HRIS & work organization: who really decides ?

As organizations become increasingly equipped with digital tools, an uncomfortable question is starting to surface: who actually designs the organization of work? Managers? HR? Executive leadership? Or the quieter, less visible rules embedded in Human Resources Information Systems? For a long time, HRIS platforms were viewed as administrative utilities: back-office tools meant to support existing processes, little more than record-keeping systems. That interpretation no longer holds.

Today, the organization of work is increasingly shaped by HRIS. Not because the system explicitly makes decisions, but because it defines, in very concrete ways, what is possible, acceptable, or conversely, blocked in day-to-day activity.

This shift signals the rise of what can be called Algorithmic Work Design: a way of structuring work through rules, workflows, and technical configurations that steer action without always being openly discussed.

Schedules, priorities, workload allocation, alert thresholds, approval chains… Behind every screen lies a configuration that produces very real effects on how work gets done. These rules determine what counts as urgent, what does not, who validates what, when, and to what extent managerial discretion extends. It is a form of work design that operates quietly, insufficiently debated, yet undeniably real.

WHEN TECHNOLOGY BECOMES POLITICAL: HOW HRIS FRAMES WORK ORGANIZATION

The pattern is now clear. Tools no longer merely assist. They guide, constrain, and sometimes even lock decisions in place.

This shift unfolds through three identifiable mechanisms:

1. Diffuse algorithmic prescription: tools no longer just provide information. They rank it, suggest actions, trigger alerts, and set priorities. In doing so, they contribute to a gradual automation of HRIS and HR decisions, without any explicit debate about their organizational effects. A manager receives a notification about an unapproved absence. The system automatically calculates a workload alert threshold. A request is blocked because it does not comply with a predefined workflow. Each of these micro-interactions prescribes how work should be handled, without any formal decision-making body ever having explicitly endorsed that logic.
2. The accumulation of unexamined default rules: most HRIS configurations are inherited, whether they stem from the system’s initial setup, decisions made years ago in a very different context, or technical constraints that have gradually turned into organizational norms. These invisible rules continue to produce effects long after the reasons for their existence have faded.
3. The dispersion of responsibility: managers apply rules they did not necessarily define. HR assumes operational responsibility for technical choices they inherited. IT teams configure workflows without always understanding their impact on actual work. Across the organization, people adapt, improvise, or endure growing rigidity.

Configurations pile up. Exceptions multiply. Understanding of real work fades.

Gradually, without any deliberate intent, HRIS becomes a producer of implicit decisions. A form of decision automation takes hold layer by layer, without any governance framework truly put in place to oversee it.

THE VERY REAL IMPACT OF HRIS RULES ON ACTIVITY AND ENGAGEMENT

Every automated rule is a decision, even when it is old, invisible, or inherited from default settings.

When the gap widens between work as configured and work as actually experienced, tensions emerge in well-documented ways:

• Loss of team autonomy: discretionary space shrinks over time. Employees can no longer adapt their practices to specific situations. Work turns into the execution of rigid procedures, at the expense of meaning and effectiveness.
• Cognitive overload: managers have to deal simultaneously with system constraints and on-the-ground realities. This double burden leads to decision fatigue and a gradual withdrawal from certain trade-offs.
• Managerial misunderstandings: teams no longer understand why certain requests are denied, why specific timelines are imposed, or why the flexibility that once existed has disappeared. Managerial legitimacy erodes when managers cannot explain decisions they did not make.
• Disengagement: when work is perceived as over-controlled, over-proceduralized, and stripped of any room for initiative, engagement declines. Talent leaves, and teams lose momentum.

These effects are particularly visible in highly operational areas such as payroll, where poorly configured rules produce immediate impacts on trust, engagement, and the relationship with the employer.

Ultimately, the problem is not the tool itself. The problem lies in the lack of HRIS governance applied to work organization.

WHEN NO ONE DECIDES, HRIS ENFORCES ITS OWN RULES

When no structured reflection is carried out on the rules that organize work, it is no longer HR, managers, or leadership making the calls.

Instead, decisions are driven by:

• inherited technical choices, designed in a different organizational context and often for objectives that no longer apply,
• rigid approval flows that have become inefficient yet persist due to a lack of reconsideration,
• embedded optimization logics meant to standardize high-volume flows rather than accomodate situational complexity,
• algorithms built to process transactions, not to convey meaning or respect the realities of work.

Work organization driven by HRIS then becomes a fait accompli. The company no longer chooses its work model. It absorbs it. It endures a form of work design produced by technical sedimentation rather than deliberate organizational intent.

In this context, the question is not technological. It is about the organization’s ability to preserve human judgment in the face of automation. It is about protecting what work researchers call situational intelligence: the capacity to adapt, contextualize, and nuance decisions, which cannot be fully codified without being diminished.

AUTOMATING IS NOT ARBITRATION: RETHINKING THE BOUNDARIES OF HRIS

In current debates on HRIS and work organization, the line between decision automation and human judgment remains largely blurred. Not everything should stay manual. But not everything should be automated either.

Without a clear distinction between what belongs to automation and what requires human arbitration, tools end up restricting managerial autonomy instead of supporting it.

Transforming ways of working requires an explicit clarification of:

• what is automated: low value-added tasks, regulatory compliance checks, data consolidation, and alerts based on objective thresholds.
• what remains subject to judgment: unique situations, trade-offs between conflicting objectives, decisions affecting work quality or team well-being, and contextual adjustments.
• what is collectively owned: the principles guiding work design, the managerial values upheld by the organization, and the balance sought between results, quality of working life, and skill development.

This clarification cannot result from a unilateral decision by IT, HR, or executive leadership. It requires a structured dialogue among all stakeholders: those who design the tools, those who configure them, those who use them, and those who live with their effects every day.

TAKING BACK CONTROL OF WORK DESIGN WITH ACT-ON GROUP

At ACT-ON GROUP, we support organizations facing diffuse, or even absent, governance of their HRIS rules. Our approach is grounded in a deep understanding of Algorithmic Work Design and its organizational implications.

It consists of:

• making visible the invisible rules that structure work: mapping system configurations, identifying active rules, and documenting the approval flows that are actually in place,
• analyzing the real impact of tool configurations on work activity: qualitative surveys with managers and teams, measuring gaps between prescribed work and real work, and assessing remaining autonomy,
• identifying areas where decision automation becomes problematic: detecting friction points, identifying workarounds, and understanding improvised practices and hidden costs,
• restoring space for human judgment: redefining the boundaries between automation and delegation, reactivating managerial adjustment capacities, and restoring the meaning of decision-making,
• structuring an explicit governance of HRIS tools, aligned with HR and managerial challenges: steering bodies, rule review processes, and mechanisms for continuous evaluation of the organizational impact of system configurations.

HRIS AS A TOOL, NEVER AS A DECISION-MAKER

HRIS can support decision-making, but it must never become the silent decision-maker of work organization.

This distinction is not semantic. It directly affects an organization’s ability to retain control over its work model, preserve team autonomy, sustain employee engagement, and adapt to a changing environment.

Algorithmic Work Design is not a fatality. It is a choice. One that can be made consciously, structured, and governed. Or one that can be endured, through accumulation, default settings, or neglect.

We propose starting with a structured assessment of how HRIS tools influence :

• work organization: who really decides what and where discretion still exists.
• workload: how is it calculated, managed, and distributed by systems.
• team autonomy: what decision space remains in the face of automation.
• managerial leeway: where can management still adapt, adjust, and arbitrate.

With the following objectives:

• identifying the rules actually at work, including undocumented ones,
• understanding their impact on daily activity, well-being, and outcomes,
• clarifying the boundaries between automation and judgment, between technical and political choices,
• laying the foundation for a controlled, explicit work design, aligned with the organization’s strategy.

Have a project in mind? Contact our ACT-ON HRIS experts today.

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