Joel Summers: It is down to IT to install and maintain HR systems, such as payroll, across the organisation. This has created tension in some cases. If IT is challenged with maintaining HR systems, when a new law is introduced and the system needs to be changed, this puts the IT department under tremendous pressure to maintain up-to-date systems. In fact, HR departments often have their own IT team because of the severe demands of these complex systems on IT people.

Which HR systems are IT departments usually expected to support?

Firms will have separate systems deployed - say recruitment and payroll - with the employee as the base record. IT is in charge of the synchronisation of these records.

Do companies generally manage to keep records updated across systems?

HR information has always been notorious for being inaccurate. There are hundreds of employee attributes stored on the systems - such as address details - many of which rely on the employee to tell someone if they change. But if it's a difficult process, the employee will not bother. You need to make it easy for the employee to change their own details on the system. Then the integrity of the data will be maintained.

Do HR departments prefer to keep tight control over their systems?

The HR and IT departments are very similar in that they are both under tremendous cost-saving pressure. So there is more interest in self-service and pushing out tasks to the workforce. These self-service applications then need to be maintained by IT.

How can IT reduce this workload?

Integration is the key. If firms have payroll systems containing employee master files, they do not need to maintain separate files in other systems, but can tie in their recruitment modules or learning tools. There can be around 70 systems under the HR domain. System integration can help IT teams to meet the tremendous demands on them.

Does training, another traditional domain of the HR department, put extra burdens on IT teams with the advent of e-learning?

Yes, and the IT director is a manager just like everyone else, so they also have to manage their own staff training. But in the IT world, skills evolve so rapidly that training is an even bigger problem. So e-learning can make IT training easier.

So, IT benefits from supporting e-learning?

Without e-learning, if I wanted my staff to complete IT training, I'd have to organise a training course, fly the staff to a training centre and pay for the instructor. With e-learning and the support of an integrated HR solution, I can locate the relevant staff, and schedule them for training using self-service. Using the e-learning system, employees can do 15 minutes of the course one day, 10 minutes the next until it has been completed. They can then take a test online.

Is online training your preferred solution?

As a manager, it's great as you can check who completed the courses and it helps when completing staff appraisals. However, sometimes instructor-led training is important. Blended learning is good, with instructor-led courses for critical parts and online training for more basic elements.

ABOUT JOEL SUMMERS

Joel Summers is senior vice president for Human Resources Management System (HRMS) development at Oracle.

Previously, Summers was vice president of R&D at Integral Systems.

Summers began his career in programming and consultancy on IT projects and planning.