Riordan Manufacturing Hr Systems Analysis

Running Head: Riordan Manufacturing HR Systems Analysis

Riordan Manufacturing HR Systems Analysis Part 1

Fundamentals of Business Systems Development

15 Dec 2013

Riordan Manufacturing HR Systems Analysis

Service Request SR-rm-022, Part 1

Mission

Riordan Manufacturing is a corporation focused on obtaining immediate solutions for the challenges the company incurs. Currently, Riordan Manufacturing's Chief Operating Officer, Hugh McCauley, has commissioned Smith Services Consulting Incorporated to review its current human resources system and come up with solutions to achieve a more up-to-date system in which their separate processes are incorporated into one system (Apollo Group, Inc. 2013). The expected duration of the project is six months, in which the current process of the HR system will be analyzed, documentations will be reviewed, observations of procedures will be made, interviews with key associates will be scheduled, and requirements of the new HR system will be determined. It is the goal of Smith Services Consulting Incorporated to have the new HR system operational within six months (Apollo Group, Inc. 2013).

Human Resources Department

Riordan Manufacturing's human resources department responsibilities include: (1) the maintaining of company history, (2) the publishing and distributing of the Employee Handbook, (3) handling interrelationship conflicts, (4) compensations and benefits, (5) training and development, (6) and payroll and taxes (Apollo Group, Inc. 2013). One process performed by the HR department to be considered involves annual performance evaluations and pay adjustments. This is composed of annual appraisals of employees tendered by managers. Another process is the compensation and rewards practices. This consists of employee rewards and recognition program, team incentives, education, and reimbursements. This also includes health, dental, and life insurances as well as 401k savings, vacation, paid holidays, and global operations. The last process is labor relationships.

Human Resources Project

Scope of Project

Review of documentation and requirements has revealed that the current HR system is out-of-date and lacks the specifications to handle the existing functionalities performed by HR. Absent is a centralized location of employee information. Manual inputting of information is spread too wide among supervisors, clerks, and managers. The HR system needs to be upgraded to a more user-friendly software system that contains a secure centralized location of employee information. Procurement of information will be performed by interviews, surveys, observations, documentation reviews, and research.

Arrangements for Obtaining Information

Interviews: Scheduled interviews with major users and contributors to new HR system.

Questionnaires and Surveys: Forms containing standardized questions.

Observations: Physically witnessing current procedures and processes

Documentation Review: Careful examination of available documentations.

Research: Fact searching for pertinent information by means of available mediums (Internet, Technical Manuals, etc.)

Interviews should be scheduled with major stakeholders. This should include the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Dr. Riordan, the Chief Information Officer (CIO) Maria Trinh, the Chief Operations Officer (COO) Hugh McCauley, Director of Human Resources Yvonne McMillan and Director of Accounting and Finance Donald Bryson. These key stakeholders are important for the following reasons: Dr. Riordan's input is valuable due to his close involvement with the research and development of Riordan Manufacturing. CIO Maria Trinh is in charge of information technology and can supply technical information vital to the success of this project. COO McCauley initiated the request for the project, so it will help to understand why he considers this project important.

To better understand the financial limitations of the project, scheduling an interview with Donald Bryson is essential. To get a more comprehensive understanding in regards to the functions of the human resources department it is important to learn who they interact with, what is involved with their daily activities and what their concerns are. This will necessitate setting up interviews with Yvonne McMillan and several of her staff members. The current HR system depends on the managers of different departments to interact and to supply information to the HR department. It will be practical to set up interviews with managers from each department to discover exactly what each department contributes to the HR department.

The following actions will be performed to ensure that the interviews are conducted orderly and effectively.

* Interviewees will receive an explanation for the interview and a copy of the questions that will be asked for the purpose of preparing the interviewee.

* Interviewees will receive notification of the scheduled appointment. It will be planned ahead with enough time to allow the interviewee the necessary time to make adjustments to his schedule (Valacich, George, & Hoffer, 2012).

* Annotations and a summary of each interview will be executed immediately after each interview to ensure the accuracy of the information captured.

* Interview questions will contain a balance of open-ended questions as well as closed-ended questions. This will allow the interviewee some flexibility to expand upon their function, concerns, expectations, and opinions (Valacich, George, & Hoffer, 2012).

* Interview summaries will be compared against the current procedural documentation for accuracy.

* Observations will be scheduled via the appropriate manager to make certain the accuracy of the information gathered during the interviews (Valacich, George, & Hoffer, 2012).

* If possible, observations will be scheduled during peak times and non-peak times.

* Final step is to prepare a Summary Report for managerial approval.

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