PMPA Launches Online HR Management System

The PMPA's newest human resource information and management tool—the PMPA Human Resource Management System (HRMS)—was officially launched during the first week of December 2001.

The PMPA HRMS is a custom-designed software application hosted on a secure server connected to the Web and available to all PMPA members at no charge. The HRMS offers three levels of functionality, depending on company needs and "comfort level" with Web technology. The new HRMS can serve as an online job description research tool; a company human resource organizational tool; and an employee information and management system.

The most elementary use of the system is as an online job description research tool—identified in the application as the PMPA Human Resource Management System. The 200 individual job listings in the system contain, essentially, the same information members have come to rely on in the printed version of the PMPA Job Description Workbook. The online version allows members to search for specific job titles, review PMPA standard job listing information, and print or export complete job listings for use in other documents, such as a company job description manual.

In addition to a job description, each job listing includes ratings for 53 separate components that, collectively, define the skills, knowledge, experience and working conditions that comprise that job. The components are Worker Functions, General Educational Development, Specific Vocational Preparation, Temperaments, Aptitudes, Physical Demands and Environmental Conditions.

The 200 individual job titles in the system include all of the jobs tracked through the association's three major annual wage/salary surveys: the Wage, Benefits & Work Schedule Survey, the Administrative, Professional & Clerical Compensation Survey and the Executive Compensation Survey.

More advanced users will supplement their use of the program's job description information with the My Company HRMS capabilities of the system. My Company HRMS provides the tools necessary to describe the company's organizational structure in terms of departments, sub-departments and job titles. The baseline organization structure is taken from the model PMPA HRMS, although department names, job titles, job descriptions and so on can be edited to fit company nomenclature. Custom departments, sub-departments and job titles can be added to the My Company HRMS. Users can print or export listings of all departments and sub-departments and job titles entered into My Company HRMS.

Expert users have a third way of gaining benefit from the system. Once a company's organizational structure has been set (with the selection of departments, sub-departments and job titles), My Company HRMS allows the user to enter data on the specific individuals who hold those jobs. As individual employees are entered into the system, users are given the opportunity to collect basic HR information about each (such as employee number, date of birth, spouse name, children, data of hire, date of next evaluation and so on). Users who collect this information are able to print or export rosters of employees alphabetically by last name and by department/sub-department.

The PMPA HR Bulletin #282, December 3, 2001, available on PMPA's Web site, explains more about this new member benefit. That bulletin also provides the unique company password required to access the application; it explains how to log on to the application, how to set up your company in the system and how to add other users; and it provides a Quick Tour of the entire application. Contact your company's PMPA certified representative for information on accessing the program.

Members who experience problems with the system or who have questions regarding specific elements of the system should contact Dave Burch at PMPA.