Knowledge Infuser : February 2007
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Join Knowledge Infusion and HumanConcepts for this educational webinar on Succession Planning today and how visualization tools like OrgPlus from HumanConcepts can play a key role in transforming this important HCM and Talent Management business process.
An excerpt and what will be covered by Jason Averbook and Jim Candler:
Who will lead your company into the future? This is a question every organization needs to ask. Join HumanConcepts, a leading provider of workforce modeling and intelligence solutions, and Knowledge Infusion, the recognized authority in HCM and Talent Management consulting to learn how to make the most of your organizational chart and visualize your succession plan, understand how movements will affect other departments, and ensure that you are not missing your top performers and making the best decisions. Identifying the right talent and producing a succession plan is becoming increasingly urgent for organizations as baby boomers, totaling over 76 million people and representing 28% of the U.S. population, begin leaving the workforce.
The state of Talent Management.
The role of Succession Planning and why Succession Planning is leading the charge in Talent Management.
How to avoid common pitfalls in executing a comprehensive Succession Planning solution.
The power of visualization and how to transform a succession plan into a strategic visual tool to model and drive important people decisions.
How to extract valuable data from your HRMS system to provide a visual solution for modeling and executing a succession plan.
How the HumanConcepts OrgPlus solution integrates with existing HRMS infrastructure to provide a visual data solution for modeling and executing a succession plan.
Click on the HR.com link below to register for this live event.
Another infusion of knowledge..
Link to HR.COM- The Human Resources Portal
Business Intelligence 2.0: Simpler, More Accessible, Inevitable
Posted by Jason Averbook Feb 23, 2007
Great article in Intelligent Enterprise on BI 2.0. Now most of us know that in the HR world, we haven't quite reached BI 1.0 (or most of us haven't); but what the heck, lets go right to 2.0.
Pass it around and use it as a guide to your HR strategy and focus around metrics and analytics in 2007 and beyond.
Contributed by Mike Brennan, Principal Consultant, Knowledge Infusion
You can smell peanuts and fresh-cut grass in the air despite the snow that still covers much of the U.S. after last week���s storm. Fans of our national - and increasingly international pastime - just marked the beginning of Major League Baseball���s Spring Training. Amidst all the media hype of new managers, blockbuster trades, predictions (i.e., forecasts), and monster contracts ��� all of which are highly visible manifestations of Human Capital Management (HCM), the issue of performance-enhancing drugs will undoubtedly rear its ugly head.
Without getting into common-sensible views on the use of steroids (brief digression ��� shameful, underhanded, risky), it is funny how the phrase ������on steroids��� has come to mean anything delivered in a bigger, faster, or better way. This brings me to the analogy of a baseball card. A couple of months ago, Knowledge Infusion was managing a Talent Management vendor evaluation process for a client. During the course of a vendor meeting, a vendor representative, used the metaphor of a baseball card when describing how the company���s technology displays an online employee profile (see example below), which can be utilized for a variety of HCM processes:
An employee profile ��� sometimes referred to as an eresume or an employee snapshot ��� begins its life during the talent acquisition process right around the time when someone turns from applicant to new-hire. This person may be new to the workforce (i.e., a rookie) or may simply be changing teams (with or without the help of an agent).* The profile is then updated throughout the employee���s work life ��� during a performance review, after participation in a leadership development program, when a new title is achieved, etc.* For the organization, collections of employee profiles may also be searched using a multitude of criteria (e.g., particular skill, years of experience, latest performance rating, region, etc.) and compared/contrasted with others when looking to fill a newly created position, when putting together a team, or when planning for the succession of a manager or executive. Even after an employee leaves, his/her profile may be kept in a database and returned during a search should a short-term project be a good match in terms of the skills and experience required.
This clever baseball smart analogy resonated with many of the people in the room, including yours truly (Go Yanks! Oh wait. It���s still February.). But it occurred to me shortly after the meeting that baseball cards have become somewhat out-of-date. In fact, this analogy may be lost on a lot of young people ��� even baseball fans ��� who are now entering the workforce due largely to similar technology that is steadily rendering hard-copy, static resumes obsolete. I mean, have you seen the kind of research and stat sorting you can do on baseball players these days?
The bad news for us is that he will have to come up with a new analogy in 10 to 20 years when millennials - who have only seen ���baseball cards��� written on boxes in their parents��� attics - are making decisions about what HCM technologies to buy. The good news for us is that this purveys a solution from one of the companies that is changing the game today. Indeed the online employee profile is like a baseball card on steroids. And the searchable repositories of employee profiles made possible through solutions providers like SuccessFactors and its competitors (Authoria, Plateau, Oracle, SAP, Saba, Halogen, and SumTotal to name a few) are powerful weapons for organizations who wish to optimize their talent and play ball with their competitors.
See a sample below from one vendor in the space.
[baseball players|http://knowledgeinfusion.typepad.com/knowlege_infusion_blog/WindowsLiveWriter/Ba seballInTheAirTalentMgmt_11C03/ki4%5B2%5D.jpg]
Another infusion of knowledge..
Even the CIA is thinking about Talent Management. Of course they are, the government has the oldest population of any industry classification in America today.
An interesting article on how the CIA is doing recruiting in a changing world today. Some interesting stats:
40% of the workforce has arrived since 9/11/2001 * 60% of new hires are under age 30 * 40% are under age 40 * Most employees have been there either less than 5 years or more than 15
A good piece and stats that are not dissimilar to what we are seeing in many organizations today looking at talent management and HRMS solutions to automate some of this talent acquisition process.
Another infusion of knowledge..
Link to Stephen Barr - Fast-Changing CIA Puts New Emphasis On Recruiting - Washington.com
Contributed by David Link, Managing Strategist, Knowledge Infusion
This is not a case of bathroom humor. The picture above was captured by camera phone during a bio-break during a client HR strategy session on how technology can influence a more strategic position for HR in a large organization. My first thought was that this might be a primitive form of employee (demand statement) and manager (answer and rationale) communication. The fact that it was being conducted on a bathroom stall was further evidence of the poor state in which many organizations are managing productive discussions on talent management topics. I���ll admit, we can���t fully understand the meaning of these lavatory hieroglyphics ��� but we do know that the dialogue between employees and managers on issues that impact performance, compensation and career development must elevate to a higher level.
As HR professionals are we really listening to employees? Are we really helping managers? How effectively is your organization leveraging technology to facilitate a healthy, productive conversation between employees and managers that helps to drive overall team performance. How are talent management issues being tackled to preserve high performers and enhance the skills of the high potentials? If your organization is not leveraging technology heavily to address performance, compensation, development, learning and other talent management issues, you are taking a risk. Bathroom walls can no longer be the place for commentary on talent management.
Interesting article how that details how a small few 'bad apples' can influence the entire workplace.
HR, HCM, Talent Management technologies can clearly make a difference in helping organizations pinpoint these 'bad apples' and create programs to insure that issues like this are addressed.
Goals alignment in performance management tools provide the technology to help catch some of these 'apples' before they ROT the workforce. Understand that performance is not just an appraisal, but a true LIVING process insuring the best possible workforce alignment and engagement model.
Another good piece that needs to be taken into account when deploying these technologies, how to focus on reporting/metrics to insure you can find these 'apples' and demonstrate agility to create a model to drive the workforce to new heights.
Another infusion of knowledge..
Great article in BusinessWeek.com entitled The Web, Now Just for You. Some highlights and how this pertains to HRMS, HR, HCM and Talent Management technologies:
Tools that connect users together based on similar interests. THIS IS A POWERFUL FEATURE OF SOFTWARE AND PORTALS IN THE HR/HCM SPACE INTO THE FUTURE. * Recommendation tools such as "if you like this content, you might like this as well". THIS IS THE FUTURE OF THE PORTAL/INTRANET FOR EMPLOYEES AND MANAGERS. BEGIN THINKING HOW YOU CAN DO SOME OF THIS TODAY. * The Engagement Quotient is all about how long someone stays on a site. Now, we dont want employees hanging out on the site, but we do want them to find that they are looking for. I would call this for HR, THE RELATIVE ENGAGEMNET QUOTIENT. * Filtering tools are designed to only show users information relevant to them. THIS IS HR/PORTAL 2007 STUFF. START THIS NOW AS IT IS THE FUTURE.
HR has spent the last ten to fifteen years automating transactions. It is now time to take those automated transactions and wrap them with intelligent content and prescriptive information to drive a new age of employee experience.
Another infusion of knowledge..
Link to The Web, Now Just for You
HR technology strategy, while important that it is grounded in work around overall corporate goals and objectives, must also be grounded in workforce demographic studies within the organization. Many times we hear:
"Our workforce cant use computers"
"Our workforce has no access to the internet"
"Our workforce doesn't speak English (not a prerequisite to using the internet by the way).
WorldatWork (an international non-profit association of HR professionals) is out with their annual report on Telework Trendlines, based on phone surveys done last fall by The Dieringer Research Group of 1,001 adults 19 years and older in the United States. That���s enough to give their conclusions plus-or-minus 3% accuracy, and they���ve been doing these surveys for five years, so there���s valuable history here. Among their findings:
The number of employees who are allowed to work from home at least one day a month stands at 12.4 million, up 63% in two years.* Nearly 30 million people do all or part of their work remotely at least one day a month.* 14.7 million people engage in teleworking full time (hey, that���s us!)* Broadband and wireless use is growing faster in teleworkers than in the general population.* 40% of teleworkers have a household income over $75,000.
INSURE THAT YOUR HRMS, HR TECHNOLOGY STRATEGY AND TALENT MANAGEMENT STRATEGY ARE GROUNDED WITH REALITY IN THE WORKFORCE, NOT JUST WITH WHAT YOU THINK IS THE CASE.
Another infusion of knowledge..
Link to Web Worker Daily �� Blog Archive Web Work Continues Explosive Growth ��
Contibuted by David Link, Managing Partner Knowledge Infusion
We all know that success of an organization is dependent on customers ��� who they are, how they buy and how often they visit are elementary factors that influence volume of products/services a company offers. The type of experience delivered is increasingly the difference between ���customer for life��� (success) or ���customer never again��� (not success). Leading organizations understand that employees are ���internal��� customers and the direct link to delivering the ���external��� customer experience. The type of experience HR (and its partners across the organization) delivers influences how talent is attracted, developed, motivated and retained in a similar quest to achieve and sustain organizational success. The Customer Experience has dual and important meaning to the area of HR strategy and transformation.
The February 2007 edition of Harvard Business Review contains an excellent article focused on ���Understanding the Customer Experience.��� The article presents important concepts on how organizations are moving past classic Customer Relationship Management (CRM) to fully understand how experience influences customers positively. When experience is understood, processes can be crafted to predictably and consistently deliver it to customers. While the article discusses this primarily from an ���external��� customer perspective, our work as HR transformers is heavily leveraging the same set of principles. The authors briefly note HR correlation in an article sidebar. A key focus of this updated thinking is the power of metrics to capture data and develop meaningful measures that help to understand the customer. Here again, a direct correlation to the emerging metrics activity around human capital.
So often, business activity occurring outside of the HR function can be powerful influence in engaging executives in HR transformation activity. So often in our consulting work, valuable articles like this, provide the extra volts to make an executive light bulb fully illuminate on the issues critical to Human Capital Management and Talent Management. How often are you venturing into executive journals to find support for HR business initiatives?
For the most part, our observation as consultants suggests that many HR leaders are missing an important opportunity to leverage mainstream (non HR) business thinking as a method to engage executives in a strategic dialogue that leads to HR technology transformation action. Is your discussion on Portal for HR and self service activities languishing (many are)? Failing to gain traction in having HR viewed as a strategic business partner? Take a read on articles like ���Understanding the Customer Experience��� and have a copy of HBR on top of your portfolio at your next executive meeting ��� let me know how it goes.
To view the executive summaries of the February 2007 edition of Harvard Business Review, Click Here
Another infusion of knowledge..
(p.s. the article on how manager decision making can sabotage corporate strategy has some interesting ties to HR initiatives as well including talent acquisition and metrics)
Customers, a part of talent management strategy - CROWDSOURCING
Posted by Jason Averbook Feb 9, 2007
We wanted to take a bit of a different approach to today regarding talent management; your customers as your talent.
This is a great piece of work and something that everyone should think about when creating an enterprise talent management strategy.
Think about the work you are doing related to talent management today. The impacts on HRMS; the impacts on employees; the impacts on the HR administration - and then think about the impact on customers. A cycle would look something like the impact you have on employees, the impact they have on customers and the impact the customers have on your business.
Take a read about CROWDSOURCING and pass around.
Another infusion of knowledge..
Link to Customers as Part of Talent Management Strategy
The third annual talent management survey jointly sponsored between IHRIM and Knowledge Infusion launched today. The link to the press release is below.
This talent management technology survey in 2007 is shaping up to be one of the largest in the industry representing clients made up of nearly every industry, revenue size, and country around the world.
The survey looks at what solutions are being used for talent management in organizations today, what buying patterns continue to emerge in 2007 and how HR is leveraging talent management to drive executive decisions. The survey also discusses how organizations are leveraging their HRMS to drive portions of the talent management equation.
A good HR systems strategy is made up of research as to what other companies are doing. Here is your chance to participate in one of the largest surveys on this topic in the world.
Please pass the link to the survey around and as the whitepaper with results are published, we will post on the infuser as well.
Take part, be part of the community and learn.
Another infusion of knowledge..
CLICK HERE TO TAKE THE SURVEY!
Interesting post from ERE on vendors and vendor relationships. In the world of HR, HRMS and Talent Management technologies, something we must all be cognizant of.
Take a read, please click on comments below and would love to hear what works for you in developing a great relationship with your vendors.
Another infusion of knowledge..
Link to How to Fall in Love With Your Vendors - Articles - ERE
Workforce Information Management Webinar - Wednesday, February 7th
Posted by Jason Averbook Feb 6, 2007
A great post from systematicHR as usual. One of the things we see over and over, is the everchanging role of the recruiter. Besides all that is mentioned in the post a few other things we see changing and impacting HR and talent management technologies:
Recruiters are being brought into the mix regarding holistic talent management more than ever. The concept of only recruiting from the outside for recruiters is DEAD.* Recruiters are focusing more on internal mobility than ever before. This being said, they are looking at talent pools. performance management ratings, learning management (LMS) tools and succession plans. Recruiters roles will continue to evolve into much more holistic in nature.* The HR, Talent Management vendors are already moving in this direction, and many recruiters are as well. The integration of talent acquisition into the talent suite is not only a fad, but the future of talent and will continue to force recruiters to be more broad in their thinking.* Finally, the internal career brand is equally if not of greater importance than the external career brand. The efforts must be synchronized to insure what was sold, continues to be reinforced throughout the employment lifecycle.
Here is a link to the post
Another infusion of knowledge..
Harvard Business School posts an interesting commentary on business. This same "KNOW WHY?" question is the same question we often ask when it comes to HR, Human Capital Management and Talent Management technologies.
Executive Summary:
There's know-how in business and then there's "know why." Purpose is a powerful motivator on many levels. Can we aspire to a strong sense of "know why" even if our organization is not out to change the world?
We often ask clients:
Why are you investing in technology? * Is it aligned to your corporate business objectives? ** Do you know what your corporate business objectives are? ** Do you know and understand how HR impacts those objectives? ** Is it important to be aligned with corporate objectives?* Do you ask your self "why" you are investing the way you do in HCM technology and what would happen if you didn't?
There are too many areas that we can invest in and focus on in the complex world of managing people to focus on areas that don't matter.
A good rule of thumb for February and beyond - ask yourself WHY not just WHAT and measure the WHY factor on every action you take when it comes to HR and Talent.
Another infusion of knowledge..
Link to Is There Too Little "Know Why" In Business? ��� HBS Working Knowledge