Blog Posts From Knowledge Infuser Tagged With general-hr

Talent Management in Healthcare Organizations

jason.averbook@knowledgeinfusion.com — Fri, 22 Jun 2007 11:04:50 GMT

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Great article from the Healthcare Financial Management Association on the impact of Talent Management in HCO's. As we at Knowledge Infusion work with more and more HCO's, talent is a true CRISIS in these organizations and a focus on Talent Management NOW is an imperative. This will effect all of us and our families in the upcoming years, and is one of the reasons that KI feels so strongly about making a difference in this area.

A few excerpts:

With most hospitals and other HCOs barely able to keep enough staff to meet quality standards, and often having to rely on involuntary overtime even to do that, the challenge of attracting, motivating, and retaining employees has never been greater. The concept of ��talent management,�� i.e. identifying, attracting, managing, motivating and retaining truly talented individuals, in contrast to merely adequate staff, may seem far beyond what job market and revenue realities permit. * HCOs that can succeed in boosting the talent levels, as well as sheer numbers of staff they have compared to what they need, will enjoy significant advantages in their market. * When HCOs are paid on the basis of explicit measures of structure, process, outcomes, or value, it makes sense for them to measure their talent in precisely the same terms as it is being paid. And once measured, it makes sense for them to pay their talent based on the same measures. * One classic example of this effect occurred in the first year that one firm switched from a normally distributed hourly wage compensation system to one based on objectively measured productivity. The major direct result was a 44% improvement in productivity at the cost of only a 10% increase in compensation. But perhaps an even better result was the reduction in turnover by 21% among those rated as high-performers, while turnover among those rated average or low performers increased by over 10%. http://www.knowledgeinfusion.com/ondemand/blogs/infuser/2007/06/22/talent-management-in-healthcare-organizations/E. Lazar ��Performance Pay and Productivity�� American Economic Review 190:5 Dec 2000 1346-1361

Share your healthcare TALENT experiences. Good experiences? Age of caregivers?

Another infusion of knowledge...

Link to Article

10 Ways for HR To Think Different

jason.averbook@knowledgeinfusion.com — Wed, 11 Apr 2007 02:18:36 GMT

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A great posting from the Know Blog. They do great work. Keep these and many others as you design your HR strategy and related talent management strategies and tools. Technology plays a direct role in each of these and it is important that HR and HRIS thinks about these BEFORE the implementation and deployment process.

Who benefits from annual performance reviews?# Do you really believe that ��people don��t work for money��?# If you don��t hear back, did you really ��communicate�� with your employees?# How much more effective are your high performers than your average performers?# Is there a difference between a 3% merit increase and 3.5%?# Do you believe that you can teach employees to be ��engaged?��# Could you be just as effective with half the meetings you attend?# Do you think employees don��t notice that you let slackers hang on way too long?# When��s the last time you really listened to employees? Is conducting a survey really listening?# Do you employ adults? If so, do you treat them like grownups?

Another infusion of knowledge..

Source: Know Blog

HR Technology Deployment: How we can learn from Washington Post

jason.averbook@knowledgeinfusion.com — Sun, 01 Apr 2007 01:13:07 GMT

We found the below letter from the editor of the Washington Post excellent and a great example of how we can learn to both design and communicate our internal HR websites and portals. A few things to note:

Listened to the clients; elimination of clutter * Addition of blogs and user comments * Personalized content tied to zip code * Most popular section * Faster response time

These are all characteristics that we can learn from as we deploy our HRMS and Talent Management functionality. The HR world has much to learn from the business to consumer world and this is just the start of our communications on this topic.

KI continually works with clients to design websites, portals and deployment of direct access solutions that follow these characteristics. Make sure that you are adopting these tenets and also communicating the changes. The example below is excellent; bravo Washington Post.

Another infusion of knowledge...

To our readers,

Welcome to our new home page. I wanted to take a few minutes to tell you about some of the key changes, and the thinking behind it.

One of the most frequent complaints about our previous home page was clutter, specifically the number of links and lack of open space on the page. In this new page, we've added more white space and cut down the number of long lists of text links. The hope is that these changes give the page more of an open, inviting feel and make it easier to scan. We've also moved to a more modular layout to make it easier to find your favorite home page features.
To better highlight our award-winning video and photo content, we've added a multimedia strip to the page. This band will be comprised of videos, photos and interactives, and by using the scroll arrows or the iTunes-like buttons, you can scroll to see more multimedia features. We've also created a similar strip for features content, allowing us to better showcase all the content we have in that area.
This new home page also highlights the site's newest section, Smart Living. Designed for those seeking information to manage their lives, Smart Living will aggregate the best stories, blogs and columns from The Washington Post and washingtonpost.com in the areas of parenting, health, food and dining, home and garden, pets, relationships, personal finance and more. Prior to this launch, consumer content could be found in many different areas of the site; the goal of Smart Living is to provide a one-stop destination. Because we thought that sounded, you know, smart.
Because of the popularity of our Live Discussions, we've anchored a placement near the top of the home page to help readers find our schedule, previous transcripts and featured guests.
As you may know, we have two home pages: One for readers with Washington-area ZIP Codes, and one for our national and international readers. On our Washington home page, we've added a "Local" button to our global navigation to provide easier access to local news, weather, traffic, classifieds content and more.
On our national home page, we've anchored a Most Popular module on the upper right of the page. On the local page, this Most Popular module is located farther down the page, right below the features strip.
To make it easier to find our video, photo and audio assets, we've moved to using icons to signify those content types. One of the valuable pieces of feedback we've received from you over the past year is that you find it difficult to locate our multimedia content. Between the new multimedia band on the home page, our recently launched video player and the switch to these more eye-catching icons, we hope we've addressed that concern.
We've also added a strip across the top of the page that makes it easier to locate your user information, change preferences or set washingtonpost.com as your home page (c'mon, go ahead, you know you want to). Additionally, incorporating more of the feedback you've given us, we've added a label on the upper right of the home page to let you know which of our two home pages -- Washington or U.S./World -- you're looking at. There's also a handy link that allows you to set which home page you'd like to see.
We've also built this new home page to have a lighter page weight, and thus, faster load times. We have also built this page to make it much easier for those with disabilities to read our home page with screen readers.

We believe that these changes will make it a much better and organized experience for you. But we'd like to hear what you think, so please feel free to send an e-mail to executive.editor@washingtonpost.com.

Thanks,

Jim Brady

Executive Editor, washingtonpost.com

No Sheepwalking!!

jason.averbook@knowledgeinfusion.com — Mon, 26 Feb 2007 12:53:25 GMT

!http://knowledgeinfusion.typepad.com/knowlege_infusion_blog/WindowsLiveWriter/NoSheepwalking_12AA2/ki5_thumb_2.jpg![http://knowledgeinfusion.typepad.com/knowlege_infusion_blog/WindowsLiveWriter/NoSheepwalking_12AA2/ki52_1.jpg]

Seth Godin blog is always a good read. We found this entry especially appropriate based on some of our work in the last week with organizations truly looking to define their most valuable resources and assign them to the most strategic roles in the organization.

An excerpt:

I define "sheepwalking" as the outcome of hiring people who have been raised to be obedient and giving them a braindead job and enough fear to keep them in line.

Take a read and following in alignment with Knowledge Infusion's "NO PARKING" theme for 2007, lets also add No Sheepwalking!!

The value of HR, HRMS, Talent Management technologies is to assist employees in understanding the value and direction they can take an organization. Lets use them to their fullest to insure that we are not losing our people because of our hierarchies we have in place.

Another infusion of knowledge..

Link to Seth's Blog: Sheepwalking

Future of Work - Contractors

jason.averbook@knowledgeinfusion.com — Tue, 06 Feb 2007 11:04:31 GMT

As the talent shortage continues to become personified in organization; and by the way, this doesn't mean not enough people, just lack of the skilled resources needed; organizations continue to focus on the contractor. What does this mean for HR, Talent Management professionals as it related to process and technology and HRMS:

Need a place to store these contractors; not just by name, but by skill, experience, etc. Recruiters should have access to this data as this is a great talent/candidate pool for future hires. * Need a way to onboard these contractors that is not a manual process. Any onboarding effort must include a way to account for contractors which will continue to grow within the workforce. * Need to measure the spend on contractors. More HR leaders are leaving the contractor spend to the procurement department and this is wrong. HR leaders need to take the contingent laborers and their spend by the horns to understand true labor costs and where skill sets are short. * The HRMS solution needs to store contractors for compliance and security purposes. If this is not the case, reporting and measurement of labor spend becomes nearly impossible.

A quote from Granite Solutions Groupe -

" [Our clients find more need for product and IT contractors with deep business acumen and strong interpersonal skills. This profile tends to appear more with age - younger workers often need time to develop the business experience. Yet even among more experienced workers in the current labor market, this profile is not readily available.|http://www.GraniteSolutionsGroupe.com] "

When building your HRIT / HRIS strategy, don't forget the contingent workforce. Even if not in HR responsibility set, HR is responsible for labor and talent, therefore, a strategy must be in place as to how to account for these workers. See link below to full article.

Another infusion of knowledge..

Source: Shortage of IT Talent Key Drives Companies Towards Contractors

Knowledge Infusion Monthly Charity

jason.averbook@knowledgeinfusion.com — Fri, 05 Jan 2007 15:50:00 GMT

One of the newest clients in the Knowledge Infusion family is:

[Doctors Without Borders/ MÃ©decins Sans FrontiÃ¨res|http://www.doctorswithoutborders.com/]

!http://knowledgeinfusion.typepad.com/knowlege_infusion_blog/images/ki3_1.jpg![Doctors Without Borders/ MÃ©decins Sans FrontiÃ¨res|http://knowledgeinfusion.typepad.com/.shared/image.html?/photos/uncategorized/ki3_1.jpg]As part of our mission as an organization, each month on our blog we will look to collect money from our readers for some of our customers as well as employee's chosen charities. These collections will come by using the ChipIn widget, one of the latest fascinating websites/uses for web technology out there.

Please take a minute and donate to our cause of the month, Doctors Without Borders today. Our goal is to raise $2500 from the HR/HCM/Talent Management technology community during January.

Thanks for giving back to an amazing cause.

The Gap Woes Worsen

jason.averbook@knowledgeinfusion.com — Fri, 05 Jan 2007 02:14:03 GMT

[http://knowledgeinfusion.typepad.com/.shared/image.html?/photos/uncategorized/ki2_2.jpg]The Gap - A staple from a retail perspective that we have experienced. How can such a brand continue to fail? I would be curious as to your thoughts. Please post comments after reading this piece.

News story on The Gap

How could Human Capital / Talent Management technologies help The Gap at this point? Curious as to your thoughts and if this type of technology in your opinion could really assist in turning around an organization.

Cheers and go shopping!

After a Long Day of HR/HCM Technology Consulting

jason.averbook@knowledgeinfusion.com — Fri, 05 Jan 2007 02:06:18 GMT

I found this very appropriate:

As Good As It Gets

As worthy a New Year's Resolution as you'll find (or I'll find):

"Do one thing every day that scares you."â??Eleanor Roosevelt

Thanks to Tom Peters Blog! Have a good night.

Employee Experience and HR Technology

jason.averbook@knowledgeinfusion.com — Fri, 29 Dec 2006 01:48:12 GMT

During 2006, many organizations that we have worked with continue to focus on the experience of the employee and associate in the workplace. Organizations continue to question the value of employee and manager direct access/self service that haven't deployed solutions and for those that have, how to make it better. Most employees now expect HR / Human Capital Management departments to have rolled this technology out and if it isn't there, the overall satisfaction of the employee is effected.

Before entering into rolling out any technology to your organization, the following Top 10 list should be followed:

Make it role based

Understand existing security structure

Make it single sign in where possible

Focus on the user experience - less than 10 seconds and less then 3 clicks

Drive all traffic to single source

Market, Market, Market

Measure results

Understand business process impact - there always is one

Start small

Celebrate success and keep going

If you have questions about these 10 items, email me at mailto:jason.averbook@knowledge-infusion.com

Many organizations feel that employees are not using the Internet at home, therefore, will not use it in the workplace. A great site to learn about current Internet usage is Pew Internet. Another good survey to learn what organizations are doing today is done each year by Lexy Martin at CedarCrestone. Visit the CedarCrestone site to get a copy of this excellent survey.

At Knowledge Infusion, we have worked with over 50 Fortune 1000 organizations during 2006 helping them enhance their employee/associate experience using Talent Management technologies, Direct Access, Self-Service and Portals. Visit Knowledge Infusion Webinar to view a 60 minute interactive webinar on these topics.

Lastly, 2007 will be the year that HR focuses more on associate experience and portals than ever. Join the KI Newsletter for information on upcoming events and services that will help you drive to the experience of the future.

2006 Person of the Year - YOU

jason.averbook@knowledgeinfusion.com — Mon, 18 Dec 2006 02:42:59 GMT

[http://knowledgeinfusion.typepad.com/.shared/image.html?/photos/uncategorized/ki1_4.jpg]When I first heard that Time Magazine named US, yes each of us, the person of the year, I thought it was quite a cop out. I had to read more to understand how with such a year 2006 has been, the magazine couldn't find a single person to name. The more I thought about it, the more it made sense to me and I think it is something we all can learn from as we write our goals for 2007 especially in our space of HR and HCM technologies.

During 2007, if each of us takes a few minutes each day to ask how we can impact the organizational goals of the institution we work for, the world of HR will change forever. I would say that 2006 has been the year for many organizations, more than I have seen in my 15 years in this space, but I predict 2007 will even have a larger impact as more organizations focus on workforce analytics and metrics, talent management, and organizational effectiveness. If we all focus on tying our technology initiatives and aligning them to our respective organizations, in 2007 HR will truly begin to raise itself as Organization of the Year in most companies.

Take a read of Time and begin your goals for 2007. YOU and only YOU can impact YOUR strategy in the upcoming year.

Great BusinessWeek Article: Micromanaging Managers

jason.averbook@knowledgeinfusion.com — Tue, 28 Nov 2006 02:51:56 GMT

[http://knowledgeinfusion.typepad.com/.shared/image.html?/photos/uncategorized/ki1_3.jpg]Liz Ryan contributes a great article with a link below in this weeks BusinessWeek. Here are a few clips from the article and some areas where I see HR technology playing a key role:

"Any analogy that you can think of to describe a typical business leader's assignment falls short under scrutiny. People say leading a department is like quarterbacking a football team. That might be true if the players constantly moved on and off the field, the rules regularly changed in midplay, and the entire coaching staff might decide to change strategic direction and abandon football for lacrosse.

Or people say that a business leader is like an orchestral conductor. That's nice and dignified, but I've never seen a real-life orchestra where the oboes were unexpectedly given the cellists' music to play, or where the audience might suddenly decide, en masse, that they prefer bluegrass music to the Beethoven concerto you're conducting, and depart the auditorium. When you think about what a business manager has got on his or her plate, you realize that a management career isn't for the weak-willed or wimpy. There's way too much at stake, from quarterly numbers and career paths to product launches and system crashes, to take the leadership role lightly."

THE ABOVE POINT TO THE NEED FOR DATA ACCESS, DECISION SUPPORT TOOLS, AND CONTENT AND COLLABORATION AT A SINGLE KEYSTROKE.

"Think, for instance, about the typical corporate performance-review process. As an HR person myself, I would think that a critical priority would be to implement the simplest and most time-effective performance-appraisal system ever. But that's not always what I see. Companies heap process on process and form on top of form, tying up managers' (and their teams') time. And that's a mistake. If we don't trust our managers to manage well, maybe what we need is new managers (or more trusting executives) rather than another time-sucking process. "

THIS CLEARLY SUPPORTS THE NEED TO AUTOMATE PROCESSES AND HAVE AVAILABLE FOR MANAGERS TO INTERACT WITH AS PART OF THEIR DAILY JOBS INSTEAD OF A PAINSTAKING TASK NOT PART OF THEIR WORK DAY.

The remainder of this article reminds us that what we do on a daily basis is not only to keep the lights on in the HR department, but to deliver tools and services to employees and managers to enable true human capital management and the strategy of optimizing the people asset. As HR departments realize more that talent management technologies do make a difference, the better our managers will be equipped to deal with their difficult roles in an enterprise.

http://www.businessweek.com/careers/content/nov2006/ca20061127_568120.htm?chan=top+news_top+news+index_careers

Workforce Planning - No longer a nice to have

jason.averbook@knowledgeinfusion.com — Mon, 27 Nov 2006 01:24:46 GMT

In almost every Fortune 1000 organization we work with today, Workforce Planning is a major topic. Workforce planning is another HR/HCM/Talent Management term that has different meanings to different people. Over the Black Friday weekend, the term Workforce Planning came to mind quite often as some major retailers didnt have enough people to handle the demand. During the week before Thanksgiving, we had the opportunity to meet with a client that was planning for the future leaders of the organization 5 years into the future.

All of the above definititions and more are fair game and what is most important is that you clearly define to your entire organization what it is you are planning. Attached is a good article and tips on workforce planning from CRM Magazine.

http://www.destinationcrm.com/articles/default.asp?ArticleID=6515

Just When You Thought It Was Over: You Have Now Entered the "Vigilance" Zone

jason.averbook@knowledgeinfusion.com — Mon, 20 Nov 2006 13:52:48 GMT

!http://knowledgeinfusion.typepad.com/knowlege_infusion_blog/images/ki53.jpg![http://knowledgeinfusion.typepad.com/.shared/image.html?/photos/uncategorized/ki53.jpg]Now that youâ??ll be sleeping well due to the go-live of your HR, Talent Management, HCM project, itâ??s time for a phase of the project that you will not see addressed in any project methodology. I like to call this the â??Vigilanceâ?? phase. Dictionary.com defines vigilance as simply â??alert watchfulness.â?? I think this definition suits this phase well. The vigilance phase canâ??t be planned â?? itâ??s almost all reaction mode.

Although itâ??s important to celebrate the important gains made thus far in your project journey, itâ??s even more important to remain vigilant. It is at this point in many projects where previously unknown issues are discovered as more and more users begin to use the technology. These problems can snowball and negatively impact the perception of the user community toward the system. The Vigilance Phase is much more than â??Production Supportâ??, itâ??s an attitude. In this post go-live phase, user perception is the key to your success. Here are some suggestions on how to be vigilant:

# Donâ??t discount any reports of problems or functionality glitches â?? not matter how seemingly minor. Investigate everything! Most issues will not turn out to be major problems. If you can solve a problem early, you just might be preserving a positive view of the system by the user community â?? which will keep user adoption high.#

# There will be some flame-ups (itâ??s inevitable). These flame-ups may be technical issues, functionality issues, or expectation management/communication issues. Have a SWAT team identified and ready to be called upon to stamp out flame-ups. Address flame-ups quickly and communicate with confidence about solutions.#

# Itâ??s not a failure when issues arise - Itâ??s a normal part of technology implementations. Addressing these post go-live issues is just another part of the final phase of your implementation. Be prepared to react quickly and decisively. #

# Stay vigilant for a month (at least) after go-live. Often problems donâ??t become clear until a large number of users exercise the application.#

By recognizing the importance of the Vigilance Phase, you will be taking a major step toward insuring the success of your HCM project. If you would like to discuss further; mailto:andrew.gebavi@knowledge-infusion.com.

Labor as a key to M&A Activity

jason.averbook@knowledgeinfusion.com — Thu, 16 Nov 2006 02:51:00 GMT

[http://knowledgeinfusion.typepad.com/.shared/image.html?/photos/uncategorized/ki15.jpg]In waking this morning reading the news of a possible merger of US Airways and Delta, the first thing that crossed my mind was "How is US Airways going to pull off another major merger?". This question came to mind not because I am not a fan of either airline, because I couldn't imagine a large, mega airline or even that a company with alot of money would buy a company without a lot of money. This crossed my mind because of the workforce planning and labor issues that always arise.

America West and US Air joined forces in October of 2005 to become US Airways and to most industry spectators, has been a successful merger. To someone who flys everyday and listens to many flight attendants talk while handing out peanuts (or pretzels these days, or nothing these days); it seems to have gone well also. One of the things that I have asked a few flight attendants is about culture and the merging of the organizations. More than once I have heard, "our HR department has done a great job communicating and keeping us motivated.".

As organizations are focused on talent management including inventorying their talent, building talent, looking for talent gaps and understanding succession plans, it is also important for HR to always be thinking about days like today. What happens when we announce a merger? What happens when we are about to be acquired? Do I have the information that I will need on the fly to look ready and prepared to assist in the process?

Mergers and Acquisitions are becoming more and more part of daily life in business. As the knowledge economy continues to dominate economic growth, the information about the workforce, not information about machines is what will drive the price of a company, and the ease of integration of workforces.

Human Capital Management is much more than recruiting and paying people. Human Capital Management is the strategy around people tied to organizational goals and initiatives. The M&A example of today with US Airways and Delta is a perfect example of the agility that HR needs to show when called upon by having accurate, timely and relevant data about the people assets within an organization.

When building your HR strategy, keep this in mind. What are these perfect storm moments that you may be called upon to deliver in that will change your career forever? The VP of HR at US Airways and Delta are thinking about that tonight. Are you?

Here is a link to a good story about todays news.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15732042/

Comments to mailto:jason.averbook@knowledge-infusion.com

Fresh Technologies Require a Fresh Look at Governance Too

jason.averbook@knowledgeinfusion.com — Sun, 12 Nov 2006 17:15:49 GMT

!http://knowledgeinfusion.typepad.com/knowlege_infusion_blog/images/ki2_1.jpg![http://knowledgeinfusion.typepad.com/.shared/image.html?/photos/uncategorized/ki2_1.jpg]As we work with clients to help them define their HCM and Talent Management technology strategies, we often run into roadblocks due to a lack of governance that make the creation of actionable strategies more difficult. As a rule we try to actively work with clients from the outset at helping them put in place the governance structures that will keep their strategies focused and moving forward. Without effective governance, technology strategies often flounder or become detached from the original business goals that drove the strategy to begin with.

Learning organizations are particularly in need of governance when new technologies are introduced. Implementing Learning Management Systems and related technologies (Content Management, Virtual Classroom, Authoring Tools) can be challenging since learning functions are usually decentralized across business units and/or regions. This makes decision-making and standardization more difficult due to the disparate and often conflicting needs of stakeholders. By choosing the right governance model, decisions can be viewed through a strategic lens and prioritized to achieve critical business goals. For more information, hereâ??s a link to a recent CLO magazine article that spotlights one of our clients and the learning governance issues they faced:

[www.clomedia.com/content/templates/clo_article.asp?articleid=1591&zoneid=180|http://www.clomedia.com/content/templates/clo_article.asp?articleid=1591&zoneid=180|http://www.clomedia.com/content/templates/clo_article.asp?articleid=1591&zoneid=180]

[mailto:andrew.gebavi@knowledge-infusion.com]