Riordan Manufacturing is a global plastics producer employing 550 people with projected annual earnings of over $46 million. The company can attribute much of its success to excellent customer service, high quality products and repeat business. Employees are a treasured commodity -- the work environment emphasizes cooperation, high moral character, and professional development. Riordan Manufacturing has established a series of business systems and subsystems to continually improve operations. Having an effective business system, with details housed within lower-level subsystems, is the only practical way to manage the important details of an operation (Mossholder, et al., 2011). Human resources and Legal are integral departments that contribute positively to the company's overall success.

Riordan Manufacturing's Human Resource department uses an Information System (HRIS) that was implemented in 1992. It tracks essential HR functions such as salaries, hire dates, seniority records, tax information, PTO records, performance evaluations and disciplinary records, and other confidential employee details. Despite the system that is in place, current practice involves a great deal of manual data entry and importing or coding data into the system from various external sources. Specialized forms are often completed...

In similar fashion, a training and development specialist manually records employee information in Excel spreadsheets. Individual applicant information is maintained by recruiters in Excel, while resumes are kept in an internal filing and storage area. A third- party vendor oversees all worker compensation records, taking important information outside of the organization without an easy method for accessing this data. Individual managers track Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) absences and Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) accommodation requests. Employee relations specialists record and track all Equal Opportunity (EO) issues and keep all records locked in secure file cabinets.
These subsystems have several points of vulnerability. The manual entry processes carried out by the employee relations specialists, training managers and recruiters can easily be compromised or result in a high number of errors or misplaced/lost files. There is no consistent security involved for confidential employee information such as social security numbers and compensation information. Another weakness is the lack of a disaster recovery or backup system in the event of fire, flooding, or theft. Historical information would be lost should a…