Human Resource Software

PCRecruiter Web offers a complete solution for management of contacts and applicant flow. The combination of applicant tracking and contact management creates a powerful center for your entire process, facilitating your entire process from requisition submittal, to req approval, through to on-line job inquiries and hire logging. All of this, plus potent administrative metrics and dynamic candidate questionnaires and assessments. PCRecruiter has the features you'd expect of an enterprise class solution, including bulk email, automated resume parsing, document storage, and diversity tracking.
Key features
The items listed here are just a few of the convenient tools you'll have at your command in PCRecruiter. Our software is not a 'modular' system sold by the feature - you'll get all of these powerful functions, standard. 
Applicant Pipeline
An easy drag-and-drop interface for moving applicants from one stage to the next, with automated form letters and complete history tracking.

Candidate Profiles
Customizable, searchable forms that can be completed online by any contact in the database for self-entered data collection or internal data standardization.
Multi-Purpose Lists
Use the broadly applicable Rollup List function to group Names and Reqs for sorting, emailing and other group actions.

Requisition Approval
Create requisitions in 'pending' status for processing through approver email chains.

EEO / OFCCP Handling
Collect self-identification data from applicants to meet your compliance requirements.

Boolean Searching
Locate keywords and phrases in job descriptions, notes, resumes and applicant profiles with familiar AND / OR search constructs.

CareerBuilder Search
Search resumes on CareerBuilder.com and download them directly to your database


Source:http://www.pcrecruiter.net/products_HR.htm 

New Technology and Human Resource

 How the marriage of new technology and Human Resources should be a natural occurrence in spite of some built-in impediments. For example, technology is the perfect solution to ease the enormous amount of record keeping relating to vacation schedules and other benefit-related information. And since HR is the conduit between employee and the company, the opportunity to create an intranet - an internal private network to communicate with staff members - is a natural application of new technology.

But many managers have learned that logic doesn't always apply when the fears and sensitivities of human beings are involved. They've learned that employees are accustomed to having a real person, not an on-line representative, hold their hand to inform and counsel them. In addition, while technology is increasingly prevalent in companies of all types and sizes, many employees a) are still not technically proficient to access relevant information, b) question the privacy of on-line communication and c) continue to resist technological enhancements because they are simply creatures of habit.

But it's only a matter of time when HR practitioners and the employees they serve overcome these impediments. In fact, it's already happening in several critical areas of personnel affairs. One of the hottest developments in HR is on-line recruiting. While the days of advertising for and finding new employees through help-wanted columns in the newspaper aren't over, the sheer dimension of on-line recruiting is overwhelming.

With experts predicting a 14% increase in total employment by the end of the decade, it's not surprising that there are approximately 25 million resumes on-line, either on company web sites or central on-line sites such as Monster.com where recruiters post openings. Applicant tracking services, on which the average life span of a desirable resume is seventy-two hours, are best friends of HR managers who are looking for qualified applicants. On-line recruiting is projected to become a $7 billion business by the end of the decade.

Another critical application of new technology is in the area of web-based training. While not every function within a company lends itself to the new instructional medium of cyberspace - machinery operations, for example -- HR managers have found on-line training to be both economical and convenient. They can update materials more quickly on-line than when presented in paper form; can utilize audio, video and interactivity as part of the learning process; can accommodate employees whose schedule may not allow them time to take an instructor-led course; and can reach every employee at his or her desk.

Two other on-line applications that HR managers are finding increasingly helpful are administering company incentive programs and resolving workplace disputes. The former application encourages greater productivity and rewards employees for outstanding performance. On-line programs ease the administrative burden because keeping records for such things as performance, anniversary awards, or something as simple as acknowledging an employee's birthday is automated. A report cited in a recent issue of Workforce magazine states that the corporate incentive market has grown from nearly $23 billion in 1996 to $30 billion last year. This suggests the importance that companies are placing on motivational tools to retain qualified employees.In situations concerning conflict resolution, research shows that managers spend up to 30% of their time dealing with personnel issues such labor negotiations, sexual harassment or discrimination charges and failed partnership agreements. Third-party on-line mediators can bring the two disputants together on their respective computers where they can review relevant documents and proposed agreements, free from the face-to-face tensions that can often occur during in-room negotiations. Cost is also an important consideration. On-line mediators are often considerably less expensive than lawyers when a trial goes to court.

While new technology can't solve every problem, HR managers are finding increasing value in using the fast-growing resources of cyberspace to accomplish their mission. They are most successful, however, when they are sensitive enough to realize that their new-found reliance on technology must be tempered with the knowledge that their "clients" - the employees - are individuals who do not want to feel that their relationship with the company has lost the human touch.

By- by Carol Conway

Source:http://www.crsonline.net/techarticles/tech_column-15.htm

Use of technology in HR management

In view of the fact that HRM centres on an organisation’s unique human and “inimitable” component, whereas technology is more standard and replicable, incorporating technology into HRM introduces some interesting and relevant concerns for practitioners. For example, to what extent is it productive to invest in technology relative to investments in employee development, mentoring, or career management? Or can technology actually support or accelerate management? Or can technology actually support or accelerate positive outcomes in these areas? Does success depend less on how firms manage their technology than on how they manage their human assets?

In short, the contrast between “content” concerns and “process” concerns confronting HRM are intriguing issues to explore, as these contribute uniquely to the way organisations manage and develop their members.

Increase in productivity

The use of technology in performance management has the potential to increase productivity and enhance competitiveness. We believe that appraisal satisfaction is a key concept that is central to any discussion of technology and performance management. Clearly, gains technology makes are Pyrrhic victories if appraisal satisfaction does not improve as well. Contemporary attention to psychological variables such as appraisal satisfaction that underlie the appraisal process and user reaction to the performance management system have supplanted previous preoccupations with appraisal instrument format and rater accuracy (Cardy & Dobbins, 1994; Judge & Ferris, 1993; Waldman, 1997). In view of the uniqueness and competitive advantage that human resources provide, it is appropriate that organisations pay greater attention to questions of employee satisfaction and with how firms evaluate their performance.

We believe that appraisal satisfaction will remain a relevant concern, even when technology is a primary mechanism for the feedback process. Beyond this, appraisal satisfaction is also a critical concern when technology actually becomes the appraisal process. This is because an important link exists between satisfaction with appraisal processes and technology’s potential as an effective force for change and improved performance.

Performance feedback

Given that high-quality performance feedback should be one factor that helps organisations retain, motivate, and develop their employees, these outcomes are more likely to occur if employees are satisfied with the performance appraisal process, feel they are treated fairly, and support the system. Conversely, if ratees are dissatisfied or perceive a system as unfair, they have diminished motivation to use evaluation information to improve  performance . In the extreme, dissatisfaction with appraisal procedures may be responsible for feelings of inequity, decreased motivation, and increased employee turnover.

Furthermore, from a reward standpoint, linking performance to compensation is difficult when employees are dissatisfied with the appraisal process. Noting this difficulty, Lawler (1967) suggested that employee opinions of an appraisal system might actually be as important as the system’s psychometric validity and reliability. The question of appraisal satisfaction is a relevant concern in discussions of how technology interacts with performance management systems since absent user satisfaction and support, technological enhancements are likely to be unsuccessful.

Technology as content

Technology may contribute to performance management and thus to appraisal satisfaction in two primary ways. First, technology may facilitate measuring an individual’s performance via computer monitoring activities. This frequently occurs as an unobtrusive and rote mechanical process that relies on minimal input from individuals beyond their task performance. Jobs that incorporate this type of appraisal technology are frequently scripted or repetitious and involve little personal judgment or discretion. Working in a call centre or performing data entry are examples. In this instance, the very act of performing a job simultaneously becomes the measure of how well a jobholder accomplishes it. Keystrokes, time on task, or numbers of calls made are recorded and at once become both job content and appraisal content.

A second approach to technology and performance management changes the emphasis so that technology becomes a tool to facilitate the process of writing reviews or generating performance feedback. Exa-mples here include multi-rater appraisals that supervisors or team members generate online, as well as off-the-shelf appraisal software packages that actually construct an evaluation for a manager. This particular technological approach occurs more often in the context of jobs that involve personal judgement, high discretion, and open-ended tasks for which real-time performance monitoring is not an option.

Source:-http://www.expresscomputeronline.com/20070312/technologylife02.shtml