Knowledge Infusion works with organizations from over 15 industries on a weekly basis. One of the core components of our strategy is to never look at Talent Management through a single lens. Talent Management is has specific industry characteristics that MUST be taken into account when addressing all aspects of people, process and technology.

I am attaching an interesting link from Tulsa World as we have many clients in the Energy and Oil/Gas sectors. A few highlights from the article:

• More than half of Devon's 5,000 employees are near retirement, and the company and others are fighting for the next generation of energy professionals.
  
  "There is a real significant war for talent," said Frank Rudolph, senior vice president of human recourses.

• Two years ago, Tulsa-based Oneok Inc. found itself back on college campuses actively recruiting students. The gas company has also attracted seasoned professionals whose skills transfer to the energy industry. "We're always looking for someone because we have a work force that is turning over," said David Roth, Oneok's senior vice president of administrative services. "We have a lot of people in that retirement window."
  
  At any given time, Roth said, the company is attempting to fill some 250 positions left open by employees who have either retired or otherwise left the company.

• "Pay is no longer going to be a differential in the industry," Rudolph said. "We're going to pay you extremely competitively, but also look at what kind of company you
  can join."
  Roth said candidates also look carefully at company stability and benefits. "We encourage people to think about their careers . . . and career potential," he said. "There's a lot of that at Oneok."

This is a great article specific to an industry that is similar to most in the war for talent. How do these people recruit? How do the develop? How do they pay?

Those are the true challenges that need be addressed with a talent management strategy. A simple technology deployment won't cut it.

Knowledge Infusion will be with many of it's clients at the Dallas IHRIM Talent Management Expo on March 6th, 2008 in Texas. We look forward to seeing you there!!

Another infusion of knowledge...

Link to article

Today was a great day with a member of the KI client family in a series of discussions and education around the future of technology in the HR and talent management space. After leaving the day, I felt it was necessary to do a quick post and link as to how organizations are thinking about using Web 2.0 like technologies in the day to day world of HR.

An except from the blog posting linked to below:

How would you define Web 2.0, especially as the concept relates to technologies that might be adopted in an HR setting?

Web 2.0 is a term used to describe the tools that people are increasingly using to connect to one another and share opinions, insights, experiences, perspectives and more. The information that is shared can take many different forms, including text, images, audio, and video. This ‘user-generated content’ and the web sites that contain it are often grouped into the term “Social Computing” or Web 2.0 web sites. Popular social mediums include social networking web sites that allow two-way communication, message boards, as well as videocasts and podcasts, blogs, wikis, social search and tagging, and rss are connecting people and distributing information in new and efficient ways.

What sorts of solutions are now available to HR shops? How do these technologies differ from more traditional offerings?

Utilizing the web 2.0 principles of authenticity, collaboration and participation – solutions are being developed at a rapid pace to allow companies to easily incorporate real first hand stories into their career web site and within social networking groups such as those on facebook. As compared to more traditional offerings, web 2.0 is about communicating, not advertising. Creating, publishing and distributing authentic information about an organization creates opportunities and forums through which to directly connect with customers, employers, or talent. Utilizing these principles will introduce a level of transparency, authenticity, and credibility into how an employer is perceived. Building employee social networks or participating in social networking sites, such as LinkedIn and facebook, allow companies to communicate with customers and candidates where they already spend time online.

Knowledge Infusion firmly believes that every HR and Talent Management technology strategy today needs to have components of Web 2.0 technology embedded into that strategy. If HR does not take advantage of this opportunity, it will be forced upon them which will create something to be policed again vs. something to be used to create a strategic advantage with people.

Knowledge Infusion will continue 2008 by educating the HR and Talent Management community with success stories and ideas of how to use these new technologies in amazing new ways. As one leading analyst told me yesterday, "Wow, Knowledge Infusion is the leader in Talent Management technology consulting already and now clearly the leader in leveraging new technologies in the HR space." My response was simple, +*"For organizations to compete for talent in 2008, HR has to go to where the talent is, and that is online, real-time and collaborative."

Please feel free to share your stories below

Another infusion of knowledge...

Link to article

Knowledge Infusion is asked continually how to support multiple generations of workers in the workforce today and what each generation is concerned about. Here is a great article from CIO magazine to shed some light on the topic.

Another infusion of knowledge..

Link to article

Day 2 begins with a keynote by Tod Loofbourrow from Authoria. Tod was also on the panel that Knowledge Infusion's Jason Averbook moderated last evening in San Diego.

Tod begins with "HR Makes Talent Count"

• Alignment

• Engagement

• Leveraging Community

Tod next discusses how The World is Connected

• Discussion on how connected all countries are today

• Development continues in most economies compared to 30 years ago

• Great representation using graphics

• Workforce - new world, connected, global

• Opportunity is for HR to better manage the connectedness of the new age workforce

Prediction that CEO's will come from background in talent, not necessarily traditional sales and marketing backgrounds.

Obstacles to "Good Talent Management" discussed

• Sr managers don't spend enough time on talent management

• Organization is siloed

• Map not done to CEO strategy

CEO Priorities discussed - interview played (video) - Helen Drinan, SVP of HR, Caritas Christi Health Care

• Finding ways to get maximum contribution from people already in organization

• Work that is meaningful truly drives employees

• Productivity is one thing - at same time - really need to understand employee engagement

• Engagement is capitalizing on discretionary effort we give every day at work

• Good discussion by Tod about need for online identity and "talent profile"

• Helen identifies need that from moment brought in, think of employees feel like leaders and start to teach them how to lead more and more

Interesting comparison of user interfaces between Apple iPod and SAP and discussion of how complex iTunes and iPods truly are, but the interface makes it seem so easy.

• Don't complicate for complication sake

• iPod is a database too; very interesting analogy

Question from audience: How does Authoria work with PeopleSoft or SAP?

• Interface/Integration to ERP's

• Need to leverage foundation of ERP

• All other talent information in talent management system

• Read and Feed

• If sold business case to executives that PeopleSoft does it all, how to I resell business case

• All about set of business processes not done in ERP (not always true)

• Category of software that does more strategic things than ERP that now has to talk to the ERP (interesting statement)

Tod showing pieces of Authoria's "talent profile" - giving audience idea of what is a "talent profile"

Discussion of how HR must align with line management

Good discussion about how talent management must be comprehensive and needs to have three major components

• "HR power users"

• "Business Managers"

• "Employees/Candidates"

2 case studies

• PepsiAmericas

• Aetna

Sheila Couch - Director of Operations & Workforce Planning did the presentation. She began with a fascinating view of how large, complex and pervasive HP is in our everyday life.

• Did a very good job of talking about HP's strategic objective - crucial place to start when tying HR and Workforce Planning to the business goals and objectives.

• HP and Workforce Planning

• Focus on Capital strategy alignment

• Financial capital

• Workforce capital

• Have to start with business model; then can build workforce planning

• The Change Agent to Workforce Planning

• Elimination of jobs (STRATEGICALLY)

• Eliminating costs

• Investment and De-Investment

• Aligning Cost Structure

• Moving to Low Cost Locations Where Makes Sense

• Right Skilling the Workforce

• Aligning all Human Capital Programs

• Hand off Workforce Plan to all other functions within HR (the way it should be, no silos)

• Governance - one of the key points that Knowledge Infusion helps put in place within organizations

• First place to start - "Build the plane before you take off"

• Start strategically if possible, not operationally

• Had to start operationally; not optimal but working

• Amazing financial knowledge from a HR role - true proof that Workforce Planning is NOT TYPICAL HR STUFF

• 4 parts to plane

• Strategic Modeling

• Strategic Planning

• Operational Planning

• Monitoring

• Brilliant speaker for those reading - Lucia Erwin, VP of Worldwide HR from Magellan - she was responsible for building the Workforce Planning function at HP - truly gets it!!

• All Workforce Planning starts with the Portal - a point Knowledge Infusion is also working with many clients to understand the importance of a HR portal.

• Do an amazing job of using dashboards on a quarterly basis

• How to spend L&D dollars tied to Workforce Plan

• Keys to success

• Executive Commitment

• Leadership Drive

• Business Acumen - brought course into HR (HUGE VALUE ADD)

• Technology as a support and enabler, not a driver

Great session. A great example of true TALENT MANAGEMENT

This morning I have the opportunity to be in San Diego at the Strategic e-HR Conference produced by The Conference Board. We are lucky enough to have many of our clients here and look forward to the interaction. There are about 100 in attendance.

Leading off the conference is Rob Bernshteyn from SuccessFactors.

Rob leads off with "What impact will the recession have on HR and Business Performance". Very interesting how this message is spreading as the media continues to spread the message about a recession. Notice this link from CNN late last night...[Click here for article..|http://money.cnn.com/2008/02/05/news/economy/recession/index.htm?postversion=200 8020512]

• Rob did a good job of painting a picture as to why Talent Management is a big part of business today; not only a HR function, but a business function.

• Good discussion about how strategic HR functions tie to business impact

• Topic of discussion: Data...Where do I store my employee data and how can it be used

• How can I make e-HR strategic in our company?

• Retention

• Number of skill gaps bridged through training

• Conduct employee surveys to keep workforce engaged and a pulse on organization

• Issues with how HR has rolled out technology up to now

• Unable to support dynamic processes

• Inability to support approvals

• Hard to find data

• What are we doing today around e-HR?

• Organizations working heavily around a strategic, 3 year plan

• If HR doesn't do this, we will be left behind by rest of enterprise

• Technology today

• Goal alignment crucial

• Performance Management

• 360 degree feedback

• Compensation

• Using all transactions in non-intrusive way to build out analytics that matter

• HR makes the mistake of LABELING our people (High performer, etc)

• We all change on a daily basis

• How do we look at performance data over time

• Analytics drive this

• Every employee is a potential user

• Key point (The work we do at Knowledge Infusion very much aligned and pushing this thought as well)

• Tools and products must be designed for everyone in the company

• Must be easy to use to ensure adoption

• Success is about RESTRAINING themselves and deploy what makes sense in Round 1

• Dealing with change management (or as we call it, Deployment Excellence)

• When thinking about e-HR, think simplicity

• Discussion about Software as a Service

• Much talk about Old Model vs. SaaS

• Good education about what new model means

• Interesting discussion about how vendors are "Not profitable" including SuccessFactors until the customer is satisfied in SaaS model

• Discussion about how strategic HR customers outperform the stock market

• Discussion about how organizations create value using e-HR talent management software

• Good discussion about EMPLOYEE PROFILE and the value to the enterprise and all of talent management

Another infusion of knowledge...