Personnel Today
  • Home
    • All PT content
    • Advertise
  • Email sign-up
  • Topics
    • HR Practice
    • Employee relations
    • Equality, diversity and inclusion
    • Learning & training
    • Pay & benefits
    • Wellbeing
    • Recruitment & retention
    • HR strategy
    • HR Tech
    • The HR profession
    • Global
    • All HR topics
  • Legal
    • Case law
    • Commentary
    • Flexible working
    • Legal timetable
    • Maternity & paternity
    • Shared parental leave
    • Redundancy
    • TUPE
    • Disciplinary and grievances
    • Employer’s guides
  • AWARDS
    • Personnel Today Awards
    • The RAD Awards
    • OHW Awards
  • Jobs
    • Find a job
    • Jobs by email
    • Careers advice
    • Post a job
  • XpertHR
    • Learn more
    • Products
    • Pricing
    • Free trial
    • Subscribe
    • XpertHR USA
  • Webinars
  • OHW+

Personnel Today

Register
Log in
Personnel Today
  • Home
    • All PT content
    • Advertise
  • Email sign-up
  • Topics
    • HR Practice
    • Employee relations
    • Equality, diversity and inclusion
    • Learning & training
    • Pay & benefits
    • Wellbeing
    • Recruitment & retention
    • HR strategy
    • HR Tech
    • The HR profession
    • Global
    • All HR topics
  • Legal
    • Case law
    • Commentary
    • Flexible working
    • Legal timetable
    • Maternity & paternity
    • Shared parental leave
    • Redundancy
    • TUPE
    • Disciplinary and grievances
    • Employer’s guides
  • AWARDS
    • Personnel Today Awards
    • The RAD Awards
    • OHW Awards
  • Jobs
    • Find a job
    • Jobs by email
    • Careers advice
    • Post a job
  • XpertHR
    • Learn more
    • Products
    • Pricing
    • Free trial
    • Subscribe
    • XpertHR USA
  • Webinars
  • OHW+

Personnel Today

Are HR and IT friends or foes?

by Personnel Today 20 Aug 2002
by Personnel Today 20 Aug 2002

Linda Cooper, director of consulting with odysseyzone.com, argues that a
little communication between HR and IT could go a long way

HR and IT departments have a lot in common. Both are appreciated by the
board as essential to the organisation, and both are likely to be in the firing
line when things go wrong. They will also seldom receive praise when things go
right.

With these parallels you may expect HR and IT to be brothers in arms, yet
nothing could be further fromthe truth.

IT people may perceive the HR department as an administration factory,
contributing little to their own needs except an improved ability at
form-filling.

At the same time HR people view the IT function as unhelpful. The IT team
may resist devoting time and resources to developing technology to support
constantly changing HR processes when they can work on a more interesting and
glamorous finance system that will catch the attention of the board.

If both departments spent some time discovering where and how effective
collaboration could add value to the organisation however, both would be more
popular with the frontline business functions.

The real task of the HR department is not routine administration, but to
facilitate strategies and processes that align personal and corporate
performance and drive performance standards up. But however elegant the design
of processes, the implementation is invariably stalled if it is paper-based.
Often beset by bureaucracy, real leverage is lost, given the impossibility of
getting good management information back to the top and centre quickly.

However, the IT people are probably right to resist building bespoke systems
to support changing HR processes. Their role in this case is to provide
invaluable intelligence by identifying and recommending outsourced HR systems
suppliers.

For example, 360-degree assessment is widely seen as a key process for
facilitating personal change but is still not widely implemented because HR and
IT have not understood how to collaborate. Conventional data collection methods
create expense and bureaucracy that is usually seen out of proportion with the
sustainable value it delivers to the business.

Were HR to explain its needs to IT, it could rapidly identify three or four
high-quality external suppliers of ‘state of the art’ web-based 360-degree
feedback technology with no need for any server installation or any further
support by the IT function. Web technology now provides universally available,
low-cost delivery mechanisms for assessment applications that massively reduce
the administrative burden of the process and provides high-quality, real-time
management information.

HR adds value by designing high quality processes; IT by facilitating the
technology support. By becoming allies, HR and IT can start delivering real
added value to the business.

Linda Cooper is director of consulting services at odysseyzone.com

www.odysseyzone.com

Avatar
Personnel Today

previous post
Civil Service braces itself for further strike action
next post
Firms at risk from equal pay claims

You may also like

Five steps for organisations across the globe to...

8 Jun 2022

The Search for Talent: Six Major Employer Pitfalls

24 May 2022

Grants scheme set up to support women’s health...

16 May 2022

How music can help to ease anxiety at...

9 May 2022

OH will be key to navigating ‘second pandemic’...

14 Apr 2022

OH urged to be aware of abortion consultations...

8 Apr 2022

How coached eCBT is returning the workplace to...

8 Apr 2022

Why now is the time to plug the...

7 Apr 2022

Two-thirds of shift workers feel health affected by...

18 Mar 2022

TUC warns of April Covid risk assessment ‘confusion’

14 Mar 2022
  • NSPCC revamps its learning strategy with child wellbeing at its heart PROMOTED | The NSPCC’s mission is to prevent abuse and neglect...Read more
  • Diversity versus inclusion: Why the difference matters PROMOTED | It’s possible for an environment to be diverse, but not inclusive...Read more
  • Five steps for organisations across the globe to become more skills-driven PROMOTED | The shift in the world of work has been felt across the globe...Read more
  • The future of workforce development PROMOTED | Northumbria University and partners share insight...Read more

Personnel Today Jobs
 

Search Jobs

PERSONNEL TODAY

About us
Contact us
Browse all HR topics
Email newsletters
Content feeds
Cookies policy
Privacy policy
Terms and conditions

JOBS

Personnel Today Jobs
Post a job
Why advertise with us?

EVENTS & PRODUCTS

The Personnel Today Awards
The RAD Awards
Employee Benefits
Forum for Expatriate Management
OHW+
Whatmedia

ADVERTISING & PR

Advertising opportunities
Features list 2022

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Instagram
  • Linkedin


© 2011 - 2022 DVV Media International Ltd

Personnel Today
  • Home
    • All PT content
    • Advertise
  • Email sign-up
  • Topics
    • HR Practice
    • Employee relations
    • Equality, diversity and inclusion
    • Learning & training
    • Pay & benefits
    • Wellbeing
    • Recruitment & retention
    • HR strategy
    • HR Tech
    • The HR profession
    • Global
    • All HR topics
  • Legal
    • Case law
    • Commentary
    • Flexible working
    • Legal timetable
    • Maternity & paternity
    • Shared parental leave
    • Redundancy
    • TUPE
    • Disciplinary and grievances
    • Employer’s guides
  • AWARDS
    • Personnel Today Awards
    • The RAD Awards
    • OHW Awards
  • Jobs
    • Find a job
    • Jobs by email
    • Careers advice
    • Post a job
  • XpertHR
    • Learn more
    • Products
    • Pricing
    • Free trial
    • Subscribe
    • XpertHR USA
  • Webinars
  • OHW+