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<span style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; COLOR: black; FONT-FAMILY: Arial">Even my grandmother is using the internet on a daily basis.  She reads her favorite websites, emails friends and family, orders groceries online, checks weather reports and even emails me pictures of men that would be more appropriate in a firemenâ??s calendar than in my company email.  Like other internet savvy 72 year olds, she expects the websites to be user friendly and provide up to date information.  Itâ??s no wonder that HR organizations are feeling the heat from their customers to provide better employee and manager direct access.  People are accustomed to websites that update information immediately and allow them the ability to control their own personal information.  You donâ??t have to be a software developer to know that if Delta Airlines can provide accurate on-line flight status, then HR and IT organizations should be able to provide employees and managers with basic HR information and services that are accurate and timely.</span>

<span style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; COLOR: black; FONT-FAMILY: Arial"><span face="Times New Roman">As HR Organizations look to improve their technology services and delivery channels for employees, they frequently re-evaluate their Employee Portals.

<span style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; COLOR: black; FONT-FAMILY: Arial"><span face="Times New Roman">The evaluation of the Employee Portal quickly becomes bigger than the bread box and organizations find themselves in analysis paralysis as they try to determine how to accomplish it all.  Single sign-on, personalization, accurate data and effective integration with corporate white pages are just the basics.  When you tack on performance management solutions, talent acquisition services, learning management solutions and connect these Talent Management components for the end user; the list of hot ticket items quickly becomes long.  Creating an Employee Portal with the above end user functionality can be daunting.  Espe<span style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; COLOR: black; FONT-FAMILY: Arial"><span face="Times New Roman">cially for organizations that are accustomed to lengthy and highly structured development approaches.

<span face="Times New Roman"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; COLOR: black; FONT-FAMILY: Arial">The organizations that are having the most success creating Employee Portals are eating the elephant one bite at a time.   Rather than focusing on the end dream solution for the Employee Portal, organizations are shifting to rapid deployment approaches.  This doesnâ??t mean skipping the typical analysis, design and documentation.  It does mean delivering basic functionality, putting it in front of the end users, evaluating what works and then quickly modifying the technology solution to include enhancements in regularly scheduled releases.  Creating a release strategy that gets something out there even if itâ??s an evolutionary product helps organizations move in the direction of successful Employee Portals.  However, many HR departments fear that if they donâ??t deliver the dream end state solution then they will lose credibility and ultimately end user usage of their Employee Portals.  In the mean time employees are wondering why amazon.com and expedia.com provide real time information and their HR departments canâ??t provide accurate phone numbers that were changed via a paper form 4 months ago.</span>

<span style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; COLOR: black; FONT-FAMILY: Arial"><span face="Times New Roman">In the past the HCM technology solutions that were successful were those which had detailed business requirements and functional specifications that were created over lengthy review cycles and buy in from the functional owners. This model is changing as HR technology solutions begin to be created for the casual user and not the HR Generalist or HR SuperUser.  Although it continues to be important to understand the business requirements and take into account the usability of the Employee Portal, itâ??s also important to start delivering services to the customers. This means breaking the technical work into small, do-able pieces that help to establish credibility with the employees. Employees understand that the website where they view their paycheck may not be as sophisticated as mortgage calculator on Yahoo but as long as their paycheck is accurate, secure, timely theyâ??ll be okay without single-sign on to enroll in their upcoming training class.

<span face="Times New Roman"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; COLOR: black; FONT-FAMILY: Arial">Like my grandmother, employees are accustomed to evolving technology and services.  As long as users start to see some value-add in the short term, theyâ??ll be back in the long term to see the cool bells and whistles of the Employee Portalâ?¦ maybe even a corporate calendar with personalized content that even my grandmother would be interested in viewing.</span>

<span face="Times New Roman"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; COLOR: black; FONT-FAMILY: Arial">Send me an email with comments: mailto:amber.lloyd@knowledge-infusion.com</span>