HRIS Cost Justification for Investment Associates, Inc.
Human Resource Information Systems

After reading the case study of Investment Associates (p.150) in the test Human Resource Information Systems; Basics, Applications, and Future Directions, like Marian Sweet, I have little experience in the HR field yet we are required to oversee all of the HR functions as HR professionals. The same situation has occurred in the company I work for, we started with eight employees, now have twenty-nine and we will soon be purchasing another facility which will include at least ten more employees. The difference is Marian's boss is willing to help her get professional assistance and my boss tells me to call our attorney if I don't know the …show more content…

A benefit is any financial gain resulting from the investment that occurs at any time during the investment's useful life" (Kavanagh, p.132). There are different ways to measure benefits, some of the benefits are direct like cost reduction and revenue enhancement. The other is an indirect benefit, a benefit which will help with better decision making and save on potential costs such as saving employee time spent on tasks. There are other potential benefits such as cutting down on human error saving on potential law suits. This risk avoidance has the potential of saving the company thousands of dollars if not the entire company. • Discuss three common problems that could occur in a Cost-Benefit Analysis for an HRIS and how would one avoid them. There are three common problems which can occur in a Cost-Benefit Analysis for a HRIS. According to Thayre Watkins, "One of the problems of CBA is that the computation of many components of benefits and costs is intuitively obvious but that there are others for which intuition fails to suggest methods of measurement. Therefore some basic principles are needed as a guide"(sjsu.edu). Kavanagh concurs with Watkins, explaining it is difficult to measure the value of many of the benefits provided by a HRIS (p.145). Another problem is companies often incorrectly categorize direct and indirect costs. "Time saved is a prime example. Many HRIS reduce the amount of time required to