Jay M. Shafritz

HRIS: Introduction to Tomorrow's System for Managing Human Resources

A NEW CONCEPT Organizations understandably place considerable value on achieving the optimum use of their resources in order to accomplish their program objectives. To do otherwise would mean that resources would be wasted or that objectives might not be achieved. Given the fact that human resources constitute such an important part of any organizations resource base, the development of an information system that provides an ongoing assessment of the utilization of these resources is a natural reaction to an essential managerial need. The Department of State, perhaps more than most organizatioils, places a premium value on its most important resource-its employees. Having long perceived the need for a significant systems advancement in its accounting, control, and planning for the use of human resources, the department has initiated an experiment with a new concept in management information systems for personnel resources. This work has been carried out via a special development project appropriately entitled Human Resources Information Systems, or, more simply, HRIS. Any human resource information system is logically an inventory of the positions and skills extant in a given organization. However, HRIS is more than a simple aggregation mechanism for inventory control and accounting; it is the foundation for a set of management tools enabling managers to establish objectives for the use of