HR Tech Central

The “NEW” Org Chart

Posted by Jason Averbook May 14, 2013

Early this morning, I was directed to a great video from a blog of a colleague in the industry that I appreciate every time he speaks up, James Mayes.  Here is a link to the blog that got me thinking – James blog post!

As everyone complains about how organizational structures in systems do not match theScreen Shot 2013-05-14 at 6.49.09 AM way people work and what we all want to know about people, this new example of a Org Chart is truly the next generation.  Watch the video quick and then answer the following questions

  • Is this more valuable?
  • Should a org chart be more than a phone directory?
  • How close are you to this today?

And those that ask and question the value of “Big Data” – here is an example!

I truly think something for us all as an industry to strive for and something we work daily  at here at Appirio, how to truly re-imagine, define and execute against the future of work.

Another infusion of knowledge…

 

Posted in Collaboration, HR Executive, Reimagine HR, Trends | 2 Comments »

Change Management – Managers Are The Key

Posted by Jason Averbook Apr 23, 2013

Screen Shot 2013-04-23 at 6.43.49 AM

Every HR/Workforce technology project for the last 20 years has had a change management aspect to it.  Most of these efforts could be described with bullets like below:

  • Training
  • Job Aides
  • Webinars
  • Posters
  • Readiness Assessments

And while these are important, a recent post on the HBR Blog network got me thinking about the term change management and where most organizations miss the mark.  The author of this particular piece does an exceptional job of framing 3 questions to ask yourself if change management is a struggle for your organization.

1. Do you have a common framework, language and set of tools for managing change?  This should not just be across all HR projects, but across the enterprise as a whole.  Our Change Enablement practice at Appirio helps organizations focus on this, but it is a huge barrier for most organizations as they do not even use the same tools and techniques within a department; forget the entire enterprise.

2. To what extent are your plans for change integrated into your project plans, not managed separately or parallel?  Most  technology projects “bolt-on” change management towards the end vs. realizing that the change management “moment of truth” occurs at the beginning of a project and is carried out in an integrated manner into the project plan.  If you are starting change management after already creating a business case and strategic plan for the project, you are already late to the game.

3. Who is “accountable” for change management in your company? Is it “managers” or the communication/marketing function?  While experts in marketing and communication create materials, from the start, it must be known that if managers are not “accountable” and realize that they are responsible for managing change, it simply will not work.  We can market and create the sexiest materials in the world, but without the managers and business buy-in, we are simply out of luck and chances of failure increase dramatically.

 

Take the time to ask yourself these 3 simple questions.  Are you on the right track? Can you make a change today to get back on track?  It is never too late for revising a plan and focus and based on experience and the sooner you involve the business, the better.

Another infusion of knowledge…

Posted in Change Management, HR Executive, HR Technology Strategy, Trends | No Comments »

Addiction Not Adoption? – Something To Think About As We “Reimagine” HR

Posted by Jason Averbook Apr 22, 2013

In today’s world of information glut and so many “distractions” in the online world for employees and managers, the focus of adoption may not be enough and we may need to focus on addiction.  Addiction you say? OK, the cartoon is a bit much, but is it far off from what getting true engagement looks like? Hmm.  

dilbert-iphone-addict-702823

Lets take a look at what makes deployment and engagement “durable” for the long-term, and I would say that it will involve bringing other aspects of workforce involvement into our “old, boring, transactional” tools that we have deployed.  What makes addiction possible?  Are you building it into your Workforce Technology Strategy?

  1. Obsessing with Customer/Workforce Experience – this is still an area where we put “way too little focus”.  We focus on getting a core system live instead of the portal and integration necessary to have a workforce work across process instead of within a single vendor’s “module”.
  2. Product that is “habit-forming” – gamification is one of the best ways to do this.  I have recently been using the Jawbone Up within my work at Appirio and this is another tool that is “habit-forming”.  The key here is to infuse transactional with “habit-forming” activities to create the ultimate addicting experience.
  3. A focus on networking.  It is always more fun when we “play with others” then just ourselves.  Networking and connecting with others as part of our adoption of tools and technology shift from adoption to addiction.  Can you do it?
  4. Engagement metics – Measuring the level of addiction is key and it must be marketed and improved “continually and daily”.  A new user interface or experience every few months or once a year is not enough.  How do I create an experience that is more than just adopted, but becomes an addictive destination.

 

We have lots of work to do in this area and wanted to use this post as a beginning.  It is about more than adoption, but about addiction in today’s world of online engagement and value of our tools. Is this part of your workforce technology strategy?  

This is modified from a great piece in AllThingsD with a link here

Another infusion of knowledge…

Posted in Change Management, HR Executive, HR Service Delivery, HR Technology Strategy, Trends, Uncategorized, User Experience | No Comments »

Does Your Organization Suffer From “Disruption Denial”?

Posted by Jason Averbook Apr 17, 2013

While reading this morning in London, I had the opportunity to run across a great article denialas part of the HBR Blog Network and it made me do quite a bit of thinking about how the concept of “disruption denial” ties into the world of HR and Workforce Technology way too often.  A link to the HBR article is here.

Do you have people in your organization that suffer from “disruption denial” as HR and Workforce technology is deployed?

In the past 5 generations of HR and Workforce Technology, we have continued to see new things come into the market and for various reasons, we have been hesitant to lead and deploy.

My favorite piece of the article is as follows:

The fact of the matter is our professional lives now churn with change. Markets change. Technology changes. Consumers change. Channels change. Competitors change. This is an era of disruption. Not disruption as the occasional event, but disruption as the constant, chronic condition of our professional lives. You would hope that we were getting better at understanding and managing change. And sometimes we are. Too often however, our response is to ignore and forget change, to fake our way through it, to pretend an engagement and a mastery we do not have. And that’s bad. That means we are not getting better at change, but steadily worse. We are denying disruption, instead of adapting to it.

What are the stages of “disruption denial” that we need to understand to make sure that we learn and don’t waste opportunities to embrace change?  Here are the 5:

  1. Confusion – we rollout a link to the workforce and they dont get it, it looks sloppy and they move to Step 2
  2. Repudiation – Snappy one liners “Why would I ever do this?” – “I would never use this” – on to Step 3
  3. Shaming – People start to make fun of the new technology and spread it virally.  Your rollout is going downhill fast – on to Step 4
  4. Acceptance – We start to ask what others are doing and they are doing what we have rejected.  Why are they doing it?  Change Management and focus on adoption was better. We start to wonder if maybe we should do this thing – on to Step 5
  5. Forgetting – We forget that we never liked it, never would use it and try to save face.

 

What is the key message for all in HR and Workforce technology, dont let people go through this process.  Make sure your change management, your adoption readiness and your focus on deploying processes that make sense to employees and managers vs. modules that software vendors develop is clear and concise.  Make sure there is a “what’s in it for me” message in all communication and the “me” is the workforce, not you.

Disruption Denial can kill, or seriously harm HR and Workforce technology projects.

Don’t let yours be a victim of this!

Another infusion of knowledge…

 

 

Posted in Change Management, Collaboration, Culture, Deployment, HR Executive, HR Service Delivery, HR Technology Strategy, Trends, User Experience | No Comments »

Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader When It Comes To Today’s Technology

Posted by Jason Averbook Apr 16, 2013

VentureBeat posted a great video and discussion yesterday that we “ALL” can learn from smarter 5th graderas some of the leaders in the “new era of tech” addressed middle school students on what some new technology terms mean and best ways to think about them.

All of these topics will be “trending” in the world of HR/Workforce technology in the next 1-3 years and it is all of our roles to continue to educate the community before we are surprised by it during our daily job of “keeping the lights on.”

These are questions that I get on a “daily” basis around the world, including today in a session in London and wanted to share this with the community as soon as possible.

A few of the comments that I “loved” from the video:

  • On business intelligence and analytics: Birst CEO Brad Peters made a useful analogy to driving a car. ”The dashboard measures how fast you’re moving … [otherwise] it would be hard to drive a car,” he said. “Analytics is the dashboard for a lot of people and business to understand things that are more complex than what’s right in front of you.”
  • On big data: Goldbloom gave it a stab: “Big data is mostly about taking numbers and using those numbers to make predictions about the future. The bigger the data set you have, the more accurate the predictions about the future will be.”
  • On the cloud: “The dirty secret in this industry is that nobody even really knows what the cloud is,” said McLoughlin. “What it means is it’s put up in the Internet and it’s gone to our servers and it’s held somewhere centrally. All it means is it’s a place up there in the sky that is available from all of your devices no matter where you are.”

Please take a minute to watch the video.  The 6 minutes is well worth it and hope that you can spread it around your community!

 

Another infusion of knowledge…

Posted in HR Executive, HR Technology Strategy, Trends, Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

Great Post By James Mayes: How To Identify Your Technographic

Posted by Jason Averbook Mar 25, 2013

Technographic-1-686x350

I had the opportunity to meet James Mayes while in London last week.  Follow James on Twitter at @james_mayes. He was kind of enough to do a writeup on one of the sessions that I led while visiting.  Below is his writeup.  You can also gather by looking at his blog here.

Listening to Jason Averbook at HRTechEurope’s event in London last week, I was intrigued some of the themes he pulled out. Whilst I’m conscious of the idea of the digital native, for example, I’d never considered the contrasting position of the digital migrant.  I’d always considered myself to be a digital native, but now realise this is a long way from the truth!

Jason also talked of the idea of the technographic.  Marketeers laboured long to understand an audience demographic before crafting a campaign in order to ensure they hit the right market segments, caught the right interest, inspired word of mouth amplification and so on.  Jason was keen to suggest this data is now less important than the technographic, where we should look build audience segmentation based on the role that technology plays in a target consumer lifestyle. Originally coined 1985, the technique is hardly new – but its application has never been more relevant.

For those new and keen to explore, Forrester Research have a free starter tool to allow you to explore and understand the concept more. Starting with the likely demographic of your audience (simple stuff, age/location/sex) the tool will help you to understand the technographic implications.

Technographic 2 Blog: How to identify your technographic

I strongly recommend you go explore – whether marketing a product, a service or an employer brand, I believe this is only going to grow in relevance. If you disagree, feel free to let me know in the comments!

Another infusion of knowledge…

 

Posted in Change Management, HR Executive, HR Technology Strategy | No Comments »

Papal Talent Management

Posted by Jason Averbook Mar 14, 2013

Great guest post by rock star Talent Management Consultant at Appirio/Knowledge Infusion – Jim Viscanti (@jviscanti)

white smoke

Imagine locking your senior leadership team in a room, taking their phones & tablets, and telling them they had to stay until all agreed on a talent plan for the organization.

Would they revolt?

Would they be excited?

More important, could they do it?

The most intriguing lessons from the recent Papal election do not come from what happened inside the Sistine Chapel; they come from the days immediately before locking of the doors.

The challenge for us in a (hopefully) modern workplace is the same as it was for the 115 electors in Rome: (1) how do we know our talent? (2) How do we encourage meaningful conversations? and (3) How do we make sure everyone is on the same page during & after the session?

Bring Information Together
The week leading up to the Papal elections was not simply an opportunity for old friends to re-unite, it was a critical informational gathering period.  Time for electors to learn about each other’s strengths, weaknesses, and positions on various issues.

In the 21st century workplace, we are surrounded by information—databases, talent management systems, LinkedIn, etc.  The companies that are truly changing the talent conversations are the ones who find a way to consolidate information and make it meaningful to leaders.

Historically, and still too often, this was in the form of HR creating 3-ring binders with pictures and work history and past performance forms.  Leading edge companies however are finding a way to bring together the critical information online—a profile that not only captures the important performance history of an employee, but also his or her career ambitions, critical capabilities, and potential next steps.  A place that not only allows visibility of leaders, but encourages participation by the employees.

The only way to move towards the dynamic and strategic profile though to plan for it.  Think today about what information you will need to see about your people next year or three years from now.  Then incorporate those critical components into your talent/technology strategy.

Set Goals & Expectations Beforehand
All the electors were gathered in Rome for a full week before they made their way to the voting site.

Did the last important leadership meeting you attended spend the first 30, 60, or 90 minutes reviewing the agenda, desired outcomes, and ground rules?  Chances are you also rushed at the end of the day, wishing for 90, 60, or 30 minutes more.

Encourage leaders to discuss what will be important before a large talent session ever starts.  Kick it off with dinner the night before or find a way to make sure some smaller conversations are happening even earlier.  At minimum, make sure they know what is coming and provide them the resources ahead of time (a feat much more achievable if you have a plan for bringing information together that does not involve 3-ring binders).

Clear Expectations & Messages
Lastly, all of the Cardinals knew exactly why they were in Rome, everyone understood the possibility that they could be there a long time, and they had a unified message when they finally left the Sistine Chapel.

Do your leaders know why they are spending the day in a conference room?  Or do they know how to communicate what happened inside that room when they leave?

Help your leaders be on the same page with the messaging of talent.  Provide talking points and multiple ways to say the same thing: that talent is critical to our company and we will spend the time talking about it.

Then have leaders share that messages themselves through multiple channels.  Do not rely on your communications team to publish an anonymous news item.  Blogs, or especially video recordings, not only deliver a message, but they convey the commitment of that leader.

You probably will not use white smoke as part of your next talent planning session, but maybe there are some ideas worth borrowing.  As the saying goes, When in Rome…

Another infusion of knowledge…

Posted in Change Management, HR Technology Strategy, Talent Management Innovation | 1 Comment »

Guest Post: Training New Employees: 5 Unconventional Ways to Train

Posted by Megan Webb-Morgan Feb 20, 2013

Employee TrainingTraining new employees is a necessary part of the onboarding process. However, are the  traditional methods –lectures, slideshows, and boring industry videos – the most effective way to train? Some say no: major industry survey showed that only 21% of employees acquired new skills through a training program over the last five years.

Business.com recently reported: “Ever since German psychologist Herman Ebbinghaus discovered the “forgetting curve” back in 1885, dozens of studies have confirmed that when people are exposed to learning one time, after 30 days they retain just 20%.” A poor showing for the effort that is put in.

Utilizing unconventional training methods, your business can help new employees become more involved in their training, more engaged with the material, and more committed to the business and their role in it.

Mentoring Program

Many businesses have new employees shadow established staff members for the first few days or weeks of their employment. After the training period ends, that relationship is terminated. However, by instituting a formalized mentoring program, you can facilitate a much more thorough onboarding process that brings value to both employees for a much longer time period.

  • The mentoring program can include, but is not limited to, on-the-job training, feedback, coaching, and assisting the new hire with fitting in to the existing company culture.

Using New Technology

Sitting in cumbersome cubicles and communicating strictly through phone calls is no longer the norm in business, and as your company has evolved, so should your onboarding process. The internet and social media has broken open the field of employee training with diverse sources of content and ways to access knowledge.

In the course of completing their new hire training, employees can watch a YouTube video, read an industry blog, attend a webinar, receive one-on-one instruction with a guest trainer over video conference, and take an online assessment.

  • By taking advantage of the diverse training tools available online, you cater to different types of learning styles and reinforce important information through a well-rounded training course.

Contests and Competitions

Getting your new employees to complete your training modules can be a chore. One way to motivate your new hires to intellectually invest themselves in their training is to make it into a contest.

With this goal in mind, one company created a web-based training and assessment tool as the gateway to a contest. Successful completion of the training module entered employees into a drawing for gift certificates, a TV, and a trip to Hawaii. 97% of employees successfully completed the training.

Company Library and Book Club

As a way to augment new hire training, encourage continuing education for seasoned employees, and foment an atmosphere of shared learning, create a company-wide library with books about business and your industry. Launch a company book club and encourage new hires to participate.

Not only will they benefit from the readings; the ensuing discussion with other employees can give them a greater understanding of how your business functions and present them with an opportunity to ask questions they didn’t know they had.

Movie Night

Similar to your book club – but possibly more entertaining – you can host a film viewing. Rather than showing a training video produced by or for your business, show a popular film that deals with your business type or industry. Use the film as a launching point for discussing how your business operates.

  • Since many films don’t present accurate renditions of how many industries operate – Indiana Jones and archaeology comes to mind – this can be a good opportunity for pointing out industry worst practices, emphasizing company culture, and reinforcing correct business processes.

Whenever you begin a new type of training method, be sure to develop a plan to assess the effectiveness of the program. Making employee training – both as a means of onboarding new hires and to help all employees improve their skills – a priority for your business. Unconventional training methods can increase employee engagement and have a positive effect on employee retention.

Megan Webb-Morgan is a web content writer for www.resourceNation.com. She writes about small business, focusing on topics such as smart hiring tactics. Follow Resource Nation on Facebook and Twitter, too! 

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Posted in Culture, Talent Management | No Comments »

Stop Managing to the .01%

Posted by Jason Averbook Feb 14, 2013

It never fails and a day doesn’t go by, and yesterday was no different, without someone asking me questions dealing with risk of using technology.  These questions and riskcomments usually go something like this.

  • What if our employees waste their time on Facebook instead of doing their work?
  • What if our workforce isn’t ready to use technology?
  • What if people make comments using social collaborative tools that are inappropriate?
  • What if the workforce doesn’t follow the process and goes around the technology?

All of these are great questions but the fact of the matter is, it doesn’t matter whether it is a bulletin board (remember those), a telephone or a “scary social media type technology”; there will always be a few that abuse but a majority that adopt and embrace the technology.  Where am I going with this?

HR must stop managing to the .01% of the people who “might, just might” abuse the technology and start empowering the workforce by deploying collaborative tools anywhere from employee and manager direct access (yes, this is a simple form of collaboration) to true social/knowledge and innovation sharing type collaboration tools.

HR has made a living managing to the exception vs. the norm.  Being reactive vs. proactive and in the mode of avoiding risk vs. creating change and innovation.  In an era where speed, innovation and the ability to empower a workforce to think like CEO’s of themselves.  Without a mindset focused on the positive benefits of the technology vs. the “possible” negative things that could happen, HR will continue be seen as the corporate police and the tools, processes and communication it pushes out will have a “big brother” connotation vs a “big mother” enabler of workforce engagement and success.

This is not an overall negative statement against HR, but I hope that in 2013 and beyond, we as a collective community can begin to focus on the positive vs the negative.

In every organization, 99.99% of the people want to do the right thing and make the workplace and workforce a better place.  Stop letting the .01% drive your strategy and technology mission.  If your focus is on the .01%, do something today to change it. 

Another infusion of knowledge…

Posted in Change Management, Collaboration, HR Executive, HR Technology Strategy, Trends, User Experience | No Comments »

Empowering the New Workforce with a New Partner

Posted by Jason Averbook Feb 7, 2013

I have the opportunity to work with some of the most innovative and creative thinkers in Human Capital Management today – people and organizations that are truly endeavoring to transform the way we work.

Transforming the way people work may sound lofty, but HR’s ability to make employees more collaborative, productive and engaged can have a huge impact on a company’s bottom line and overall customer satisfaction.  As the world’s largest cloud-powered HR consultancy, Appirio has a ton of experience helping organizations develop, deploy and extend transformational HR strategies, and putting that in lock-step with the HCM technology that brings those strategies to life.

Cornerstone OnDemand

Today we are excited to announce a deepening relationship with Cornerstone OnDemand, which is seen by customers and analysts alike as one of the leading cloud-based learning and talent management solutions out there. Read the press release here.

Many of you know that Appirio already serves existing Cornerstone clients with HR-related strategy services, but as part of this new relationship we will be building out our dedicated Cornerstone team, service offerings and supporting technology. This will become part of our broader HCM practice, and will be another tool in our belt to help companies transform the way people work.

We talk a lot about how cloud, mobile and social technologies have changed everything - check out a recent white paper we did on the impact this is having on HR. This shift is having a huge impact on the way employees find jobs, connect to their workplaces and grow in their careers. Cornerstone’s recruiting, learning and performance solutions were created with this evolution in mind, and our Cornerstone offerings will be a great complement to our other partnerships, and the existing work we do with platforms like Workday, Work.com and Force.com.

Appirio’s expertise and innovation can also bring great value to Cornerstone’s clients. If you’re a regular reader (or listener) of mine, you know how much I believe that the value of deploying any technology is only as good as the strategy behind it.  And to be clear, saving money, time, or effort is not really a strategy. This is why our teams focus on the entire lifecycle of an implementation, not just “go-live.” Our agile methods that bring together an organization’s strategy, technology and workforce means our customers are more successful and they see results faster.

I’m excited about our new relationship with Cornerstone, and our ability to bring together their great solutions with our approach to customer success. I can’t wait to see what we can accomplish together.

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Posted in Talent Management | No Comments »

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