What an HRIS Is
The definition of a human resources information system, and the names vendors and HR teams use for it.
8 min
Activities: 0 of 2
Every organisation keeps information about its people. Someone must know who works here, in which job, for which manager, at what salary, and how much leave they have left. In a small business this may live in a spreadsheet and a cabinet of paper files. As the business grows, the spreadsheet breaks. Two copies disagree, a file goes missing, and nobody can say how many people the company employed last March.
A human resources information system (HRIS) is software that stores, processes and reports on information about an organisation's people and the human resources (HR) work done for them. It keeps one shared record for each employee and lets authorised people read and change that record through defined steps.
This course is awareness and practitioner training for HR staff, HR officers, HR project team members and managers who use or help choose an HRIS. It does not recommend any vendor or product. The principles apply to any system you meet.
The system of record
The most important idea in this course is the system of record. This is the one place that the organisation agrees holds the true, official value of a piece of data. If the HRIS is the system of record for job titles, then a job title in an email signature, a spreadsheet or an old organisation chart is only a copy. When the copies disagree, the HRIS wins, and the copy is corrected.
An HRIS is only useful if people trust it. Trust comes from two things: the data in it is correct, and everybody uses it instead of keeping their own private lists. A system that is half used is often worse than no system, because people believe numbers that are wrong.
Before and after an HRIS
A logistics company with 400 staff keeps employee details in three spreadsheets: one in HR, one in payroll and one kept by operations for shift planning. A driver changes address. HR updates its sheet, but payroll does not hear about it, and the annual tax form goes to the old address.
What does "system of record" mean?