This is a question that I get asked in my role as CEO of Knowledge Infusion often from many HR leaders around the world.  The role of the CIO and the role of the EVP/CHRO of HR are interesting ones indeed and in many organizations, the CIO still gets more respect than the leader responsible for the “most important asset” in an organization.  A few things that are important to think about related to this topic.

• We are no longer in the era when the ERP solution MUST be the solution used for Human Resources and Talent Management
• The role of the CIO is not one to create business requirements for the HR organization but to support the needs of the HR organization whose role is to align to the business function
• The role of the CIO is not one that should dictate what solutions get used, but working together with the HR leadership, determine what is the best fit for the organization as a whole

One of the things that I see very often is an attitude from the CIO that he/she knows more about what is needed for the HR/Talent Management needs in the organization then the leader of the HR function.  A few things to remember:

• Most of the time, the CIO DOES NOT want to support the HR function.  Today’s leading CIO’s will tell you that they want to support areas of the business that are “specific” to the business and that give the business a “clear, competitive advantage”.  This includes systems that are most of the time industry specific such as retail, healthcare, manufacturing, insurance, etc
• Many CIO’s hear that the HR solution from an ERP vendor is “integrated” and therefore HR has everything it needs.  What the CIO DOES NOT understand is that his/her HR organization is not equipped to change their function to one that is dictated by the software, but has been doing things to keep the lights on for years and wants to continue to operate in this manner
• Many CIO’s believe that “best of breed” solutions are NOT NECESSARY for the HR function and that the ERP solution has everything they need.  It is important to keep in mind that just because an ERP solution “has” functionality somewhere in its being, that HR may not be able to deploy it for many reasons including versioning, support, dependencies on “mission critical” functions such as payroll to upgrade, etc
• HR continues to need to prove and work with the CIO to show that “on-premise” software isn’t necessarily the answer in many cases and the support they need is not custom development, but how to connect multiple systems together using “today’s” middleware

It is my belief that the future CIO will continue to build his/her organization with a series of standards and tools such as portals, middleware and business intelligence tools that will allow business leaders to use the software and tools that they feel are best suited to achieve the goals and objectives they have in the organization.  The role of the CIO continues to be less and less about choosing software and more and more about supporting the enterprise needs of the business.

A few of the things that the CIO must be involved in as HR thinks about software selection is:

• Security
• Integration to other enterprise solutions
  
• Integration to portal
• Integration to data warehouse
• Underlying technology in use
• How the technology fits into enterprise IT strategy
• Support required for technology

What are your thoughts?  What role do you see the CIO playing in the future?

HR and the IT function must work together.  If HR goes off and buys software without the CIO, major problems WILL occur.  If the CIO selects software, major pushback can occur causing a failed deployment.  Collaboration and overall alignment is crucial and one of the most important pieces of a HR software selection.

Another infusion of knowledge…