Replying to LO23884 --
Responding to M. Malini how E-Commerce is going to effect HR
At this moment E-Commerce/ E-Services is changing the role of HR in
organizations. A very interesting one is employee (flex) benefits. In
combination with employee self service. I enclose a part of an article I
wrote about E-HRM.
Envision a seamless, integrated network that offers the organization and
its members a "one-stop shopping" experience for all their benefit plan
needs while also giving them complete control over the maintenance of
their data! Providers, like carriers and brokers, would be freed from the
necessity of using full-service customer service representatives to handle
routine inquiries and, by partnering with providers specializing in other
benefit types, can begin to promote a wide variety of products to HR
departments and even directly to their employees. Developing a dedicated
electronic network between strategic partnerships will enable providers to
embed their branded technology within the daily operations of their
customers while creating a low-cost electronic commerce platform that not
only meets all their customer's benefit plan needs but also makes
available a wide array of product and service opportunities. This means
that carriers and brokers will have contact with the employee through the
employer. Nowadays, especially in Europe the workforce is completely
diffuse for these suppliers. They have contact with specific contacts in
the organization or with individuals, but not with the workforce.
This approach can be described as a "Trojan horse".
The benefits package provides the trigger for establishing the electronic
relationship, allowing the supplier to provide the workforce with all
kinds of other products in a next stage.
The model Compensation and Benefits shows all the process components that
can become part of the Trojan Horse from a HR point of view. One can of
course envision that products of a quite different nature are supplied
for, like holiday insurance.
Because of the connection with local products and legacy systems the
Trojan horse extends the functionality of all HR systems. To be able to
set up this architecture a back-office application is necessary. In the
picture The Trojan Horse this back-office application is named the
employee benefits engine.
This engine consists of a tool, capable to connect with existing databases
and/or systems. It will extract data from these databases/systems, perform
desired transactions in the tool itself and return moderated data to the
databases/systems. With such a tool, process designers have the
flexibility to start with an existing process definition within legacy
systems, HR systems, Payroll etc. and tailor it to create new process
definitions The tool can be combined with different process, resource and
activity models to form new software development frameworks. In fact it
provides the integrator function by extracting data from other systems,
transforming it with new defined business rules and returning the
transformed data to the original systems. The concept follows the
systematic assembly process used in the automotive industry. Just as every
automobile chassis should have an engine, a transmission, etc., every
process-centric framework needs a process model, a resource model and an
activity model. The tool provides a set of interfaces enabling framework
builders to optimize capabilities for their target customers.
The back-office loads the data into the front-office application, i.c. a
web browser. This browser provides functionality in terms of workflow
support, e-mail functionality and a personal dashboard for the individual
user. By means of the workflow functionality all defined business
processes are controlled and can be graphically viewed by means of a
process monitor
At this moment we have the ICT solution ready to support cafeteria
modeling.
By the way an interesting text, analyzing the social and economic
dimensions of the communication superhighway (as they call it) is The
communication Superhighway, social and economic cjange in the digital age
by Greg Hearn, Tom Mandeville and David Anthony, Allen & Unwin, ISBN 1
86448 746 1
Kind regards,
Gijs Houtzagers
Principal business consultant HRMIS and employee benefit systems
Ward Cambell International
Steenovenweg 3
5708 HN Helmond
The Netherlands
Tel. 31 492 523 000
Fax 31 492 598 299
E-mail g.houtzagers@wardcambell.com
____________________________________________________________________
Check for white papers on HRM, HRIS and HR instruments and usefull links to other HR sites
http://www.inter.nl.net/users/houtzagers
--Gijs Houtzagers <G.Houtzagers@inter.nl.net>
[Host's Note: Hmm... Lots of books tonight! In assoc with Amazon.com, this link:
The Communication Superhighway : Social and Economic Change in the Digital Age by Greg Hearn, Tom Mandeville, David Anthony http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1864487461/learningorg
..Rick]
Learning-org -- Hosted by Rick Karash <rkarash@karash.com> Public Dialog on Learning Organizations -- <http://www.learning-org.com>
"Learning-org" and the format of our message identifiers (LO1234, etc.) are trademarks of Richard Karash.