To be considered complete, all written assignments must include proper citations within the body of the paper as appropriate, as well as a Reference page. Failure to cite outside sources is plagiarism and will be treated as such! You must also include a title page. Do not include pictures or graphics. All documents must be in Word format and submitted by the assignment deadline. Paper mechanics must also be followed as outlined below.

DESCRIPTION & SCENARIO
You are a HRIS consultant working for one of Big Four Accounting firms in their Human Capital Consulting Practice. Your client is a mid-level bio-tech company. Your company is a threshold technology company in the biotech industry.

Your current workforce consists of:

Executive Management and Senior Management    30
Professional / Technical Personnel    265
Scientists    20
Professional / Administrative Personnel    152
Manufacturing Personnel (non-exempt)     275
Non-manufacturing personnel (non-exempt)    75
Total workforce:    817

THE PROJECT TASK
You have been retained by the Vice President (VP) of Human Resources (HR) of this company to recommend to the company an optimum (the Best Fit) HRIS and Payroll system that would be appropriate for the concerned company. This company is currently using ADP as the outsourced payroll service and a paper based model for all their HR administrative process.

The VP of HR would like your expertise to recommend to the company an integrated Payroll and HRIS system that would be appropriate for the company and fit the company’s needs. The company does not want to outsource any Payroll to HR Administrative Processes.

Your task in this consulting assignment is to recommend to the VP of HR two to three HRIS/Payroll integrated systems that the VP can include in her final due diligence before she selects the “right” system for the company.

The specifications and features that are her musts are the following:

– Automation of HR Administrative processes.

– A Compensation Administration module.

– A Benefits processing module.

– A Performance Management processing module.

– A Training and Development Administration Module.

– An Applicant Tracking Module.

– Payroll processing with a HR Integration Interface.

– A Time and attendance tracking module.

– An appropriate report generation feature with both custom reporting and standard reporting features.

In summary, she wants to find a single system that fulfills the company’s payroll processing needs and also satisfies the HR department’s needs for automating all regular HR administration processes.

Your task as a consultant is to do a thorough web based research study to find and recommend to the VP two off-the-shelf purchasable turn-key hybrid Payroll/ HRIS system suitable to satisfy the wants of this company

* The paper should be written as though you were giving it to the VP of HR. It should be clear, concise and well researched. Writing should be professional and clean without the use of unexplained acronyms or slang terms.*

Remember in your project work you have address the cost of purchase which should include the cost of customization to convert the off-the-shelf purchased system into a ready to use turn-key HRIS/Payroll integrated solution for the company. Also, training costs of current employees in the use of the new system should be included.

There are hundreds of systems in the market and therefore the VP of HR needs your help to narrow down the options to TWO short-listed HRIS / Payroll vendors that would provide your client the highest value and return on investment.

Start your web research by using the search term “HRIS” on a search engine such as Google and review the findings. You will find other sources in the Course Research page. Use the link to HRIS Vendors found in Webliography and research different HRIS vendors.

Remember, the VP of HR must justify the purchase and implementation of the HRIS system to her boss – the CEO. This justification must be done using the Return on Investment (ROI) logic. The ROI of HR programs usually explains the financial return for investing in a program, process, or initiative.

ROI is usually developed for HR Initiatives by calculating the benefit (return) of an investment and dividing by the cost of the investment. The result being expressed as a percentage or ratio.

So, the ROI Calculation can be done by the following formula.

ROI = Net Project Benefits divided by Project Costs.

So, say the Cost of project is $250,000 and Benefits of project (1st year) $310,000.

Then the ROI will be equal to, $310,000-$250,000/$250,000 = 0.24 x 100 = 24%.

It is understood that most of the benefits of a HRIS system is in the following, 1) processing time saved, 2) increased productivity, 3) savings in staff costs and 4) increased employee satisfaction. The cost of investment can be calculated direct by recognizing the, 1) cost of the software, 2) the cost of implementation consulting and 3) the cost IT staff who will be engaged to customize the software for the company.

It is also understood that some of dollar value of the benefits is not easily quantifiable.

To summarize, your task for this Project is to research the literature on the ROI HRIS Investments. There is a lot of material on this subject on the web. After you have done the research you need to write a paragraph and some rationale that the VP of HR can use to justify this HRIS investment to the CEO who would have to approve this cost outlay. Please review the grading rubric below to ensure you meet all of the criteria to maximize your final grade.