Human Resources Information System in Capital One Financial
Human Resources Information System In Capital One Financial
With Interview Analysis of HR Consultant Meghan Callaghan
Capital One Financial Corporation Profile
Capital One Corporation was founded in 1988 by Richard Fairbank. The company went public in November of 1994 and is headquartered in McLean, Virginia as of 2018. Capital One is a financial corporation specializing in credit cards, auto loans and banking services such as savings and checking. In terms of assets, it ranks 11th in a list of the largest banks in the nation.
A fortune 500 company with over 50,000 associates in the United States, United Kingdom and Canada, Capital One also has a revenue of $28.6 Billion with deposits of $262 Billion and assets of $390 Billion. With 755 branches and 2,000 ATMs, Capital One set itself apart in the 1990s with mass marketing credit cards.
Richard Fairbank, founder and CEO of Capital One, graduated with a bachelor’s degree in economics from Stanford University in 1972 and an MBA from Stanford Graduate School of Business. Graduating top of his class in 1981, the university also awarded him the Excellence in Leadership Award in 2006.
Fairbank has also been recognized by The Washingtonian, Worth’s List of Top 10 CEOs, and The Gartner Group for his efforts and performance in the banking and credit industry. Fairbank’s focus on technology and innovation are reasons for these awards.
The “Future Edge Initiative” aims to spend over $150 Million over the next five years to address the digital gap by increasing education and skills of technology to workers and entrepreneurs. Using partnerships, community grants and online training, the goal is to assist people in the rapidly evolving technological business landscape. Capital One has been a major customer of Amazon Web Services since 2016 which allows the financial company to store data on the cloud.
In 2019 a massive data breach resulted in the social security numbers and balances and other personal information of over 100 million people. The data breach was the largest of its kind, resulting in Capital One offering assistance for any customers victimized by identity theft. The breach was tracked to a 33 year old software engineer in Seattle who worked at Amazon AWS from 2015-16.
Capital One remains on the cutting edge of new philosophies and approaches to technology in banking despite the now famous breach, and used it as an opportunity to focus on cyber security and protection. This focus on technology would not solely be limited to business services, however, and they used this time to upgrade their HR program as well.
Interview Analysis of Meghan Callaghan
Meghan Callaghan graduated from the University of Michigan with a bachelor’s degree in psychology. She is a manager and human resources consultant for Capital One and has held this position for the past three years. Beginning in the summer of 2015, Callaghan was part of a human resources rotation program that recruited her upon her graduation. For two and a half years, the program resulted in her rising through three positions to her current managerial assignments.
Capital One uses a Human Resources Information System (HRIS) known as “Workday” and is a departure from it’s predecessor “PeopleSoft” in how data is compiled and used. Whereas PeopleSoft used Teradata software, Workday is an Artificial Intelligence (AI) system that can be intuitive and customized to the user. Capital One is the first Fortune 500 company to use Workday as its primary HRIS.
All manner of employee information, such as date of hire, address and contact information, pay rate, birthday and work history are kept in Workday. As a Human Relations Manager, Callaghan has access to all information as well as other reports available by the software, such as distribution, year end financial and performance reports. These reports may be cross referenced for a wide variety of reasons such as comparing employee performance and which times of the year are peak performance for which departments. With access to these reports, Callaghan is able to customize an approach to any situation that arises.
While Workday is extremely effective with collection and use of data for a wide variety of tasks, it is limited in some ways by the vast scope of available data, which Callaghan says she must filter in order to narrow down the results.
The Workday program is a modular program, meaning that updates and upgrades are constant and separate, allowing for improvements without requiring an entire system overhaul. An obvious example of this fungible nature is the current COVID-19 epidemic has allowed for vast swaths of employee data to be updated while they work from home or are furloughed. The remaining system is fully functional in the meantime, allowing normal HR duties to be performed.
When improvements are needed or become available, Callaghan says they are implemented by a full time, in house HR team at Capital One. This team is available to assist all departments, such as payroll, management, etc to come up with any and all solutions to problems that arise. This team has no other focus other than the Workday program. This is in line and focus with Capital One’s focus on technology and innovation along with an emphasis on all employees being computer fluent or at the very least having such IT professionals on call.
Besides being a liaison between parties within the corporation, Callaghan also is tasked with a variety of essential functions as an HR professional.
Beginning with the recruitment process, employees are scouted, interviewed and eventually hired by an HR representative. Callaghan says that HR will accompany this new employee in every way along their career path. After recruitment, HR will assist employees in assessing and accessing their benefits and health insurance along with negotiating and determining their salary. Their performance in day to day tasks will be assessed by HR and when appropriate, bonuses and raises will be determined by HR. Any conflict and issues with management will be addressed by HR and outcomes beneficial to both will hopefully be reached. The point is, Callaghan says, that HR will be an integral part of an employees career in more ways than just hiring and firing.
Effective use of an HRIS system allows any HR professional to access an employees history, allowing any HR representative to deal with all employees, instead of having employees assigned to a certain HR manager. This efficiency allows for streamlined and effective dealing with all issues related to employment, therefore allowing Capital One to function as a business.
With current events accenting the need for employees being available to work remotely, Capital One is in a good position to use their reliance on technological advancements to their advantage. Focus on information technology as well as computer assistance will make large masses of personnel in an office building largely unnecessary. This type of new, decentralized employment will require online HR professionals to be available to assist employees they may never physically meet. So as Callaghan noted, wide varieties of information will be available at the click of a mouse or touchscreen that will allow the HR professional of the future to be instantly familiar with any employee on the roster, regardless of location.
Callaghan believes the future of HR will be heavily focused on technology and analytics. In an approach that she refers to as “emotional intelligence and adaptability”, HR professionals will be more available to deal with not just employee relations but also all aspects of the company culture.
Callaghan says that she would like to see the next ten years focus on inclusivity and diversity, as differing perspectives and life stories enhance us all. By approaching any problem, be it in business or not, with a variety of different views, a more effective solution can be found in a more timely manner. An exposure to a wide variety of backgrounds and cultures also ensures that HR professional is equipped to deal with the many differing perspectives of a diverse workforce.
It will be a focus on people as opposed to policy, that Callaghan believes the HR field will realize its full potential.
References
Capital One on AWS, aws.amazon.com/solutions/case-studies-capital-one
Jason Murdock, 7/30/2019, Was Capital One Hacked Or Breached? How Did It Happen And Who Is To Blame?, Newsweek.com
Capital Perspectives, 2014, Purchasing Card Benchmark Survey Results, RPMG Research Organization, rpmgresearch.net
Jason Yakencheck, 8/19/2019, Lessons Of The Capital One Data Breach, Info Security Magazine, info-securitymagazine.com
