Avaliação de serviços informacionais em recursos humanos: o caso do Departamento de Administração de Pessoal da Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais

Abstract

People are one of the main assets of organizations and, therefore, are essential to the success of these institutions. Consequently, there are departments within companies specifically dedicated to managing these indispensable resources for organizations. Particularly, Government Human Resources Departments are responsible for numerous activities, including hiring, inclusions, analysis, and the management of users' professional lives. In this regard, for these departments to be considered effective, both their decision-making and operational processes need to be carried out using high-quality information. This includes providing satisfactory services to users at a good cost-benefit ratio that aligns with the needs of both individuals and the organization. Due to this importance, efficient processes for managing these resources are crucial. Therefore, this research aimed to analyze the overall satisfaction of users with the informational services provided by the Personnel Administration Department (DAP) at the Federal University of Minas Gerais. This department is responsible for numerous users, including active career employees, retirees, interns, volunteer professors, personnel sections, external organization support, among others. It supervises and controls matters related to registration, personnel files, inputs data and information into various human resources information systems (HRIS), which are sensitive to users, such as payroll and deductions. Additionally, it attends to all users regarding information requests, documents, and/or guidance. Considering the limited studies on the satisfaction of these users, that is, the opinion of those who actually use the service, it is imperative to assess the management and performance of the DAP. This process contributes to the improvement of the organization's performance. To achieve this, an integrative approach was used, evaluating information systems from the fields of Computer Science and Information Science, reference service evaluation (both in-person and virtual, in the field of Library Science), information unit evaluation (Library Science and Information Science), and service quality measures (Library Science, Information Science, and Marketing). The theoretical framework covers the definition of Information Systems (IS), presents the IS success model by DeLone and McLean (1992, 2003), introduces some government IS in the HR area, especially those used by the DAP, presents the HR evaluation model (Al-Shibly, 2011), and the government reference service evaluation model (Lima, 2023). Additionally, the research works with service quality measures, also presenting scales such as SERVQUAL (Parasuraman; Zeithaml; Berry, 1988, 1985), SERVPERF (Cronin; Taylor, 1992), E-S-QUAL (Parasuraman; Zeithaml; Malhotra, 2005), and LibQUAL+™ (Association of Research Libraries, 2020). Finally, the study includes research from various authors who contributed to the study in the section named related studies. The research methodology is of applied nature, classified as descriptive, with a mixed approach, and qualifies as a case study. In this context, the unit of analysis was the DAP, and the unit of observation was the set of users of this department. The universe comprised 7,088 DAP users. However, for the sample composition, quota sampling was chosen, consisting of active employees - higher education teachers, basic, technical and technological education teachers, and administrative technicians. Additionally, only those who contacted the DAP were selected. The data collection instrument was a questionnaire with closed-ended questions and an optional comment field, sent to 1,226 users. Quantitative analysis tools included statistical analysis, analysis of variance (ANOVA), Spearman's correlation coefficient, and Tukey's Multiple Comparisons method. For qualitative analysis, Bardin's categorical content analysis (2011) was used. The research presented several results, among which it stands out that in all constructs analyzed quantitatively - information control, service quality, place, and satisfaction - those who identified as male, teaching staff, over 51 years old with less than 3 years of work at UFMG, and with a post-doctorate evaluated the service better than those who identified as female and administrative technicians. Except for the place construct, where those without postgraduate education rated the service more positively. The study also revealed, through objective analyses, areas to be improved, such as informing about legislation directly impacting payroll, accessibility, and special attention to service excellence. On the other hand, in subjective questions, response capacity and/or assistance, service, information communication, demand attention from the DAP. The majority of comments reported some negative experience with the service, indicating a need to improve services, particularly related to personnel issues. This aligns with user recommendations to invest in personnel and training to enhance service. Therefore, the developed research contributed to the fields of information system evaluation, service evaluation, and reference service evaluation in human resources environments.