Career Advice (HRIS)

TheguyD

Hello all,

I am a first time poster in need of some career advice/suggestions. I am looking to break into a HRIS Analyst position in the future. I have a BS degree in an unrelated field but am currently enrolled in a MS Computer Information Systems program. I currently have no experience in the IT/IS field. I am wondering if anyone has any advice or suggestions as to what I should be doing (certs, what kind of jobs I should go for in the meantime, etc). I would greatly appreciate any advice!

ChooseLife

Can you elaborate on what specifically are you interested in within HRIS? I happen to be somewhat familiar with the industry.

TheguyD

I wasn't aware that there were different areas within the actual HRIS field. Through my research all I could find was the HRIS Analyst position. What other areas are within the field?

ChooseLife

TheguyD wrote: »

all I could find was the HRIS Analyst position

How was this position described?

There are ERP systems and various more specialized things - Applicant Tracking Systems, Payroll Systems, Job Boards, Social Networks, misc integrations, etc... For each of those there are developers, administrators, designers, architects, support specialists, implementation specialists, auditors, pre-sales... While Analyst often appears in job titles it is so vague that it can practically mean any of the things above... That's why I asked.. Then there are more "scientific" areas - e.g. HRXML R&D... Big Data analytics is also blossoming...

N2IT

Most of time HRIS or Business Analyst come from the business it self. HR Human Resource Information Specialist, usually have business HR experience before moving into that role. If not usually it will require health informatics, actuarial studies, mathematics, or computer science. It usually a good idea to have a strong understanding of SQL 2 -5 years and 1 -2 years of programming. I see them leverage VB.net a lot. Strong understanding of MS Access is usually a must and a lot of times you will need to understand a reporting tool set. Cognos, Crystal, SSRS, etc.

ChooseLife

@N2IT - I work with dozens of HRIS people and almost none of them work with any of things you mentioned, except for SQL... Like I said, it's a large field

N2IT

LOL We will most definitely disagree. Most HRIS analyst come from the business and understands the systems in which they are analyzing. These systems (HRMS) require maintenance like any system and most of the time these analysts are spent developing queries or utilizing ones to check for exceptions, (database health checks). These exception reports are what these analyst report on. Most HRIS analyst would benefit from a solid understanding of systems and databases. Its poor practice to have your database team be the only guardians of the data. DBA’s and HRIS analyst (ERP analyst for that matter) have different objectives.
Of course there are other types of functions that go into this role, like maintenance and higher level support of the system. They usually have access to go in and do insert, updates and deletes on the database itself usually only on a certain portion of the schema. However I have seen organizations limit the use of views to these analysts for obvious reasons.
A strong analyst will be able to model data and come up with process work flows to make downstream and upstream processes more efficient. Strong analyst will be able to develop proof of concepts to drive innovation, this is usually modeled through UML eventually finding its way into some sort of flexible set. MS Access or Excel are obvious choices but other more advanced reporting tools can be leveraged.
Last but not least some project management and requirement analysis can be required depending on the shop. ADP, PeopleSoft, Lawson, and SAP are some big HRMS.
This role is not an IT position, it’s a business function with the need to understand technical toolsets. Choose it sounds like the analyst you are describing are more support analyst. If they aren't spending a large portion of their time reporting on exceptions and other system functions I question if they should be called analyst.

ChooseLife

N2IT, I was first puzzled by the comments re DBA and support, but then realized it was because of my mentioning SQL. What I meant rather is that SQL is the only skill of the ones you listed {Excel, MS Access, SQL, VB Script} that intersects with the skills of HRIS people I know - but that does not mean they work as DBAs. I am still under impression that you're referring to a part of the field - the HRIS work that I see is being done in Hadoop, Solr, NoSQL, BigData, terabytes of unstructured data, and such. Excel and MS Access are just not applicable there...

N2IT

Choose I agree each environment is different as each business need is different for each company. I only mentioned Access and or Excel because it can be leveraged for Ad Hoc reporting. I agree it's not something that is a 100% of their day. Of course that will depend on the shop they are a part of. Some companies budget and spend a lot of time and resources getting a mature HRMS in place with processes and others well.........