In the world of high school athletics, 'going to states', i.e. advancing through local and regional competition to have the chance to compete at the state level has long been a goal and desire of almost all scholastic competitors. 

Making it to the state championship in any sport is seen as a mark of accomplishment, and students that achieve the honor often remember the experience, win or lose, for many years.

Next month the HR Happy Hour show is 'going to states', so to speak - Steve and the show will be heading down to the HR Florida State Conference & Expo, set for August 29 - September 1.  The HR Florida event is big time, expectations are high for a record-setting attendance, and certainly there is a sense of unbridled enthusiasm.

So in the spirit of the excitement of the show going to 'states', tonight on the HR Happy Hour we will do a bit of an 'HR Florida Preview', starting at 8pm EDT, with a call in number of 646-378-1086.

 We will talk with some of the event planners and leaders, most if not all of the members of the HR Blogger Panel, (the law firm of Stelzner, Tincup, McFarlane and Oxford), as well as some of the session presenters, and who knows what other special guests.

If you are an HR Pro planning to attend HR Florida, just thinking about it, or simply envious of those that will be there, I encourage you to listen in to the show tonight, and hear first-hand all about one of the premier events for HR professionals anywhere in the country. You can't hold your mud.

And the best thing about HR Florida?  

You can make it all the way to 'states' without have to beat Shute first.

Over the weekend I was catching up on blog reading and this post, Only 20 Percent of Workers Qualify for High Demand Jobs,  on the Perfect Labor Storm 2.0 blog caught my attention.

The post describes a dire-sounding situation, especially for the ranks of the unemployed and underemployed - there areFlickr- bgottsab lots of available jobs, but a shortage of candidates with the requisite education and skills to fill said jobs. From the referenced post:

Today's long-term jobs crisis is not about the current financial meltdown. It is about an accelerating talent showdown. The basic cause is that unprecedented technological advances are ever more rapidly transforming the world of work. This will continue to raise the U.S. talent ante for people seeking employment or for businesses that need to fill high-skill jobs. The U.S. Department of Labor finds that 62 percent of all U.S. jobs now require two-year or four-year degrees and higher, or special postsecondary occupation certificates or apprenticeships. By 2020 we can expect that these talent requirements will increase to include 75 percent of U.S. jobs.

And in the post we learn that it is not just the formal education requirement that trips up many job seekers, it is a more fundamental and structural issue:

Today's long-term jobs crisis is not about the current financial meltdown. It is about an accelerating talent showdown. The basic cause is that unprecedented technological advances are ever more rapidly transforming the world of work. This will continue to raise the U.S. talent ante for people seeking employment or for businesses that need to fill high-skill jobs.

The general slant of the piece, and most of what you read in similar 'companies can't find the skilled employees they need' articles lately is that the US education system is failing, and has not reacted with sufficient speed and aggressiveness to the changing global and national economic conditions, and that it is sending its graduates out to battle unprepared in a market that requires capability and skills that they simply do not possess.

Maybe.  

But there is a part of the equation that consistently bothers me.  In articles like this, and in the discussion that ensues, there is hardly ever recognition of the role and responsibility that the employer bears.  When a new product is developed and fails to succeed in the market, can organizations get away with blaming the consumers? Do we look fondly back on these 'before their time' offerings as nothing more than quirky bits of nostalgia?

When product development comes up with an idea for a product that simply can't be engineered and manufactured at the needed cost/timeframe/quality that the market demands, does the organization and the people involved not see any consequences from the failed attempt?

But somehow in this 'we can't find the skilled workers we need' debate, the corporation(s) seem to get off scot free.  But they are 'selling' something here as well, the opportunity to work, get compensated, and to learn new skills in exchange for an employee's time, attention, and dedication. If they are unable to find an adequate 'market' for this offering, why aren't they held to task (at least partially) as well?

In 'Rework' the co-founders of 37signals advise organizations to forget artificial 'years of experience' minimums, and to drop formal education requirements.  In 'Delivering Happiness' Tony Hseih, CEO of Zappos.com describes in detail a talent 'pipeline' process that allows Zappos to concentrate their external hiring on entry level positions, and though on the job experience and training continue to develop future management and leadership talent.

These successful organizations do not set artificially high barriers to entry.

So I will ask again - does that job REALLY require a college degree?  Or 7-10 years of progressively more responsibility in the specific market and industry?

If there aren't enough buyers for what you are selling, it seems to me that is at least partly if not mostly your problem.

In my role as a part-time HR Technology instructor I have been a user and quasi-administrator of a wiki platform called Confluence, a product of the Atlassian company based in Australia.  We have used Confluence in the class to organize the course content, share information on assignments, post readings and presentations, and provide the students the opportunity to learn in a more hands-on way, what a common enterprise collaboration tool looks and feels like. 

Thousands of organizations use Confluence for wiki collaboration, and there is an active and vibrant developer community surrounding Confluence that continues to produce useful and innovative extensions and enhancements. 

Last week I noticed a post on the Confluence corporate blog about the release of 'Mini Confluence', aImage source - www.miniconfluence.com new mobile client for either the iPhone or the Android, that allows enterprise users of the Confluence wiki and collaboration platform to view and update content, interact with colleagues via status updates, and tailor the interface to keep track of contributions and comments from key colleagues and teams while you are on the go. 

For enterprises that have adopted Confluence as their knowledge repository, collaboration platform, or organizational intranet, the ability to deploy a functional and effective mobile application to the iPhone and Android (BlackBerry is also supported via a mobile web interface), further enhances and improves the creation, sharing, and discovery of information and expertise anywhere employees happen to be.

And organizations that do elect to adopt and deploy modern, fast, and highly functional mobile versions of enterprise collaboration tools will likely further strengthen their ability to act, react, and execute on new opportunities and ideas faster and better than their competitors that are stuck in the old dispensation.

So if you are in an organization that has yet to materially embrace new ways of working and new collaborative tools like Confluence and others, it is certainly fair to say that you are behind your competition that likely has done so.  But don't forget that while you continue to rely on your tried and true methods (email, private instant messaging, labyrinthine shared network drives), your competition continues to move forward. 

It could be that they are not just collaborating and creating more effectively than you are while in the office, they are beating you from wherever they go.  And the longer you wait, the gap just keeps getting larger.

The other day I was driving in a light to moderate then back to light rain storm.  One minute the rain was quite strong and the car's windshield wipers had to be engaged at almost full speed to assureFlickr - Christine Krizsa somewhat decent visibility, and then a minute later the rain would subside to an extent that the wipers were hardly needed at all.

Fortunately for me, my car and most cars made in the last forty years or so possesses a feature called 'intermittent wipers', a mechanism that enables the windshield wipers to operate at numerous speed settings, with variable delays between 'swipes' across the windshield.  In an extremely light rain, or mist, or in rapidly changing conditions like the ones I was driving in, the ability to adjust the speed of the wipers to most closely match the outsude conditions is a fantastic improvement of the wipers' original design - simply either 'On' or 'Off'. 

In the case of windshield wipers, I think most drivers would agree that having a range of settings, perhaps even an infinite amount of settings is an improvement from 'On' or 'Off'.  But having so many choices in wiper settings can actually make finding just the right setting quite difficult.  On my twenty or so minute drive the other day I must have adjusted the wiper speed fifteen different times. As conditions changed outside, I almost unconsciously reacted by tweaking, ever so slightly, the wiper speed. I have unlimited contol and choice remember, so it is assumed no matter what the rain and wind are doing, I have the ability to set the wipers at the perfect setting. I don't remember anything else about that drive except fussing with the wipers the entire time, and thinking I still have to keep messing with them even though I have far superior technical capability at my disposal.

I was in discussion with some colleagues about performance management, specifically a discussion of the use of rating systems in the performance appraisal process.  One person favored the use of the classic descriptors for formal ratings ('Exceeds, Meets, etc.), while another favored a numerical scale (1-5).  A third said what they really need was a way to rate employees on a sliding scale, that all '3's' or '4's' are not the same, and what they really wanted in their performance management technology was a sliding scale that they could use to dynamically 'drag' and adjust the ratings between the defined beginning and end points. That way they could rate Sally as a 3.73 and Joe as a 3.21 and so on. Sort of like an 'intermittent wiper' for the performance rating.

While I think that the capability for more granular assignment of numeric performance ratings is, at least on the surface, an improvement from assigning '3' or '4', it doesn't really change the fundamental exercise all that much, or improve the conditions or environment that effects the eventual outcomes in the review process. Sure, the manager has more choices, even an almost infinite amount of choices, but as sometimes happens when we are presented with so much choice that we spend all our time focused on the alternatives and much less (or not at all) on the outcomes.  Obsessing over the 'choice' and not the results of the choice if that makes sense.

And no matter how advanced our windshield wiper systems get, it still rains outside.

Is your system “broken” or do your processes and practices need to be improved? Technology is not the silver bullet that many people think it is. How do you optimize your processes and practices around talent sourcing?

Automating an inefficient process just creates an inefficient system and by throwing technology at a bad process, all you have done is sped up the chaos in an organization without getting the efficiencies you are seeking

Other items that will be covered during this webinar presentation include:

•    How do you make sure you are getting a return on your ATS investment?
•    Have you met the business objectives and decision drivers that were defined prior to selecting your system?
•    How do you measure user effectiveness, usability, and satisfaction?
•    How do you get effective training of all types of your users (recruiters, hiring managers, employees, agencies, etc)?
•    How to achieve operational efficiency and usability with your ATS system
•    How to get adoption and increased usage of the system by all users
•    How do you continue to allow the ATS to evolve to meet changing needs and requirements of the organization?

Join us next Thursday, July 29.  Click here to register.

Tonight on the HR Happy Hour show it is time for 'Mystery HR Theater'. I know who the guest is. Shauna, the HR Minion, knows who the guest is, and the guest (hopefully) knows when to call in.

But that's it.  We have not let the cat out of the bag, so you will have to tune in tonight at 8PM EDT, and play 'guess the guest' or '20 questions' until we reveal our secret guest's identity - you can call in on 646-378-1086 to join the shenanigans.

But in the spirit of good fun Shauna challenged the Twitterverse to take a guess at the identity of tonight's secret guest.  So far, no one has got it right, but there were some great guesses, and for those who did guess, I offer some explanations as to why they were off the mark.

Lindsay Lohan - Lindsay is a big star. Still.  But probably not for too much longer.  Pretty soon I bet weNot on the show will see her on 'Celebrity Rehab' and after that I think we have a shot at landing her on the HR Happy Hour.  But she did not use her one call from jail to call us, so will not be on the show tonight.

Oates - I kind of think Oates would make a good guest.  We could do 20 minutes on mullet and moustache theory and practice alone.  And then there is the whole 'You look like Bababooey' angle.

Hall -  More interesting than Oates.  Of the duo, the one that could have made it as a solo artist. Also has a strange obsession with killing deer.  Not just the odd hunting trip to bag a 10-point buck, but killing all deer.  Something about lyme disease.  Would make for a good interview.

Sarah Palin - She has plenty to say for sure.  It is arguable how much of it makes sense. I did pitch her people to have her come on the show but I was refudiated. 

Ben Eubanks  - Such an elusive guy.  Has appeared on the show before (grudgingly).  Since we know he is getting ready for some big and exciting things very soon, he is not going to appear tonight.

Bob Hope - Would be an awesome booking. Forty years ago.

Rod Stewart - Has an advantage over Bob Hope in that he is currently alive. Also presents a great opportunity to talk about music, models, and mayhem of life as a rock star. Dang, now I really wish we could book Rod Stewart.

LeBron - Certainly in need of some positive publicity.  But, has so much money, power, and fame that heNot on the show can give a collective eff you to an entire city and not sweat it at all. If LeBron did come on I think I would ask him about NBA players and tattoos. I think every NBA media guide needs to have a 'player tattoo directory' to help recognize and understand all the ink.

In no particular order we also had guesses of Al Gore, Toby from 'The Office', HR Fishbowl, Steve Forbes, and Jessica Alba. OK, I added the Jessica Alba guess.

So who will it be?  Who is the 'Mystery HR Guest?'

You will have to tune in tonight at 8PM EDT to find out!

You must have already heard about the 2010 HR Technology Conference, set for September 29 - October 1, 2010 in Chicago.

Since it is the pre-eminent event in the HR Technology industry and has been ever since its inception there is certainly no possible way that you have not read a blog post about it, heard a friend or colleague talking about it, participated in LinkedIn discussion about the key issues, wondered if the legendary Bill Kutik, the conference co-chairman is really the Old Spice Guy, or even listened to an old radio show from last year's event broadcast from the location.

Pretty much everyone involved in the Human Resources technology game, at any level - consultant, practitioner, vendor will be there.  For the HR Tech community it is the Super Bowl, the Oscars, and Mardi Gras all rolled into one event.  

Take a look at the sponsor list for the event, review the sessions and speakers, find out who is going to be exhibiting and you will soon realize this is one of the must-attend events of the year simply for the unmatched opportunity to learn about the latest in HR technologies, hear from peer organizations how technologies are being applied to solve real problems, and get a chance to network and learn from all the industry experts in one place.

I even hear that the enigmatic Mike Krupa will be there.

So the question is not 'if' you should attend HR Technology 2010, clearly you should.  

And the great Bill Kutik, co-chair of the conference has been generous enough to offer up a sweet discount to folks that read this blog. Just click here to register and use the discount code STEVE10 to get a $500 break on the normal rate. I don't get any kind of kick back from registrations, but I know Bill is keeping score and I want to beat the other bloggers out there who have their own codes.

If you are in the HR Tech game you need to be there, in fact, if you are just in the HR game you probably need to be there too.

I hope to see you there, (just don't mistake me for Mike Krupa).

Last week Trish McFarlane at HR Ringleader asked a few of her friends for their summer book recommendations and I was happy to offer two selections.  

One of the books I suggested was 'Rework' by Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hannson, theRework - Mike Rohde founders of software company 37signals. If you are not familiar with 37signals, you may know some of their popular products, Basecamp, a project management tool;  Highrise, a CRM application;  or Campfire, a group chat and communication tool. Or you might know their Signal vs. Noise blog.

At any rate, 37signals has built a remarkably successful business in a competitive and complex market, and in Rework, the founders share many of their lessons learned along the way. In some ways the book is positioned toward entrepreneurs (although in Rework we learn 'Starter' is the preferred term), but many of the ideas and the advice could certainly be applied inside work groups at larger organizations.

For the Human Resources reader, Rework is valuable for the several observations and insights related to the hiring process, namely:

Resumes are ridiculous - The authors recommend spending more time assessing the cover letter, since cover letters have to show more of a candidate's personality and voice, and are therefore a much better indicator than the resume to see if they are a likely fit with your company.

Forget about formal education - Reliance on formal education requirements as a screening criteria artificially excludes many candidates that might be great performers.  In fact too much time in academia can be a detriment, as many bad habits have to be unlearned.

Hire great writers - When trying to decide among candidates, always hire the best writer. Clear writing implies clear thinking, and overall better ability to communicate. 

Additionally, several views on organizational culture would resonate with the HR world:

You don't create a culture - Company culture can't be created artificially with mission statements and offsite ropes courses.  Culture is the actions of leaders and employees, and it needs time to develop. 

Skip the rock stars - Forget posting job ads for 'rockstars' or 'ninjas'. Those terms have nothing at all to do with business. Worry more about creating an environment where people can perform at 'rockstar' level.  Chances are there is tons of untapped potential on your team, but excessive policies, poor leadership, and inadequate technology are holding them back.

They're not thirteen - Treat people like children, and you will get children's work. Requiring approval for everything creates an environment where employees stop thinking for themselves. Excessive monitoring or employee's coming and going and of online activities never works. 

Rework reads like a rapid string of short blog posts, interrupted by full page black and white illustrations meant to support the main idea of each piece. I plowed through the 277 page book in a couple of hours. But like most good books, I am sure I will go back to Rework again and again, as the advice and lessons, while simple, are easy to forget as so much of the conventional wisdom that we are bombarded with lies in contrast to the ideas in Rework.

I recommend Rework for anyone running a small business, thinking of starting one, or if you are in a larger organization leading a team and in search of ideas to make your team work (or rework) better.

There is no shortage of calls for people in Human Resources to get more business savvy, and to strive to become more well versed in math, statistics, and finance.  Many of the leading vendors of Human Resources software have reflected this trend, by rebranding, launching new analytics tools, and emphasizing the importance of data in HR strategy.Polyhedron - Magnus Wenniger

And it is not just Human Resources professionals that have been told that better command of hard subjects of math, science, and technology are needed for sustained competitive advantage; here in the USA we have seen repeated calls for an increased focus on these subjects in primary and secondary education.  It is kind of conventional wisdom that American students are falling behind their peers around the world in these subjects, and without concerted efforts to raise these skills in the next generation, America's position as a leader in industry, invention, and innovation will surely be diminished.

Let's put aside for now that in China, considered by many to be America's main competition for invention and innovation, many educators are striving to find ways to enable more opportunities to encourage student's creativity, and to move away from their traditional 'drill and test' approach. In the words of one Chinese educator ‘You’re racing toward our old model. But we’re racing toward your model, as fast as we can.’ 

A recent survey by IBM of over fifteen hundred CEO's showed that these CEO's rated 'creativity' as the single most important attribute needed for future organizational success. Perhaps these CEOs felt that the basics of math, statistics, and analytics are a given, a necessary ante to even play the game, and only those organizations and leaders that can apply the insights derived from the analysis of operational and workforce data in creative and innovative ways will be the winners in the future. Or perhaps it was a unspoken nod to the over reliance on financial and statistical analysis that has dominated formal business education for ages.

I understand that the push and the advice to HR leaders and HR professionals to gain a better understanding of math, finance, statistics, etc. probably stems from a perception and history of being concerned with the 'soft' stuff, employee relations, benefits admin, and the like.  Gaining credibility as professionals and as a discipline certainly seems to hinge, at least in part, on changing that perception by demonstrating 'real' business skills and acumen.  

I just hope that the emphasis on analytics and data does not swing the pendulum too far, that we begin to lose sight of the other skills and attributes that are essential to effective management, leadership, and contribution to ongoing business success.  

CEOs, countries, customers, and students are all looking for creativity, let's not try to respond simply armed with spreadsheets.

Tonight on the HR Happy Hour show we will discuss Enterprise 2.0 with Professor Andrew McAfee, the person that first used the term 'Enterprise 2.0'  (back in 2006), and the author of the essential book on the subject 'Enterprise 2.0: New Collaborative Tools For Your Organization's Toughest Challenges'.

The show can be heard live starting at 8PM EDT - here, and using the player below, or via the call in number 646-378-1086.

 

What is Enterprise 2.0?  Why is it sometimes simply passed off as 'Facebook for the Corporation', or simply as a diversion or distraction from the 'real' work of making products, delivering services, or simply keeping existing processes running? Why do many in HR shrug E2.0 off as another set of IT technologies that they would rather have nothing to do with?

Perhaps it is because for many, if not most, organizations the ability to continue to invent and produce products the market desires, or the skills and capabilities to deliver valuable and sought after services has become much more tied to the organization's capability in capturing and sharing knowledge, in connecting its people with each other (and the external community) more effectively, and in creating environments where ideas can be generated, and the best of these ideas lifted to the top.

These challenges that organizations are facing can be met by an ever growing class of collaborative tools and technologies, platforms that support, guide, and enhance all the things that the best people do naturally - create, share, enhance, and innovate.  Any many organizations have begun to leverage these platforms internally, with more joining the ranks of 'Enterprise 2.0' converts every day.

But as we will talk about on the show, just deploying a fancy new collaboration platform inside an organization does not guarantee all the promise of E2.0 will immediately be realized.  Considerations of the business issues that need solving, the relationships of the participating employees and groups, and the culture of the organization all need to be taken into account.  

It is fashionable to talk about these kinds of transformative projects as having little to do with technology, but rather to classify them as change management efforts, with success mostly to do with understanding and influencing people's behavior in the organization.  

If that is true, then who in the organization is better positioned than Human Resources to define, architect, and help lead these projects to success?

And what better place than the HR Happy Hour show for Human Resources professionals to learn more about Enterprise 2.0 from the person who coined the term, and authored the only essential book on the concept?

I hope you can join us tonight for what should be an interesting and informative show.