DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT OF PERSONNEL INFORMATION SYSTEM
(CASE STUDY OF NATIONAL AGENCY FOR FOOD AND DRUG ADMINISTRATION AND CONTROL (NAFDAC))
ABSTRACT
Personnel information system (PIS) is an application that combines many human resources functions, including employee records, payroll system, recruitment and training, performance appraisal and retirement administration system review into one package in order for the organization to perform at a maximum and highly fulfilling environment. In this research critical reviewed of personnel information management functions in National Agency For Food And Drug Administration And Control (NAFDAC)), Lagos was carried out. The historical background, problems, limitation of the existing system and the prospects of designing a new system with the objectives of making it a web based personnel information system to enhance human resource functions in order to provide a better platform to eliminate fraud, corruption, file hiding and misplacement, records falsification, duplication, fragmentation, inconsistencies and other vices attendant with manual method of handling personnel records. The new system was designed using PHP (Hypertext Preprocessor) and MySQL. This language was chosen because of its easy syntax and features for developing web-based applications.TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE
1.0. Introduction
1.1. Historical background
1.2. Statement of problem
1.3. Objectives of the study
1.4. Significance of the study
1.5. Scope and limitations of the study
1.6. Definition of terms
CHAPTER TWO
2.0. Literature Review
CHAPTER THREE
3.0. System investigation/analysis and design of the new system
3.1. Research Methodology
3.2. Analysis of the existing system
3.3. Limitation/draw backs of the existing system
3.4. Aims and objectives of the new system
3.5. Mode of the new system
3.6. Structured analysis of the new system
3.7. System design
CHAPTER FOUR
System implementation and maintenance
Introduction
4.1. Programming language used
4.2. System requirement
4.3. Coding
4.4. System testing
4.5 documentation
4.6. Data/file conversion
CHAPTER FIVE
5.0. Summary, Recommendations and Conclusion
5.1. Summary
5.2. Recommendation
5.3. Conclusion
Bibliography
CHAPTER ONE
1.0. INTRODUCTION
The ability of any organization to sustain growth and development as well as meet her goals or objectives depends on many factors one of such factors is the proper management of human resources capital in order to operate at maximum capability in a highly fulfilling environment. Human resource management profession has undergone tremendous change over the past 20 – 30 years. Over the past decade, people looked at the personnel department a mostly to manage the paperwork around, hiring and payment of staff salaries.
Personnel information system (PIS) is an exciting and dynamic field. Even in this age of high information technology, people are still the most important asset to an organization. An examination of the most successful corporations and government agencies usually reveal that a quality workforce has made the differences between mediocrity and success. Personnel information supports the organization mission, goals and strategies. However, in recent years, a new wave of awareness has existed in the organization as it concerns the use of computers in administrative and planning areas of business activities. These areas require both quantitative and qualitative information. Organizations have thus, adopted the use of Management Information System (MIS) and decision support system (DSS) in their decision process which is a web-based personnel information system on the platform of interest.
Although, Human resource professionals continue to perform many of the same activities that they did decades ago, eg recruiting, training, managing, paying the employees. The internet, however, has a significant impact on the way HR professionals have accomplished these task today. Where in the past, HR activities were largely paper intensive and highly manual, the function today ahs been transformed into a supplicated computer-based process. Technological improvements have allowed human resource professionals to spend less time on administrative task and more time with employees. This research outlines the benefits internet in a web-based personnel information system, to streamline the process, out source administrative activities, improve efficiency and resource cost. Web-based personnel information system is user friendly and mechanically advanced solution. Personnel information system (PIS) involves the use of both quantitative (Structure) and quantitative information (unstructured). Decisions are largely based on intuition, principles and experience. In recent times, efforts are being made to build intelligence into a computing system, whereby the computer can be used to process large volumes of quantitative information for decision making.
Personnel Information System is a computer-based system for the maintenance of the service registers of individuals in an organization.
According to Hicks and Gullet (19974; 316), “An information system may be defined as an organized way of sending, receiving and recording messages”.
Traditionally, personnel records for federal public servants of any organization in a country like ours is held in three places namely: Open and secret register of the organization at the headquarters for all the staff of the organization in the nation. The state offices for all the staff in each particular state and local government area offices for staff posted to the local government area where applicable.
There are also operational departmental records for staff at the headquarters and states head offices. This, however, led to duplication, fragmentation, and inconsistencies in records of staff. Whereas a firm’s information system should be unified, there should be no contradictions, no overlaps, and no gaps.
Information needed by many departments should be collected by one source, stored and made available to any section of the organization that needs it (Unamka and Ewurum 1995; 329). Therefore, the Data are inaccurate and thus unreliable as a basis for decision making.
Unamka and Ewurum (1995; 329) say, “Unless a manager has the correct information at the right time, he is unlikely to make the right decision”.
Since the data are inaccurate and unreliable, the information generated therein is of low quality and decisions are taken likely to be wrong in confirmation to;
“The higher the quality of the information, the better the result of the decision Eating” (Unamka and Ewurum 1995; 329).
For instance, the name of a deceased local government area staff may continue to be appearing in the register or nominal roll of the organization at the quarters years after the staff demise, whereas his/her name has been removed from the state register or nominal roll list. Secondly, there are cases where officers obtained additional qualification besides the ones they were employed with, but these qualifications are not accredited to them at the headquarters whereas they have them at their states office files. Another case is where a couple of staff were employed at the same time, place on the same grade level and step and posted to different states, but few years later, the officers started earning different amount of money as salaries because of one manipulation or the other. Thus data gathering and updating are subject to delay or worse when files are lost. Though the existing manual system of recording information is useful, however, with the development of PERSONNEL INFORMATION SYSTEM (PIS) software, personnel records will be simultaneously integrated and rationalized. It should then be seen as a route to eradicating all the problems of the manual method of handling records through the creation of a single system that would provide accurate information to all in a time and cost-efficient manner.
According to Unamka and Ewurum (1995; 329), “Information that is useful in business should be accurate and timely”.
With Personnel Information System (PIS), the details pertaining to personnel postings, qualifications, departmental test passed, training attended, family details, etc are stored in this system. With the help of nice friendly graphical interface, retrieval of information is possible based on any individual or on collective information grouped by certain categories. These categories could be designation, retirement time, length of service, place of work or location, etc. Thus the issue of ghost workers, hiding of files, falsification of records, and other vices that are often associated with the manual system will be things of the past.
Therefore, Personnel Information System is very much in need for every organization.
1.2. STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM
Due to the manual approach adopted in the organization, numerous problems had been encountered in the process of handling recruitment of employees, salary payment, and retirement administration. For this reason, there is need to devise a better and more effective means of solving the problems of human resource function with the aid of developing a web-based personnel information system to solve problem associated with manpower planning and procurement, performance. Appraisal, staff training and development retirement, layoff and discharge, organizational communication and staff motivation. It is therefore necessary to address this issue critically through a well-conducted feasibility study and system analysis of the human resource management department of NAFDAC, Lagos. This project research sets out to achieve a high and effective management of human resource with the view to increasing capability in a highly fulfilling environment.
1.3. OBJECTIVE OF THE STUDY
The primary aim of this research is to provide a reliable and efficient web-based personnel information system that would assist the human resource department in NAFDAC, Lagos, in planning and procurement, training and hiring or employing staffs such system will enable the management and applicant to get a quick result when analyzing the employees performance. It will also enable the applicants seeking for an employment to communicate with the company direct without going through a postal agency. Moreover, organizations are able to get the right quality and quantity staffs at the reduced cost and on time. Other objectives of this study however include:
1. To design a web-based system that contains information about the organization, the staffs, and their data.
2. Develop a database system of potential applicants, with emphasis on their qualification and experience.
3. Determine appropriate match of applicants with skills and jobs experience to the appropriate organization for possible employment.
4. To establish employee recruitment and selection system for hiring the best possible employees consistent with the organization need.
5. To encourage the organization to motivate their employees in order
6. To enable rapid processing staff levy, retirement grants, and training.
7. It will create a proper communication channel between the management and the public.
1.4. SIGNIFICATION OF THE STUDY
This research will be of primary significance to human resource management in personnel department, as it will expose them to factors that they will have to consider before embarking on human resource management. For students in the marketing, banking, and finance and business administration discipline, it will expose them to the techniques of human resource management. To the students of computers science discipline, the research project will be of immense academic benefit to them as they discover the potentials of HTML and Javascript as a web design programming language. Truly will also pain knowledge on the steps involved in the complete development of a web-based computer-based system. The website should also be useful to individuals and organization as it will give them an insight into the requirements of developing a web-based personnel information system to boost their manpower capacity. This will serve as a source of reference for further studies in this area.
1.5. SCOPE AND LIMITATION OF THE STUDY
This research, however, does not cover all the various aspects of human resources management namely: planning, training and development wages and salary, employee’s benefits and services, union relations etc. due to time constraint the research centers on recruitment and staff training development. This limitation is due to lack of time and money to carry out analyses or study on other human resource management system of other organization within and outside the state.
1.6. DEFINITION OF TERMS
Human: The term human is concerned with people since every organization is made up of people.
Resources: This is seen as supplies of stock of something useful.
Management: Management is a process of utilizing materials and human resources to accomplish set goals on objectives through proper planning, organizing, directing and controlling the materials and human resources.
Website: A website can be a collection of web pages that can be linked to other web site or the internet.
Internet: A global network of computers that can access each other and share information.
Network: This is a connection of computers and other hardware and communication device through cables, phone line, satellites, optic fiber in order to share information and resources.
HTML: Hypertext markup language in tags create within web documents that give instructions to a web browser.
Web browser: This refers to a web client because it allows users to interface with different operating systems and views information on the world wide web.
HTTP: Hypertext Transfer protocol is a type of digital language that web browsers use to communicate with a web browser.
Protocol: This is a set rule that governs communication system that issued to transfer data over computer networks.
Homepage: This main web page for any organization or individual. A home page is often the first page you will see when you start your web browser.
Web: This is the collection of protocol and standards which defines access to information on the internet.
Gateways. A gateway is dedicated computer that runs gateway software and provides a translation service, which allows for communications between dissimilar systems on a network. Gateway also translates protocols.
Browsing: Browsing is the process of viewing a list of computer and their available share resources, or viewing a list of files and folders on a local or network connected drive.
WWW(world wide web): The web is the internets multimedia service that serves as a vast storehouse of hypertext documents written using the hypertext markup language (HTML).
