more technical nature. A human
resources and payroll system update for example, may
include changes in taxation from every applicable
legislative jurisdiction, and are often made available
by the software “vendor”, on a quarterly basis.
Implementing new software containing either specific
updates or specific upgrades may not be critical.
However, successive functional and technical changes
will generally assume that prior releases have been
implemented, and without implementing them the system
will rapidly get out of date.
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Roles in Maintaining an HRMS
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What are the roles that those responsible for
maintaining and HRMS must play in order to ensure that
it operates and is used effectively? To a large extent
these roles vary depending on the way an organization
has structured its business and computer processes,
and the way it has defined the relationship between
its technical and functional staff.
Some organizations view the support of a HRMS as a
technical function with systems staff providing all
expertise. Others supplement or replace internal
systems and/or functional expertise with consultants
from the seller, or “vendor” of the system, or from a
third party. Other organizations create a new function
of HRMS specialist within the organization.
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Roles in Maintaining an HRMS (Cont’d)

A 1994 survey conducted by the University of Sherbrooke
and the Canadian Association of Human Resource Systems
Professionals (Haines & Petit, 1994) states:
One of the most important findings of this study is that
satisfaction levels and usage of (HRMS) systems are much
higher where there is a specialized HRIS unit than where
there is no such unit (p. 4).
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The formation of a specialized HRIS/HRMS unit can be
quite contentious. For example, the Management
Information Systems department may be threatened of
users are allowed to have system-management
responsibilities that had previously been handled
exclusively by their department. Also, if human
resources and payroll staff report through different
organizations there may be turf wars as each agues that
they should be responsible for various aspects of
systems maintenance.
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User Support
Ideally, as outlined in the previous chapter,
an organization will have trained every user
to operate the system as it is being
implemented. However the “users” of the
system will change jobs, new responsibilities
will appear, complex reports never before
conceived will be required, and users will
forget what they learned. Ongoing training
and coaching on every aspect of the system
will be required, as will documentation
updates.
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User Support
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If an organization has acquired a HRMS from an
external software supplier, there will be other
organizations which have also acquired the same
software. Most software suppliers encourage their
clients to join together in "User Groups". User
groups allow those who use the same system to
network and exchange ideas about the software, its
foibles and follies, its strengths and
opportunities.
Active participation in such organizations - from
both technical and functional perspectives -allow
organizations to gain from other’s experiences, and
to approach the vendor with joint requests for
significant modifications or customization. In
addition, most vendors look to the User Group to set
future development priorities.
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