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I was invited to attend a seminar conductedby a local chapter of a management group. The conference was titled "Budgetingfor Growth" where experts and industry leaders were invited to share theirviews on optimizing budgets for Marketing, Infrastructure, InformationTechnology and HR. Since my interest is in the area of HR, the viewpoints of across-section of the audience on budgeting for HR are shared below:

CEO of Logistics Company: "Our IT budgets are managed by the IT department. They spendit mostly on hardware & support besides investing marginally on softwarepurchases. Our VP - HR is exploring on-line systems through which he would beable to explore employee profiles quickly. I have no budgets allocated forthis."

MD of a Publishing firm: "My CFO feels that we have limited budgets for HR automation,but we may hire two additional executives in the HR department to manage theincrease in workload as we expand. Additionally, our CFO is worried abouthiring an expensive IT resource to manage any new HR system. We are in adilemma!"

Director, Consumer Services Company said, "We use a large ERP to manage all business functions and ourIT budgets are linked with that. We asked our HR Head to discuss their ITrequirements with the ERP implementation team. He feels there are many nichesolutions in the market which are far more adaptable to his specific needs. Wehave had recent successes with an Appraisal implementation and plan to continueto move further in this direction."

Owner of a small Retail Stores chain: "How can we think of HR automation at this early stage when wedon't even have systems to manage our inventory. At the same time, I am afraidthat I will lose visibility on budgets and head count since my managers takelocal hiring decisions."

MD Specialty Restaurant chain, "We have seen major growth over the past few years where ouremployee strength increased many times over. We had a resident HR expert who helpeddevise processes on spreadsheets to begin with. An Internet based software hasbeen procured recently that allows data to be captured and neatly presented asdashboards to me. Employee related decisions are taken quickly and we have beenable to implement a Rewards program also using that. I am happy with thisdecision."

Head HR of a FMCG company on his successstory, "Our Company exploded suddenly innumbers. But we had planned in advance that we shall budget for a web based HRsystem to manage our employees operating from different locations. It was asmooth sailing since our Onboarding softwarehad all details on company policy and even basic training packages to help newemployees become productive quickly. We believe that growth depends oneffective use of HR systems"

Post conference, an HR analyst revealedthat, "The managements of most companies are more inclined to allocatedollars on Line Functions - where ROI is measurable".

While this is expected because the CEO'sperformance is usually measured on short term results, the focus on developmentof Human Resources is typically taken as an afterthought. Many industry leaders? the most notable being Jack Welch of GE, have emphasized on the need ofmanaging people well and have themselves achieved it through state of the artHR software systems"

Is the implementation of sophisticated HRsystems only available to big companies who can afford expensive ERP systems?

No, a web-based solution offered on theSAAS (software as a service) platform can quickly get you off the ground, needs no expensive maintenance costsand has low cost per employee, with flexible payment terms. You need not even caterfor any budgets in advance. No dilemmas whatsoever in planning automation ofyour HR function.

A typical phase wiseapproach for implementation of such a solution was discussed and agreed upon bymost organizations. It goes as follows:

Phase-1

-         Software to manage recruitmentand onboarding with automatic update of employee data base.

-         A data-base with self-servicefacility for employees to manage their leave, view company policies and have ahelp desk for redress of grievances.

Phase-2

-         A Performance Management systemthat can help set targets, track achievements, evaluate competencies andmeasure performance of the employees.

Phase-3

-         Top-down alignment of goalsacross the organization.

-         Performance based Incentives.

Training Management, SuccessionPlanning and 360Degree feedback were also brought out by some of the CEOs as theiradditional requirements. These could be added to Phase 2 or 3 above based onspecific needs.

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Saigun has sinced written about articles on various topics from Leadership. Maj. Gen. B.K. Bhatia, managing Saigun's HR Consulting practice and Products initiatives (http://www.empxtrack.com), is a visionary behind the design of the popular HR product EmpXtrack Performance Management System, HRMS, HR Technology etc) and works wit. Saigun's top article . Bookmark Saigun to your Favourites.

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