Using the Net for Human Resources
One of a company's most valuable assets is its people - and finding and supporting the employees is one of the largest expenses many companies face.
How Jobs and Candidates Find Each Other on the Net
Listing job openings on your own Web site, or posting them to the various online job boards, gives you a broader reach at a lower cost than newspaper advertising.
In addition to posting jobs on your site and on general-purpose boards, there are niche boards that serve specific industries or population segments (such as recent college graduates)
Information about individuals online also allows you to be more aggressive and effective in proactively recruiting hard-to-find talent.
Candidate Intelligence
There is a great deal of information online about people, enabling you to gather information about job candidates; and there is also a great deal of information about companies for candidates to peruse.
Distributed Employment: Telecommuting
The Internet has great potential as a means of communication with remote employees, enabling knowledge workers to telecommute from off-site and work as efficiently as they would in a physical office.
The same capabilities make it easier for a company to outsource work to other firms and freelancers who may be located anywhere on earth.
However, there is (and still is, today) a great deal of reluctance on the part of firms to trust in the productivity of remote workers.
Relocating People
There are a wide array of real estate and relocation services online that make it easier to relocate people, and for people to self-service during their relocation, such that a formal service to handle this task may no longer be necessary.
Distance Training/Learning
Training employees in remote locations can be expensive - you either have to send them to a location to be trained or send a trainer to various locations.
By using telecommunications capabilities, the cost of travel can be saved; and by using online courseware to deliver courses, you can overcome the need for training to be limited to a specific time slot.
Ongoing personnel development of various kinds can be facilitated by the Internet. In addition to formal "courses" delivered to employees en masse, specialized courses can be made available to individuals.