Background of Rio Tinto and its information system
Rio Tinto is an Australian organization that has its operations in the mining business across six continents in the world. The organization has been operating for a long while and most of their work has been dedicated to exploring the most common metals that are used today in the market and daily use of human activities (“Our strategy”, 2018). The organization is the largest mining company in Australia and among the lead organizations in the world. The organization which has a huge population of its employees requires information systems to help them run the organization and a database management system that can be used to store all their data for easier operations. The report will be looking at the human resource information system to know how the database management system is developed and how it is being utilized in the specific areas of training and performance review.
Since the organization has a very well developed information system, the human resource activities have been integrated into the information system as well as connected to the central database in the organization. The human resource department has various activities which they undertake in the organization. Recently, with the new exploration of new mines in the northern region of Australia, the organization has enrolled new miners who will be posted to the various mines that they have been exploring (Laudon, & Laudon, 2016). The processes of recruiting new miners were done through the online information system which was advertised and the application process was to be performed online. A key activity that is ahead of the human resource department is to train the new employees who will be later on posted to the various new mines across the country.
The human resource information system is being utilized in the training process well by the human resource department. They have posted the training materials in the HRIS and all the new employees are required to download a copy of the material to have prior information as they are being trained. The materials are stored in the database which is designed to accommodate the various types of files such as videos, documents and other unstructured types of data. The HRIS is very helpful to the organization and all the required activities will be done through the system which will make it easier for the organization and the department to conduct the training with ease. The system provides the storage capacity for the organization instead of the department storing the files locally in their hard drives and in papers. The use of the BDMS for the training purpose helps the organization to have their files well taken care of.
The trainees are required to register with the system and their details are picked and the various posts are stored in the database. The system allows easy storing and retrieving of files to and from the database. The trainees can, therefore, prepare for the training process and can save on time. They are required to get acquainted with the various process since they are available in the HRIS. The system has played a very great role in simplifying the activities which are carried out by the department. It saves on the cost of the employees that would be used to do the various activities that are done by the system. The system has a direct access to the database management system which has been designed to meet the need of the department. The organization has stored all their process in the database which enables the department to run smoothly.
HRIS utilization in the training process
The database management system has various functionalities which are designed to facilitate training a frequent activity in the organization is. The Rio Tinto DBMS has been designed to allow the storage of all types of files. Videos, documents, pictures, forms and other types of files have been stored in the database. The database management system has also been designed to meet to needs of the organization. The various database SQL commands are necessary for such a type of a database since all the functions such as SELECT, DELETED, ROLLBACK, COMMIT and other commands are utilized in this type of database (Pavlo et al., 2016). Other features are also incorporated in the database to ensure that the organization needs are fulfilled. The use of the HRIS in the training purpose has been effective in the organization and has resulted to easier processes since the trainees can get many of the functions in the systems and they can easily perform them reducing the work to be done by the human resource personnel.
Another common function that the Rio Tinto human resource department will have to perform is the performance evaluation. After the new employees have been trained, the department has to evaluate their performance in their new post and the function is better performed using the human resource information system (Ganjam et al., 2016). The organization ensures that the employees record their daily input and the areas they worked at the end of the day and that is confirmed by their superiors. The information helps the human resource department to keep track of their employee behavior as well as performance. Performance evaluation is another common activity that has to be done by the organization each year. Since the performance evaluation is done over a long period of time, the database is used to store the data of the employee and hence must be connected with the HRIS.
The DBMS must have various key parameters to meet the need of Rio Pinto with its various locations in the different locations. The database has to be designed as a distributed type of database rather than a centralized database which will help the organization manage and perform all their performance review in all the locations. The database management system should be designed as a distributed database that allows connection of the various department in the various locations (Ceri, 2017). The database management system should also be very scalable to meet the need of the organization. Since the organization is growing at a big rate, the organization must plan their growth and with new employees being recruited. Their database management system should be scalable enough to ensure that the growth of the organization will not affect the database. The designer of the database is well considered and the right parameters added.
The scalability parameter is considered in the design of the human department DBMS from its basic structure. Rows and columns should be well organized in the database schema to avoid complications as the database grows (Pappas et al., 2014). This has been considered by the organization which has its operation in six continents in the world. The database management system has been designed with the ability to update and sync the information that is stored in the database. The organization has a well-planned future needs of the human resource department and they are incorporated in the database to avoid a need to change the database as the organization grows or expands to new industries. The organization has therefore utilized the various discussed parameters in their database management system; distributed ability, scalability, and updates and synchronization.
DBMS functionalities for training and performance evaluation
In the performance evaluation of miners in the organization, the human resource department requires all the employees to register their arrival for work in the morning and the time is directly sent to the organization which they arrived. They are also required to sign as they are leaving work in the evening which is finally approved by the manager and the time stamp is sent to the organization’s human resource DBMS (Chaiken, Foehr, & Larson, 2015). The updates of each day are stored and the information is visible in the human resource department in the headquarters office. The automatic update of any information is done by the database management system which sends various performance evaluation results to the human resource personnel. The work of evaluation is done by the DBMS since it is developed with the various functions and triggers which are required for that function. Another feature that is found in the database management system is the integration ability. The DBMS has been integrated with the HRIS and other information systems that are found in the organization such as the payroll system. The database is very dynamic and has very good features that allow it to be suitable for the organization.
Conclusion
Database management systems have various specifications and they vary depending on the manufacturer as well as the type of database they handle. An organization is therefore tasked with the objective of choosing the right type of DBMS to use in the organization (Zhang et al., 2018). For this organization, they have chosen a DBMS which will meet the needs of training their new employees as well as a system that will do a performance evaluation of the employees each month. The database management system is integrated together with the organization’s systems which include the HRIS. The human resource department can, therefore, interact with the database management system through the HRIS. The systems are integrated together and the HRIS system feeds information and controls the DBMS. Each organization chooses a database and a database management system that will be able to perform the roles of the organization.
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Our strategy. (2018). Retrieved from https://www.riotinto.com/aboutus/strategy-5006.aspx