Contact Us
Who We AreWhat We DoOur ClientsNews & EventsCenter of Excellence

Consultant's Corner

6 Posts tagged with the talent-management tag
Lisa Burton
5


I was having an interesting conversation with an HR friend of mine last night over a nice glass of wine…  She had recently led her business leaders through a Talent Review process and had a noteworthy realization after reviewing all of the top leaders within the team.  It seems that every female leader was given developmental feedback that related back to a lack of confidence.  That said, there were no male leaders who were given similar feedback.  And, as much as she hated to agree with what appeared on the surface to be gender-biased feedback, she followed their line of logic and felt compelled to agree…

 

In general, there was more of a tendency for women to outwardly question or react – positively and negatively – to their actions after an event, meeting, etc.  This appeared to baffle their male counterparts and was noted as lack of confidence by both males and females as they considered the performance of these women.  This lack of confidence was a key factor taken into consideration in assessing these women’s future potential.  And, my friend and I recognized – not surprisingly - that this phenomenon did not appear to be limited to the top business leaders within my friend’s team.

 

This, of course, got us thinking…  We first considered our own experiences and both immediately recalled examples when we walked out of meetings and verbally engaged in the “I wish I had…” dialogue (As for my own example, I can even recall the look on my male counterpart’s face, who seemed confused and felt compelled to give me positive feedback – to try to ‘pump me up’.  Although I wasn’t excited about the reaction, in truth, I’m not sure what alternative reaction I expected from him…)

 

Now, in this world of information, we all know that there have been many studies of male / female differences, many of which focus on this topic of confidence.  And, my point is not to turn this into a research paper (I did lots – maybe too much – of that in graduate school).  Rather, my point is to offer up some questions for consideration…
1.  Is there a reality to the idea that lack of confidence is a characteristic to which women are more prone in the leadership ranks?
2.  What are the implications from a developmental perspective?  Is this an example of ‘perception is reality’ and the solution is primarily educational in nature?
3.  How does the idea of emotional maturity factor into this conversation?  It is interesting to note that realism and self-analysis are characteristics of emotional maturity, whereas denial and avoidance indicate emotional immaturity.  Are these two ideas in conflict?  Where is the balance?

 

I’m curious what others think and have experienced on this topic…  Thoughts?

5 Comments Permalink Tags: talent-management, talent_management, women, leadership
Andy Gebavi
0

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?

 

 

0 Comments 0 References Permalink Tags: talent_management, talent-management, compensation, hcm, future_workforce, technology, hr, hr-technology, saas, successfactors, performance_management
David Barron
0

Contributed by David Barron – david.barron@knowledge-infusion.com, Principal Consultant, Knowledge Infusion

 

This final installment is dedicated to a good friend of mine, Jim Durham.

 

In this installment, we will conclude the investigation on the six steps that I believe will lead companies to value in their software selections. The six steps are:

1.     Define Desired Business Outcomes

2.     Define the Decision Criteria

3.     Assess the Potential Providers

4.     Engage the Providers

5.     Conduct Software Demonstrations

6.     Selection

 

Final step – Selection

 

Once demonstrations are complete, there may or may not be a clear “winner”. There will probably be follow up items for most, if not all of the providers. Some follow up items may include: reference checks, parking lot items from the actual presentations, technology documentation, and maybe even a “sandbox” working environment.  Remember the work (Define the Decision Criteria) done early in the process and don’t stray from it. The tendency is to see a product that “looks good” and start the decision process from a selection with backward validation. Don’t fall into that hole. Regroup as a team and make your decision based on your key criteria. Comparing providers side-by-side for each criterion through a slideshow and/or document are effective ways to ensure an objective and transparent decision. 

 

When it comes to choosing a provider, keep in mind there is not always a perfectly right answer. In fact, oftentimes there is more than one viable solution available. Do not wait for the “silver bullet” and avoid “analysis paralysis” because you have multiple options. It’s easy to become overly concerned about making the wrong decision and waste time trying to find a single element that makes one better than the other, when both solutions are suitable to your needs.

 

Tip: If two providers are dead-even on most value-based criteria, focus on price as a differentiating factor and negotiate with both.

 

Thanks for reading this series and I look forward to providing more information in the future!

0 Comments 0 References Permalink Tags: assessment, evaluation, hr-technology, software, talent-management, vendor_evaluation, technology
Andy Gebavi
1

Of the dozens of customers Knowledge Infusion has helped plan and execute their Talent Management initiatives, not one - ZERO - have chosen to use web services to integrate their Talent Management applications with their HRIS or other internal apllications. They all use flat-file feeds to pass data back and forth between HRIS databases and the vendor datacenters on a scheduled basis. Part of the reason for this is because although most vendors claim to support web-services, few try to convince clients of the value of this technology. On the customer side, many corporate IT departments are not convinced they can use web services to send data securely through their corporate firewalls to an external datacenter. This, despite the fact that companies like eBay and Amazon have conducted billions of dollars of business using web-services.

 

For the technically challenged among us, the term "web services" describes a standardized way of integrating web-based applications. Web services enable small chunks of data to be transmitted in real-time when a transaction is performed, rather than in a huge file with other transaction data on a scheduled basis. Web-services has been over-shadowed lately in the Web 2.0 world by social media (social networks, wikis, blogs), but folks, without web-services, Web 2.0 is much more static.

 

To put the use of web services in a talent management context, let's say your company wants to hire a candidate that has cleared the interview process. The hire can be executed in your onboarding system and instantaneously transmitted to your HRIS or other applications to begin all the tasks that are required to onboard an employee (schedule orientation, arrange equipment and office space, provide building and system access, etc...). By avoiding the usual 24 hour lag time for each time transaction data is transmitted between systems, the entire employee onboarding experience is improved. It could make a huge difference in the length of time it takes a new employee to become fully productive - not to mention creating a positive experience in general for the new employee when they show up on their first day and are all set to go.

 

We're curious why more vendors or their customers aren't taking advantage of web services. So if you're out there, whether you're a software provider or a customer, if you're using web-services through a corporate firewall for talent management processes, we would love to hear from you. Let us know what you're doing!

1 Comments 0 References Permalink Tags: web_services, web_2.0, talent-management, vendor_evaluation, software, integration
Neil Jensen
0

Working Mother magazine today named MetLife as a 2007 Working Mother Best Company. This is the ninth consecutive time MetLife has been honored with this distinction. As a current customer of Knowledge Infusion, and one of my primary clients, I've had first hand experience working with the wonderful individuals at MetLife - many of them working mothers (and fathers). MetLife truly is an organization that embodies and promotes the talent management programs that make it possible for working mothers to have a positive work/life balance and get the most out of a fulfilling career and a robust family life.

 

As we get deeper into the much publicized ‘war for talent,' programs such as the ones utilized by MetLife will be increasingly more important to fuel the talent pipeline. MetLife is demonstrating early in the game that by utilizing creative talent programs such as telecommuting, compressed work week, emergency child care, and flextime, you can tap talent-rich segments of the workforce and enable them to become a catalyst in fulfilling your business objectives and strategy.

 

 

Congratulations to MetLife and the entire HR team on this much deserved distinction.

 

 

Another infusion of knowledge...

 

 

0 Comments 0 References Permalink Tags: customer, metlife, talent-management, general-hr
Neil Jensen
0

On a recent flight home to Phoenix from the east coast, I picked up a copy of Outside Magazine to help pass the time and to help fuel my passion of the outdoors. To my pleasure, the issue showcased an article about a Navy SEAL and his pursuit of the sport of Triathlon. To my surprise, this same article also emphasized one of the talent management principles that I continually work with clients on - critical roles.

 

The article highlighted the US Navy's efforts to recruit qualified candidates for its SEAL program. You see, the US Navy has identified the SEAL as a critical role that enables success in modern warfare and is making special efforts to recruit candidates that stand an increased chance of success in that role. To recruit for SEALs, the Navy has broken away from their traditional recruiting methods such as high school fairs and strip mall recruiting offices, and has gotten out into the environments that contain the talent that can excel at what they will ask them to do. They've taken the notion of critical roles and applied it in a way that ensures a higher rate of success. By focusing recruiting efforts in talent rich environments such as triathlon events, surfing competitions, water-polo matches, and lifeguard competitions, the Navy has increased it success rate from 26% to over 40% for candidates that can make it through their insanely difficult qualifying school (BUD/S).

 

 

As the US Navy has shown, the ‘peanut butter' approach to HR process and practice just isn't working anymore. Applying the same processes and level of effort to all jobs and roles within your organization ends up inflating costs and inevitably wasting precious time that could have been dedicated to the critical roles that differentiate your business in the market. By focusing on critical roles and applying special handling to these roles, you increase your success rate and enable a critical component of your talent pipeline.

 

 

Knowledge Infusion works with client's everyday to define their Talent Management strategy focusing on critical roles and the integrated Talent Management technologies that support them.

 

 

Link to Outside article

 

 

0 Comments 0 References Permalink Tags: talent-management, general-hr, current-affairs

Actions

Popular Blog Posts