The folks over at the Taleo blog recently posted a high level Talent Management Maturity model that focuses on the evolution of Talent Management technologies. This information can be useful to understanding what is happening in the talent management marketplace, but what about the practical application of talent management in our organizations?

Here at the Knowledge Infusion megaplex we've been spending a lot of time and thought on how our customers (organizations) can measure their Talent Management process maturity - regardless of the technology they may be using. By focusing on individual talent mangement processes (i.e. Performance Mgt, Talent Acquisition, Learning Mgt, Career Planning, Succession Planning, Compensation) our goal is to allow organizations to create a baseline understanding from which to launch and really zero in on specific changes they can make to move forward. There are common themes emerging across processes as we complete our research. We've identified the following foundational factors as applicable to all talent management processes.

Business Outcome Focus: What business outcomes are you trying to achieve with the process? Are they defined?

Standardization: Is everyone in the organization doing the process the same way?

Visibility: How much visibility do you have into the effectiveness and/or efficiency of the process across the organization?

Integration: How integrated is the process with other key talent management processes?

Metrics: How are you measuring the efficiency and/or effectiveness of the process?

Stewardship: Who "owns" the process? Is the owner closely tied to the business or detached?

Of course, technology will enable many of the above factors. Are there any other foundational factors that apply across all talent management processes?

Be on the lookout for tools coming soon that will allow you to assess where your talent management processes are today, and how to move them forward based on your organization's needs!

I’ve found that I learn the most in life when I trip and fall. I know I’m not alone in this. It’s these moments in life when we don’t succeed, when we don’t win, when we ultimately fail, that teach us the most. More importantly, it’s these moments in life that show us what we are really made of.

It’s easy to succeed. It’s easy to win. It’s easy to accomplish all that we set out to do. It takes hard work to get there. It takes careful planning and calculated moves, but the end result is easy and it feels good. Success is gratifying. Gratification is what makes it all worth it. The long days, the short nights, the time away from family, they all seem worth it when that gratifying feeling surges through you. You want to bottle that feeling and sip from it every chance you get.

Failure isn't as easy. It hurts. It burns. It downright stings. It makes us remember for a long time. It’s one of those feelings you want to walk far away from. In reality, failure is a gift. Failure is special. Failure is the opportunity to pick ourselves up, dust off, and get back in the game. Failure is the chance to grow and to change and to be more than we are today. Failure builds character, thickens skin, and it makes us stronger. Failure is necessary. Failure is important. Those that avoid failure at all cost by stopping short are cheating themselves. They will never have the benefit of laying it all on the line, letting it ride, and living and learning from the result.

As we work to change the game, let’s celebrate failure. Let’s embrace it and encourage all those around us to take risks, lay it on the line, and go for broke. Let’s also be there to support and encourage each other when we trip and fall.

Lately, I've been working with several clients who are grappling with the concept of Pay for Contribution, rather than Pay for Performance. Much of this transformation in thinking is coming about as more and more organizations ask the questions, "What do we pay our employees for, really?" Pay for Performance tends to be a historical view, paying employees for what they have accomplished in the past. It is based on the premise that the employee, with his or her manager, has set SMART goals for the performance period, and has been evaluated against how well he or she achieved the goals identified.

Pay for Contribution, on the other hand, can be backwards or forwards looking, however, it is based more on the premise that the employee has contributed value to the organization is some form or other - whether by growing critical relationships, developing valuable intellectual property, implementing key infrastructure, etc. Often, Pay for Contribution is intended to reward more "intangibles" - elements that add value to the organization, but are difficult to quantify or establish objectives for up front.

And herein lies the rub. Organizations tend to like Pay for Performance because it is based on pre-set goals with specific measures. The employee achieves the goal or doesn't achieve it, and is rewarded based on this fact. Employees like Pay for Performance because it is predictable (assuming goals and performance measures are very clearly laid out.) Pay for Contribution tends to be more fuzzy. Organizations often are not clear on the value of a "contribution" until some time after it has been made. The result is that the criteria in Pay for Contribution are often unclear to the employee, and the resulting reward unpredictable. And if there is one thing that has the potential to frustrate employees, and negatively impact morale, it is when the paycheck is not what is expected.

Whether an organization pays for Performance or for Contribution, it is critical that the organization define as clearly as possible for itself and employees what "performance" and / or "contribution" look like. Even if contribution is not as easily quantifiable or measurable as some performance goals, it is necessary to at least provide a picture, an example, an anecdote - so that employees have some information in order to better decide how to do their work. And the earlier in the pay cycle these expectations are made clear, the better. That way, everyone has a shared understanding of where everyone is going, what it takes to get there, and how rewards will be distributed.

Does your organization have a "Pay for Contribution" policy? How is contribution defined? How is it valued? What works well about it, what doesn't? Would love to hear others' thoughts and experiences on this topic.

In speaking with a lot of learning and development professionals lately, I hear that a lot of them are not concerned with 'butts-in-seats' for classroom training or 'eyeballs' or completions for online courses. Rather they are concerned with more strategic measures such as knowledge transfer and ROI. Some of them have even relegated attendance to a lowly Level 0 on Kirkpatrick's famous 4-level impact scale, which starts at level 1, stating that such reports are useless.

I think this view is a little extreme. In fact, I think that while 'butts-in-seats' as a measure is transactional, it is foundational in that it can lend strategic insights into the value of learning investments and lead to better decisions on how to allocate those investments going forward. For instance:

• It matters to a Chief Compliance Officer that every manager took part in the sexual harassment training. Without any needed proof of knowledge transfer or understanding in any state of which I am aware (sad), attendance is all you really have.

• Several senior business leaders with whom I've spoken want to know that their potential successors are taking part in the accelerated leadership development programs they were involved in designing for the good of the long-term health of the company.

• The head of product marketing wants to know that all salespeople and channel partners have sat through training on the new black-box, which is now available for sale 4 weeks ahead of the company's nearest competitors' black-box.

• The head of customer training is concerned about butts-in-seats because its directly tied to the top line of her P&L. She is also interested in the average price charged per learner.

• The CLO cares because he wants to know what courses are in high-demand and which ones should be put out to pasture.

While I don't subscribe to obsessing over transactional measures like attendance or training departmental measures such as how much you spend on catering, I do feel that you do need spend some time tracking them in order to tie training to business value via quality and efficiency. I'd love to hear how you're approaching your T&D measurement strategy.

Two experiences this past weekend emphasized for me - again - both the incredible advantages, and disadvantages, of today's technologies that enable us to be connected to one another 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. First, the experience that reminded me of the disadvantages. It's a fairly mundane story, actually. I took Friday off. That's it - I took the day off from work. Except that, even though I took the day off and was driving with my husband through to my high school reunion, I still "attended" a team meeting via cell phone. The reason I attended this meeting on my day off? I am pretty sure I attended it simply because I could, because I had the technology that enabled me to do so. So, why not? (Thank heavens I have wonderful colleagues who promptly reminded me of the need for work-life balance, and that when I say I am taking the day off, I really need to take the day OFF.) The lesson: just because technology allows us to do something, we don't have to do it.

Now, for the amazing experience that reminded me of the advantages. Saturday night was the big class dinner at the reunion, and during the meal I sat next to a terrific classmate sharing our current professional endeavors. This friend shared his newly acquired knowledge of my employment with Knowledge Infusion with another classmate and his spouse a little later. Turned out that this other classmate and spouse know several KI folks through professional affiliations. Further, the spouse already knew who I was, simply because we have so many connections in common on Facebook, and she had seen my name a lot, as I had seen hers. The funniest thing about this? As she and I were talking, I was getting emails from my KI colleagues asking if I knew or had met her, as they had seen on her Facebook status that she was headed to the same reunion I was heading to. So, here we all were: talking real time with each other, communicating virtually with various KI colleagues through email and mobile Facebook on our Blackberries. Technology enabled all of us to recognize and connect with each other, realizing the many different ways our paths cross in life. The lesson: sometimes, when technology enables these amazing opportunities to connect with terrific people, we should take advantage of them, and follow up with a face-to-face interaction when possible.

At Knowledge Infusion, we work with organizations to implement technologies that enable human interaction and collaboration. We also remind our clients that technology is nothing more than an enabler, that as humans, we still need to use our judgment about when using technology is wise (e.g., to facilitate making new friends), and perhaps not so wise (tipping work-life balance too far to the work side). It's helpful to remind ourselves of this every once in a while.

Software as a Service (SaaS) is a distribution model in which applications are hosted by a vendor and made available to customers over a network. Both hardware and software are owned by the provider and maintained at its datacenter. In a true SaaS model, both are also shared by all clients, although user data is divided. In addition, all customers are on the same version and instance of the application. The software is typically leased, although it is sometimes licensed as if it was being bought.

Over the past few years, a critical mass of adopters, better usability, enhancements to GUIs have all driven organizations both large and small to adopt the SaaS model. Coincidentally, a number of large, well-established enterprise application giants have built up substantial SaaS businesses in recent years to compete with younger upstarts.

The four greatest value propositions driving SaaS adoption amongst HR technology buyers are:

1. Faster time-to-value through configurable applications.

2. Mitigated risk through minimal upfront costs and pay-as-you-go procurement.

3. Less reliance on support from internal IT departments that are too busy to help.

4. Economies of scale like any outsourcing model.

However, in order to realize these, you must first contractually agree with your SaaS providers on the particulars of how these opportunities will be realized. I have learned from working with many clients that there are things to watch out for when engaging a SaaS provider. Moreover, many have told me that they include written stipulations in their contracts to protect their interests such as:

1. Application Support. Most companies get service level agreements (SLAs) on support related to the application running properly as well its availability, including response times, and notifications of outages and how soon after a failure you must be notified.

2. Agreement on what an active user is. This is not unlike contracts related to behind-the-firewall implementations. However, reports should be generated more efficiently given that this is how the SaaS provider runs its business.

3. Security. Typically these requirements (e.g., intrusion tests, SAS 70 Type 2 Certificate) are covered pre-contract during the evaluation period.

4. Data back-up and recovery. Similar to security bullet above.

5. Data ownership. Ensure that your provider will enable you to easily migrate your data should you decide to move to a competitor or bring the solution in-question in-house. SLAs related to data migration in such events are not uncommon.

6. Ownership of source code. This may be covered through an escrow account. Even financially sound companies get shut down from time-to-time. And you never know when someone is going to win a patent infringement suit against your SaaS provider.

7. Integration non-SaaS systems. Requirements related to frequency, data mapping, and file format are the biggest gotchas.

8. Growth. Include and define provisions (i.e., milestones) for growth that will allow you to lower your average cost-per-user.

9. Training and Certification of Support Staff. While ‘major release' is not a term often uttered by a SaaS provider, some are more significant than others. We have seen clients require that all support personnel assigned to them be trained and certified on the latest version.

I have learned about these points through lessons learned by clients and service providers. However, I know this list isn't exhaustive. I'm curious as to what pearls of wisdom my KI colleagues can share based on their experience. And I'm even more curious to hear from those of you who have been involved in a constructing or negotiating SaaS contract. KI does not provide consulting related to either of these areas.

How "Mature" Are Your Organization's Talent Management Processes?

Many organizations we engage with view Talent Management like it's some kind of exotic new discipline. The reality is that the functions usually associated with Talent Management (Recruitment, Performance Management, Learning and Development, Career Planning, Workforce Planning, Succession Management, Compensation) have been around for a long time. New technologies are allowing organizations to tie all these processes together and get true visibility into the business impacts of these functions.

We can usually tell how "grown up" our client's are by asking some key questions around the following areas for each of their Talent Management processes:

• What are the business drivers of the process? We're often met with a blank stare here.

• How frequently do you perform the process? Once per year or is it a constant, ongoing process?

• How standardized is the process across your organization?

• What kind of visibility does the process provide into key measures and organizational trends?

• Who owns the process? HR or the business - or both?

• What technologies support the process? Technology is an enabler of increased standardization, visibility, and process integration

• How integrated is the process with other talent management processes?

• What metrics do you use to measure the effectiveness and business impacts of your process? Often, another blank stare here.

Obviously, in depth analysis is required to determine how to improve your organization's processes. But by asking key questions you can learn quite a bit about where your organization is now, and where you want it to be in 1, 3, 5 or 10 years.

So what is your organization? Toddler? Kindergartener? Adolescent? Adult?

As a result of the pending merger between Bear Stearns and J.P. Morgan, nearly half of Bear's 14,000 employees will lose their jobs. They feel betrayed and estranged having given their all to an organization that only a few days prior claimed to be financially sound. It is very likely that these employees will have a difficult time trusting the next (hopefully next) employer. These are the very people who agreed to be compensated in part by company stock, which is now virtually worthless (30% of Bear Stearns stock was owned by its employees). What value will they place on their future employer's offer of incentive or non-cash compensation? How could they not be skeptical with so many having lost so much of their wealth?

Now let's turn our attention to JP Morgan. They may have acquired Bear Stearns stock for next to nothing, but it is the intellectual capital that must be retained. There are so many opinions in the press about how to manage this merger; my perspective is from the Talent Management side of the fence. JP Morgan has a significant challenge at hand to not only identify those who are the "cream of the crop", but to offer them a compelling reason stay. These are "A Type" personalities who are highly money motivated. Clearly, other firms will be aggressively recruiting the top talent with comp packages that, ironically, mirror the very ones that kept them at Bear Stearns over the years and eventually proved to be worthless.

Other than offering all cash comp packages, what can JP Morgan or respective firms do to rebuild employee trust?

Stay tuned. In the meantime I would love to hear your thoughts.