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?

This is the second installment in a series of unvarnished perspectives on the HCM and Talent Management software space.

In our work at Knowledge Infusion, were often asked by clients whether it would be valuable for them to attend user conferences for various HCM or Talent Management vendors in the space. Despite the fact that my Knowledge Infusion colleagues and I often present at these events, the way I usually respond is: Yes, it's possible to get valuable information from these user conferences - if you understand how these user conferences are run.

Having viewed these conferences from multiple perspectives - as an SME presenting for the vendor side; as an SME presenting from the perspective of a vendor partner; and as a customer attendee, I've developed an (albeit colorful) view of what drives these conferences. I tell my clients, if you understand the three tenets of user conferences, you will be able to navigate the user conference and extract as much value as possible. So at the risk of ruffling the feathers of my friends on the vendor and analyst side, here it goes:

Tenet 1: Fish In a Barrel - Understand that to vendors, these user conferences are mostly sales/marketing events. It enables them to garner a lot of press and analyst coverage, while at the same time assembling a large number of their customers in one place to feed them marketing messages and sales pitches. If you're an executive with the budget to purchase software, the vendors may offer to bring you out to their conference all expenses paid. This will give their sales folks the opportunity to corner you in a room and pitch their products. To the vendors, assembling this many customers and analysts in one place is like shooting fish in a barrel.

Tenet 2: Hey! Look! Free KoolAid!! - If you watch how analysts usually cover user conferences, it appears that vendors serve up huge vats of PR KoolAid and the analysts often drink the KoolAid freely and without question. The vendors use these events to introduce new "game changing" products and announce new partnerships - knowing that the announcements will receive broad analyst coverage. The conferences are usually accompanied by a flurry of press releases - creating a vendor/analyst echo chamber. Rarely will the analysts question whether the new products are "vapor ware," or question the wisdom of an announced partnership. These types of criticisms (if any) are usually reserved for analyst's personal blogs - often under the cloak of anonymity. It's interesting how software vendors and analyst firms sometimes seem to keep each other in business by creating a mutual admiration society.

Tenet 3: Fly Me Away - The (not-so-well kept) secret on the customer side of user conferences is that many of the attendees are simply trying to get a free trip to a desirable location on their employer's dime. That is why vendors tend to hold these conferences in locations like Las Vegas, New York, Orlando and San Diego (in Winter), etc.... The attendees aren't always looking for valuable information so much as they are looking to get out of the office for a few days and collect a suitcase full of marketing swag. It's important to sift through these freeloaders if you're looking to network with other customers and garner valuable information.

So, to summarize, how can you extract the most value from your user conference experience?

• Realize the user conference is a sales/marketing event. Take vendor demos, press releases, and pronouncements with a grain of salt.

• Don't drink the KoolAid. Look beyond the coverage of the analyst herd. Drill deep into products ability to meet your requirements before making a decision. This type of due diligence is not possible at a user conference.

• If you're looking to network with other customers to compare notes, share best practices, and learn from each other, filter out those fellow customers that are there mostly for the conference's proximity to Disneyland.

As a Knowledge Infusion consultant, it's my job to work with organizations to define their HCM and Talent Management strategies and create actionable plans to begin to execute on that strategy. As part of this process, we do an extensive review of the existing HR Technology infrastructure and conduct discovery interviews with stakeholders to glean current insights. Once complete, we analyze and synthesize the data collected to determine elements of the initial recommendation list. We then conduct an iterative review of the material and begin to refine the list to arrive at the final recommendation set and action plan. This entire process is aimed at creating a strategy poised to deliver not just HR value, but business value.

Often times during this process, I run into issues that are tough to deal with. I uncover significant deficiencies that will be a challenge for the client to deal with and overcome. This sometimes comes in the form of a series of bad or misguided technology decisions that detract from achieving stated goals. When I find myself in these situations, I am compelled to speak up. It's my obligation to tell the client what they may not want to hear in order to get them where they want to go. It's my job to deliver the bad news and turn it into a plan that aims to transform HR. It's through this approach and committment that together with clients, we develop a strategy that is not only achievable, but also produces true business value.