I was at one of my oldest friend's Charlotte's Solstice day party on Saturday. It started at 3pm and ended at 3am and was hosted at the commune/shared-housing home that Charlotte lives in in Islington. The day involved a fig tree ceremony where all party goers congregated in the garden, meditated and made a wish for the community and for themselves. Yup - was full-on, tree-hugger, liberal paradise. The sun was still shining when a lady came up to myself and a friend and asked could she have a cigarette, we happily obliged and we got to talking. She was in her fifties, already a bit tipsy and was a journalist - an investigative journalist. She was now teaching a journalism course in a London Uni and as she put it, was delighted to be giving something back to the younger generation after an illustrious career, working for all the...

Analyst Panel Shares Expert Take on Latest HR Technology Trends

HR Executive's Bill Kutik and top industry analysts from Bersin & Associates, Forrester, IDC and Knowledge Infusion discuss the down economy, social networks, succession planning, ROI measurement and more at Convergence 2009 

 

If you are looking for guidance and insights on the latest HR technology trends and best practices, then who better to talk to than an all-star line-up of the industry’s leading experts?  That’s exactly what we did at our recent client and partner conference, Convergence 2009. We hosted an expert panel entitled “Critical Trends in HR Technology,” featuring top industry analysts in the learning and talent management software space, such as:

 

• Leighanne Levensaler, Director of Talent Management Research, Bersin & Associates 
• Zach Thomas, Senior Analyst, Business Process & Applications, Forrester*  
• Cushing Anderson, Program Vice President, Project-Based Services, IDC 
• Jason Corsello, VP, Head of Center of Excellence, Knowledge Infusion

 

*Note: As of earlier this month, Thomas is no longer with Forrester.

 

Moderating the panel was Bill Kutik – technology columnist for Human Resource Executive, co-chair of the HR Technology Conference and the host of the "Bill Kutik Radio Show".  Topics ranged from the impact of the economy on the HR technology market, the impact of social networking and Web 2.0 tools on talent management strategies, succession planning strategies, what the recent vendor consolidations mean for talent management, and more.  Even Cornerstone OnDemand CEO, Adam Miller, joined the conversation at certain points. 

 

For those of you who weren’t fortunate enough to join us live in the room, here’s a recap of the discussion.

  

BILL KUTIK:  What impact has the economy had on the talent management and general HR technology market?  

 

LEIGHANNE LEVENSALER: Companies are looking to their talent systems to help them make decisions about downsizing and reviewing the critical talent in their pool. Also, who are the low performers?  Because of this, organizations are saying that talent management is important.   

 

(To the attendees) Do any of your companies currently have travel restrictions?  (Not many hands are raised).  Restrictions seem to be easing up.   

 

Talent management and enabling technologies help to respond to business opportunities.  One example is Chevron and clean energy.  Chevron is completely retooling their entire organization, identifying and cultivating talent pools to take advantage of clean technologies.  Another example is Cisco, which is retooling leadership and workers to support new software initiatives – capitalizing on opportunities, retrenching and retooling.  It’s not just about surviving the downturn.   

 

KUTIK: Are companies buying new solutions or just adding on to what they already have?

 

CUSHING ANDERSON:  There have been different responses to different trends.  Differences between organizations that are in cost control and needing to reposition and realign themselves.  You need to pick your own strategy.  Your response is based on your corporate philosophy.  Buying is slowly coming back, but the responses will be different.   

 

KUTIK:  According to IHRIM survey data, early 2009 figures say 66 percent of companies are spending as much or more on new technologies this year.  I was shocked.   

 

ZACH THOMAS:  Our research supports this as well.  One interesting trend we seen in talking with clients is that they are not looking at an entire suite – rather it is more about addressing specific pain points.  There is now a wider scope when talking about performance management or succession management.   

 

JASON CORSELLO:  There is a shift in terms of people trying to get more out of what they already purchased – either fine-tuning or consolidating and trying to determine what is or isn’t working.   

 

LEVENSALER:  People are still interested and looking to buy, but the cycle is taking longer.  Why is Cornerstone doing so well?  Because they are solving a specific need, and having the learning component helps.  Companies also are looking at vendor viability, which is essential.   

 

KUTIK:  Many are predicting that social software will have a negative impact on formal learning strategies.  For instance, the idea that “search-learning” will replace formal course learning.  How would you suggest using both to deliver a learning strategy that, while effective, still gives HR sufficient control of the process? 

 

ANDERSON:  In regards to search learning, I would define it differently than just searching for information.  It is also about searching for experts.  And, it is all about self-service.  It has got to be the way that organizations serve up the information.  The strategy is to identify or acknowledge that training organizations don’t know everything your employees need to know.  You are not the holder of classes – you are the source of knowledge transfer.  You need to put in place the tools to allow people to find what or who they need to be effective.  In cost cutting times, HR executives or CIOs may say, “Let’s cut classroom learning.”  But it should really be about, “How do I do this better?”  What are the five to ten courses that are absolutely essential?  You would never be able to agree – all courses would be seen as important but not necessarily essential.  And what about the information you don’t have?  Or, what if there are not enough people to warrant a class?  But if you can facilitate people sharing information amongst themselves, organizations will find success.  Organizations that realize they don’t have the information will be more apt to adopt these social tools.   

 

CORSELLO:  There are tremendous opportunities for informal learning.  For example, for people starting a new job and being able to connect with others in the company.  There isn’t one or the other though – solutions should be blended.  You need to figure out how your employees are going to get knowledge. 

 

THOMAS:  I would argue that rather in three years or five years, social learning is happening today.  I think of IM as a learning tool.  I use it to get the information I need from the right people.  The real place where learning pros can become strategic is in figuring out how to institutionalize what is already going on in their organizations.  For example, rather than providing a course catalog, create a wiki that can constantly evolve. 

 

KUTIK:  What about people who get questions that aren’t relevant to them? 

 

THOMAS:  It’s not about the number of connections.  It’s more about how often people come to them for information.  

 

LEVENSALER:  Control should not be the right attitude.  It is more about “formalizing” informal learning.  Alignment is the goal, not control.  For example, with coaching programs, HR has been successful in formalizing an informal role.  Control is not the objective. 

 

THOMAS:  When we talk about social learning and technologies, it is more about a means to an end.  Don’t lead with the technology. 

 

KUTIK:  We’ve all seen plenty of vendor consolidation in the last three years.  Most recently, the bidding war over Sum Total.  Do you think any stand alone LMS, compensation or performance management vendor can survive?  Will there still be room for an old-fashioned best-of-breed – companies that do one thing well? 

 

THOMAS:  In the coming year, we will see solutions evolve.  We’re already starting to see, horizontally, a suite approach, and the same with vertical solutions.  Vendors start strategic at the top, with more tactical solutions at the bottom.  And there are companies that are looking to be more holistic – for example, ADP’s partnership with Cornerstone.  Lawson and Workday are two other examples.  So why does this make sense?  According to Naomi Bloom and the HR Object Model, tactically it is important.  If you are going to have a successful rollout, you need to have a unified user interface, or adoption is going to be low and the ROI will not be as good.  At the end of day, it is the data that is going to help you be more strategic and win the day.  How do you start tying solutions to the bottom line financial networks within your organization?  

 

KUTIK:  Basically, you don’t get to sit at the table if you don’t have the numbers.   

 

CORSELLO:  There is a circle of life in enterprise software.  And then a few select vendors emerge as leaders.  There are no defined leaders in talent management software today, but we’ll start to see them.  We’re also seeing new companies being formed, and new technologies to support this.  It means looking at performance differently and how you get real-time information to executives. 

 

ANDERSON:  The circle of life is much longer than any analyst would like to admit.  I have been doing this for ten years, when eLearning was the new thing.  There were 60 companies then, but now that number has doubled.  Of course, this is an unverifiable fact.  Most people don’t have a problem that all parts of a suite can address.  The market is growing, and in the next 12 months there will be a new vendor out there claiming to have 200 clients.  For Cornerstone and others, it is having the right features and innovation. 

 

KUTIK:  What about silos, about people not communicating and working together? 

 

LEVENSALER:  Learning management systems are an $800 million industry, not all of learning.  It isn’t going anywhere anytime soon.  You’re with Cornerstone for extended enterprise, LMS and other platforms, and it isn’t just a development plan.  These little LMS companies are not going away anytime soon.   

 

KUTIK:  A recent technology survey indicates that succession planning is what HR wants most to do but is investing in the least.  Wouldn’t this be useful in layoffs? 

 

CORSELLO:  The fundamental flaw is that companies assume managers have time for succession planning, but they don’t.  They don’t have time to move chess pieces around.  I have one client approaching it in a way where a Talent Development Consultant sits with the CIO or CFO to create a work form, identify what they need in six to 12 months, and then create a roadmap.  A shift needs to occur where there is less dependence on managers for this.  HR needs to help with the process, and the technology exists to support it.   

 

KUTIK: I hear stories about managers freaking out about self-service offerings.   

 

LEVENSALER:  Succession planning means different things in different organizations.  It gets blurry when defining succession planning versus workforce planning.  A lot of vendors don’t have that level of sophistication. 

 

KUTIK:  What do you do if the jet crashes and all your executives are on it? 

 

ANDERSON:  They don’t know who a successful candidate is or who to dismiss.  They just don’t.  I love the idea of succession planning.  Most organizations don’t know as much about their people as they need to know.  The key is that we don’t empower our employees enough to say where they want to be in a certain number of years and provide them with the tools for getting there.  For employees, though, it needs to count – why would I do it if it won’t have any impact? 

 

KUTIK:  Armed forces do workforce planning 30 years out.  

 

ANDERSON:  The Army shows cadets what they should aspire to be.  We don’t do that in the workforce.  The point is that, if nothing else, you should encourage employee self service.  Look ahead five jobs out, and it is your responsibility to figure out how to get there.   

 

KUTIK:  For succession planning and social networks, why wouldn’t there be a tie into a social network scenario, where users feature the information that HR wants to know?   

 

THOMAS:  It is called mentoring.   

 

ANDERSON:  It is a profiling problem.  I try not to rely on anyone else for me to be successful.  You need to empower people to do it for themselves.   

 

LEVENSALER:  It could be like a self-nomination.  

 

ADAM MILLER:  Cushing, you painted an interesting picture of a system where people have access to the information they need, when they need it.  But who should own corporate social networks?  Different silos within the organization often fight over it.  Is this an opportunity for people to own it and build importance? 

 

LEVENSALER:  Ownership is like control.  If the goal is to solve a problem or create opportunities, then you need to understand what that is in order to determine who should own it.     

 

ANDERSON:  In Jason’s presentation regarding what the new organizational model looks like, there is no one place in the organization where you can easily map a nexus that makes the most sense.  It more naturally plays in the OD department, but it doesn’t necessarily exist anymore.   

 

CORSELLO:  It is the CEO’s role to embed it into the culture.  The others are stewards to make this happen.   

 

THOMAS:  Tactically, let’s get the same people who represent C-level responsibilities in the HR department. 

 

KUTIK:  Does the increased focus on social learning imply that the LMS is becoming irrelevant?  What key innovations have you seen in LMS that will prevent it from becoming irrelevant? 

 

ANDERSON:  Learning departments need to get away from being a course catalog.  It should be more about giving advice.

 

LEVENSALER:  They need to support user generated content, but how they will stay relevant is certification and compliance training.  An LMS can hold on to this and do it really well.   

 

KUTIK:  Social networks are not good about being bi-directional.  You never know who read the information. 

 

ANDERSON:  You don’t want the LMS to become a reporting function. 

 

THOMAS:  Show me an LMS that can predicatively drive performance and directly impact bottom line.   

 

KUTIK: The jungle drums have been sounding that some talent management initiatives have failed.  How do you convince senior executives that yours won’t? 

 

THOMAS:  There need to be resources for effective implementation.  You need to look at software that is being delivered as a service.  And you need people with deep expertise.   

 

CORSELLO:  You need to bring facts and data, but it needs to be the right data.  HR facts are not the right data – you need to focus more on dollar figures and attaching results to those numbers.   

 

KUTIK:  The ROI from a performance management report is really good. 

 

ANDERSON:  It is less about ROI.  If you ask, you’re dead.  If your managers buy into defined success criteria, then it is not about numbers or facts, it is about those success criteria. 

 

KUTIK:  Of all the talent management applications, how should social networks be used? 

 

LEVENSALER:  It should be integrated or embedded, not separate.  You should be using these tools to supplement the solutions you have in place.   

 

CORSELLO:  I agree with Leighanne.  The future is a few years out, but by then you will be able to analyze the value of those networks and evaluate the performance of different divisions and the strengths of the different talent pools.  But this isn’t available today.   

 

KUTIK:  How is Adam Miller going to embed Cornerstone Connect into the different applications? 

 

ANDERSON:  I will coach Adam from here.  It is not about one thing, it is about a collection of tools.  And they each have a role.  You can apply each to the talent process – attaching the right ones to the right place in the cycle.  It needs to appear wherever appropriate.   

 

MILLER:  Ultimately, the point is to embed user-generated content with traditional data.  It is taking organizational data that everyone uses and meshing it with user-generated content to give you a holistic picture when making decisions about your talent as well as your business. 

 

Charles Coy is the Product Marketing Director for Cornerstone OnDemand

 

 

 

So for those of you who don't follow @mattalder on twitter (or work in whatever corners of Barkers Matt's cheery demeanor brightens each day, or belong to his close family and are in regular contact with him) you won't know that he's currently hobnobbing with some of the great and most connected of digital recruitment world at the Social Recruiting Summit - being held at the uber webcool venue that is google HQ. Anyway - as part of the stream of tweets coming out of google HQ (which, as I write this with the day only just starting, has me thinking that it won't be long before twitter falls over as a direct result of this event!) Matt sent this: "accuracy of personal info when user has more than 10 connections better than a resume, people don't lie in public" RH #socialrecruiting Now the RH he references is Reid Hoffman...

With the recent launch of Workthing+, the “is it right to charge candidates?” debate was certainly re-ignited (read some of it here on Recruiting Futurology). I wanted to step a little away from that particular cut and thrust and, having tried to give it a bit more time to look at all that’s on offer, give my take on the Workthing+ offer itself. It probably is worth stating for the record though that I have no problem with anyone charging for a service, whatever that may be - I actually kinda prefer that sort of transparency because it allows you to make an informed decision about the value for money you receive, and because you’re paying you are more bought into realising the full benefit of any facility – in short, putting more onus on you to make it work for you. OK – to the site/facility. My first observation...

Social Collaboration: The Future of Talent Management?

Knowledge Infusion analyst Jason Corsello explains the power of combining talent data with social tools – and how this is driving an evolution in talent management strategies

 

One of the more buzzed about trends at Convergence 2009 was enterprise social networking and Web 2.0 collaboration tools – such as blogs, wikis, communities of practice, instant messaging (IM) and more.  How can organizations use these tools to support their human capital management strategies?  Is there a measurable impact?  Or is it all just a bunch of hype?

 

Observes Adam Miller, CEO of Cornerstone OnDemand, “Ultimately, the point is to embed user-generated content with traditional data.  It is taking organizational data that everyone uses and meshing it with user-generated content to give you a holistic picture when making decisions about your talent as well as your business.”

 

Knowledge Infusion analyst Jason Corsello addressed the topic of social collaboration tools and their impact on talent management strategies during a lively and compelling keynote at our client and partner conference.  Of particular interest was his suggested approach to getting executive buy-in and tips for how to get started. 

 

Significant Shift in Talent Management

According to Jason, in the next three years, there’s going to be a significant shift in talent management.  Because of what is happening in organizations today, there are shifts in how decisions are being made.  While companies may have a hierarchical structure, how the work really gets done is flat – people go up and down the chain in order to get things done. 

 

This is also impacted by the way people use technology.  Technology has impacted how work gets done, how managers manage and how decisions get made.  In the past, organizations used to be siloed.  Innovation gets stuck in these kinds of organizations.  We’re moving from a transactional to an interactive world, one that requires collaborative, team-based structures.  Many organizations are working to adopt this model, where performance becomes collaborative and team-focused rather than placing an emphasis on the performance of an individual silo.

 

Social collaboration is where the evolution in talent management is occurring.  The four elements Jason views as falling under social collaboration include:

 

• Portal Self Service -- More focused on the organization versus HR topics, this is a central place to engage, share information and get work done.
• Social Networking – Beyond Facebook and Twitter, this is about connecting with colleagues you know – and more importantly, the ones you don’t know. 
• Profiles and Expertise – Talent profiles help people get to know more about different employees and identify business expertise.
• Knowledge Sharing – This can mean many things to many people.  Wikis are one example. 

 

Improved Insight for Making Critical Business Decisions

Whether it is communication, conversations, collaboration or capturing intellectual capital, organizations can use these tools to build on the foundation of their talent management strategies.  Employing these tools provides ways to see clusters of high and low performers, as well as future leaders – and it provides more information to make critical business decisions. 

 

 

Jason had a very interesting “social map” of an organization comparing one organizations formal vs. information structure.  The map revealed that even though an employee (Cole) may be ranked lower in the company, he/she may be the most critical person when it comes to productivity and who interacts with them to get work done.  In this example, the SVP (Jones) is connected to only two people in a department – one of which is Cole.  And Cole, while further down the reporting chain vs. department heads and managers, is at the center of information exchanges with people not only his divisions , but in two other groups.  If you were to remove Cole from this social map, production in the division would be cut off from the rest of the organization.

 

Whether it is performance management, compensation management, succession planning or learning management, today’s organizations tend to be very process oriented. 

 

The future is in wrapping conversational elements into that talent data.  Combining talent data with social tools can be powerful and contribute to changes in the business.  It can foster innovation and the speed of production.  And it can improve the way people learn or how the organization engages employees. 

 

Getting your people to use these tools is important, and Jason suggests using technology to get them addicted – constantly tapping into and contributing to these networks.  One example he shared was that while his mother-in-law is on Twitter and Facebook, his wife doesn’t have a page because she doesn’t want to get addicted.

 

Building a Business Case

So how do you build a business case for investing in social collaboration tools?  According to Jason, there are three types of skeptics in an organization:

 

• Skeptic 1 is the finance guy:  “What’s the ROI?”
• Skeptic 2 is the risk controller:  “It’s too risky and uncontrollable!”
• Skeptic 3 is the late adopter:  “It’s a fad… a waste of time.”

 

The key takeaway here is this: You need to start to rethink / socialize some of these concepts within your organization.  These types of skeptics don’t know about the technology Millennials are using today, like YouTube or LinkedIn or Facebook or Twitter.  Skeptics generally haven’t tried these tools, so there’s a gap.  The trick is in how to close the gap in order to have the conversation.

 

How Do You Address ROI?

• Tie social collaboration to your organization’s strategies and goals
• Keep the “I” in ROI low – this will reduce the dependence on “R” because if the investment is relatively low, then you don’t necessarily need to prove “R” 
• Identify incremental vs. “big bang” opportunities, with quick wins such as executive blogs or work groups
• Secure an executive sponsor who has clout and an interest in the project 

 

How Do You Debunk the Risk? 

• Social collaboration should be viewed differently than existing collaboration models, such as email, document management tools (SharePoint), virtual meetings, etc. 
• Identify the top 5-10 worst case scenarios and build contingencies so you’re prepared in advance
• Embrace and prepare for failure – think about how to adapt to change

 

How Do You Create Rationale & Justification? 

• Focus on proficiency instead of technology tools or platforms
• Identify the potential impact to all business units – sales, service, product development, HR, etc.
• Look for synergies and unification vs. a siloed build out – ways these pieces can come together in a unified way

 

Additionally, you should look to pair different social media mindsets as part of the project team.  Get skeptics and evangelists to work together – look for these people at moments of truth and crisis to have a more productive conversation. 

 

Ideas for How to Get Started

Some suggestions that Jason provided for how to get started when adding social collaborations into the talent management mix include:

 

• Creating a lightweight governance model
• Avoiding a large, formal launch and training in favor of a progressive viral launch
• Assuming people know how to behave in the real world
• Exploring with consumer-centric technology – use the tools to build the strategy
• Positioning it as a series of incremental investment scenarios that, over time, will be adapted based on lessons learned

 

One example of how social collaboration has impacted an organization is Mars Inc., who was looking at ways to grow and change the company and inspire innovation.  Holding a large company offsite, organizers forced people from different areas of the company to have conversations and discover expertise.  Each attendees wore a name tag with a photo on it, such as a picture of their yellow Lab puppy, to reveal commonalities among the group.  The idea was that social ties create more of a willingness and openness among people to collaborate. 

 

As a result, 1,400 new connections were revealed, leading to new product innovation – customized M&Ms – and the creation of a new direct distribution channel.  Other results included the development of a new product and business line; tighter alignment between sales, marketing operations and product development; a streamlined distribution model; higher profit margins; and improved marketing innovation.

 

Like Mars Inc., collaboration tools already are being used by today’s workforces.  They’re no longer just a fad.  Organizations have an opportunity to embrace these technologies and supplement their talent management strategies in practical and effective ways for managing and developing high-performing workforces. 

 

Charles Coy is the Product Marketing Director for Cornerstone OnDemand

Ok, so I don’t have much credibility in the world of linguistics, but my product strategist, Cecile Alper-Leroux used the word ‘integrally’ to describe our talent management system.  What does it mean?  Building integrally means to create an integrated solution with integrity.  I kinda like it — provided that I can figure out how to [...]

Interesting analysis of the US newspaper industry's cost base by Moody's Investors Service (though most of the rest of the report is unsurprising). Written by Moody's vice president and senior analyst John Puchalla, the report contends that publishers spend far too much on producing and delivering a printed paper rather than on creating its content and selling it. Here are the figures behind what Puchalla calls a "structural disconnect": only 14% of cash operating costs, on average, are devoted to content creation, while about 70% of costs are spent on printing, distribution and corporate functions. The remaining 16% of costs are related to advertising sales, a first-class example of devoting too few resources to the principal revenue driver. Puchalla sees this as a legacy of the industry's vertical integration and the result, of course, is that the high fixed costs - combined with high debt among many newspaper companies -...

Please join me tomorrow at 1pm CST when I will be the guest on the next HRchitect WebMingle event. If you need details, you can find it here.