Human Resource Information System

Human Resource Information System (HRIS) is just not an IT infrastructure. It is an investment for the long term strategic goals of an organization. A HR manager would look it by the perspective of operations, but a finance manager would look it from the perspective of cash flows. The Human Resource department needs to justify the heavy investment in this IT framework. The implementation of Human Resource Information System (HRIS) helps in estimating the cost of training new employees, providing benefits to the ineligible employees or their dependents, keeping a record of why termination is high in the industry, why the people usually leave the Airline company, reduction in legal expense on the arousal of employee disputes, tracking employees’ productivity, and ultimately building a confidential database of employee’s information (articlebase, 1, 2008).

American Airlines is among the best airlines in the world, having a fleet of 650 planes and approximately 74,000 employees. In 2002, American Airline noticed that the economic situation of the world demands this airline to reduce employees by 5% so that the company can survive. Moreover, American Airlines also identified other problems as well. In order to meet the financial requirements, thousands of reductions were required. The company experienced delayed communication and distribution of information due to error prone, manual and slow processes. American Airlines took these as challenge for the global industry and devised solutions. American Airlines created a centralized online system in order to make sure that consistency and transparency are observed in the organization. It also ensured that all the forms were reliable too. The system also provided online access to all the departments and increased the efficiency of all the departments. As far as Human Resource is concerned, the system implemented also provides integration with American Airlines’ HRIS (Human Resource Information System) Rapid Rollout. The results were remarkable. The Information Technology helped in reducing the time of pay roll to just 16 days. This saved American Airlines million of dollars in payroll expenses. It also eliminated the chances of overpayments and errors. They system diminished the chances of any lawsuit or adverse impact. It also provided centralized working environment that gave the employees a real-time processing capabilities (Humanconcepts, 1, 2010).

Undoubtedly Information Technology has a lot to do with the strategic and operational management of Airline Industry. It helps the airline industry what are the right and wrong marketing and promotional campaigns. It serves as a pivotal role in determining the destiny of the industry as all the key players are using this platform to conduct business. It reduces operational cost of the business as the efficiency and productivity is increased. The question arises how to utilize the platform of Information Technology so that the company can ensure profitable cash flows.

The globalization has lead to the diversification of employees. Globalization has not only shaped the face of competition, but also the hiring practices of Human Resource Department. The diverse workforce needs to be monitored. For this the data needs to be centralized and consolidated. Moreover, Information Technology provides means for integration and consolidation. It can help airliners establish global networks. The companies can then identify the potential routes which are both feasible and profitable. Information Communication technologies can help the firms in re-arranging airline alliances. One can easily infer that Information Communication technologies will provide a major motivation for the merger and colorations between and among airlines (Buhalis, 25, 2004).

Since 1950s the Airlines have been investing heavily in Information Communication technologies. They realized the importance of Information Communication technologies. They came to know that Information Communication technologies will provide efficient, quick, inexpensive, and accurate handling of data resources (Buhalis, 5 2004).

The airlines know the level of ICT utilization within the company. The air carriers use Information Communication technologies to support their business processes. They mostly automate the functions of finance, Human Resource Management, Accounting, Procurement, Logistics, etc. however, we have analyzed before that in recession Marketing is the best policy. Thus, the emphasis should be laid on using Information Communication technologies in Marketing at its optimum level. If all this is accompanied with Airline-Specific Softwares, Information Communication technologies will enable an error free operational and strategic management of airlines. The Information Communication technologies are best utilized when the airline firms are accurate in monitoring the external environment (SWOT and PEST analysis), predicting demand, undertaking revenue analysis, forecasting, maintaining historical data, and designing desirable products for both i.e. airliner and passenger. Information technologies such as internet will significantly reduce operation, distribution, and marketing costs if it is used as a platform of doing e-business, or in other word e-airline (Buhalis, 11, 2004).