The Role of Information Technology

The purpose of this chapter is to provide an introduction to the fields of human resource management (HRM) and information technology (IT), and the combination of these two fields into human resource information systems (HRIS). The first chapter will lay the groundwork for the remainder of this book, 3 VIGNETTE There are numerous federal and state laws and regulations regarding the treatment of employees, as will be discussed throughout this book. For example, some of these laws regulate the number of working hours in a week and overtime requirements, union-management relations, and unfair discrimination in the personnel practices of a firm. One such law, Title VII of the Civil Rights Law of 1964 as amended by the Equal Opportunity Act of 1972, protects individuals against unfair discrimination based on race, national origin , and gender in any personnel decision—for example, hiring. This law protecting the rights of individuals is generally referred to as E Eq qu ua al l E Em mp pl lo oy ym me en nt t O Op pp po or rt tu un ni it ty y ((E EE EO O)) legislation. To determine if organizations are complying with this law, all U.S. companies must complete an annual report for the federal government, called the EEO-1 report. This report describes the composition of the work force by job in terms of gender, race, and national origin (see Chapter 9). This report is often referred to as an EEO or Affirmative Action Audit. The important point is that the employees must be categorized into jobs, and then and as such, it is important to thoroughly understand the concepts and ideas in this chapter. This chapter contains definitions for a number of terms in common use in the HRM, IT, and HRIS fields and will emphasize the major underlying themes of this book. Finally, an overview of the entire book will be covered, showing how each chapter is an integral part of the entire field of HRIS.