Two Weeks In...

It's crazy to think that we're two weeks into the semester, and we've just skimmed the surface of the class content. What have we learned so far?

For me, it's refreshing to see that there continues to be a growing interest among Human Resources professional (of which, I have 16 in my class this semester) to hone their technology and analytic skills.

So far, we've starting using web 2.0 public domain tools to help facilitate our learning in class. We hope to one day see these tools (such as blogs, wikis, and the like) available for us in our enterprise arsenal. We've also discussed the changing nature of work and how, we, as HR professionals, have to seize the opportunity to leverage these technologies to better account for our organization's internal talent. With this newfound knowledge, HR professionals can better influence and guide the people strategies that are critical in our knowledge economy today.

What's next? We'll start looking at our approaches to solving problems in our businesses and leveraging new skills (software analysis, project management, and change management) to understand our options for solving these problems.

To another 8 weeks!

What's the plan... our last 3 classes...

What's the plan for our final 3 meetings? Tomorrow's class will begin with a Workday demo and will be the last time we'll talk about new subjects as we finish our software analysis discussion. Our 12/1 class will consists of our class presentations, so please be ready to present for 5 minutes & be ready for Q&A for at no more than 5 minutes. We should be able to complete everyone's presentation on 12/1. Our last class will consist of a Silkroad technology demo ending with a class debrief.

Sounds good! See you all on Weds!

We're halfway there...

It’s official. We are halfway through class this semester, and I’m not sure I’ve made the same connections with these students that I have in the past. Are they connecting with the material? Have I changed the curriculum too much that it’s less engaging? At this point, I’m not sure, but time will tell.

Fortunately, we had Taleo come to class today to share their mid-market product Business Edition. The demo was wonderful, and illustrated how Taleo has evolved from its ATS roots to become a more complete Talent Management solution with its onboarding, performance, and compensation modules. I anticipate that Taleo will continue to build on its platform with more solutions. The class appeared engaged and seemed to enjoy the demo. Blogs will tell whether or not the class enjoyed it as much as I did.

We also started talking about the importance of problem identification, delivery model, technology, and security when evaluating HR software. On top of that, we reviewed the importance of identifies keys or unique identifiers of data and the concept of system of record, critical concepts integral in any problem solving scenario. We closed with a demo of survey monkey and illustrated how usable technology can assist with the data capture problem as well as a glimpse into usable hr software of the future.

Remember: business strategy leads to people strategy which leads to hr technology strategy. This strategy needs to be implemented with a problem centric, project management, and change management discipline.

Looking forward to another week of learning with everyone’s blogs. Over and out! Till next week.

Business... People... Technology...

We began class today with a demo of Zoho Recruit, Zoho’s solution for the recruiting problem. If you are a small business looking to automate your recruiting process and are on a limited budget, Zoho Recruit might be the right solution for you. Its web 2.0 interface is extremely usable, and according to our presenter, the implementation was only a couple of hours. Granted she only had a couple of positions to implement, but the fact that she was up and running in less than a day speaks to its easy configuration and user friendly interface. We discussed its potential lack of scalability as well as its limited reporting functionality. Overall, a great first look at an actual HR system implemented at an actual company.

We then got right into how one comes up with a technology strategy. And like with anything complex, we simplified our approach. Organization exists for a reason. If you understand that and its business strategy, it’s often easier to surmise its people strategy. In other words, define how people fit into the overall business strategy and use that to define your people strategy. The people strategy should then inform your HR technology strategy. For example, if your company is in growth mode, might it make sense to invest in an Applicant Tracking System? Start with the business and the technology will follow.

We leveraged the Capability Maturity Model (CMM), the People Capability Maturity Model (PCMM), and our very own HR Technology Maturity Model to understand and guide one’s view of the business, the people, and a corresponding HR Technology strategy.

We ended the class discussing the importance of project planning. More specifically, we discussed how the charter tool might help define one’s problem prior to implementing and solving the problem. We also talked a little bit about process mapping and its importance in process improvement efforts by defining current process and articulating areas for improvement.

Overall, the class felt pretty good. What did you think?

Go Giants!

Successfactors SuccessConnect SF Musings...

I’m extremely tired, and after talking to many clients of and executives at Successfactors (SF), I feel more enthused about their product direction. We’re not alone when it comes to our admin issues and our flexibility needs! It’s refreshing to meet other clients with some of the same issues and hopefully, we can leverage these in the future. Their foray into social collaboration seems timely given the economy and the potential impact it can have for companies trying to create more value with less people. This is intriguing. If they can add some meat to this offering (security, reports, workflow), then they might have something unique in the marketplace. Let’s wait and see.

The two days began with an Advanced Admin Boot Camp training session. I was cautiously optimistic when we saw this offering. We have challenges managing forms and processes given the dynamic and flexible nature of our organization. To my dismay, my cautiousness was warranted. The ‘Advanced’ workshop was more basic than expected and didn’t address our needs. Don’t get me wrong, I did learn some things and the instructor was engaging and informative. However, our hope was to learn how we might be able to manage the admin craziness that we deal with on a daily basis. With that as success criterion, we failed.

The official conference began with Successfactors’ CEO talking about their roadmap (and Employee Central as the headline), a case study by a Vail project manager, a look into mockups of Successfactors’ revamp of their ATS, and a deeper dive into Employee Central.

The ATS looks impressive. Rich and dynamic but it’s still too early to make any conclusions. Thanks to the Siemens deal, the ATS looks like it’s going to be extremely robust. A big plus, given the potential integration benefits with other SF tools. Wait. No integration to competencies! What? Seems like a waste if you’ve developed some valuable strategy aligned competencies.

Employee Central. Is SF getting into the Employee System of Record (SOR) business or is this simply a new way of managing core HR data? I didn’t get a definitive answer. One thing is for certain however. For some companies that don’t have an HRIS system, Employee Central may meet their needs, especially if SF adds configurable custom fields (which sounds like is on the roadmap). It’ll be interesting to see how this unfolds.

The second day began with a talk from SF executives about how a company might align the SF tools with business strategy, more learning and sharing with other clients, and chats with SF product management about product direction. Message to SF. Project based companies are a reality, learn how to capture the formal and informal relationships inherent in these organizations (employees and non-employees), build security, reporting tools, and workflow around these relationships, and you will be on your way to capturing the future of organizations.

Thoughts?

Same Class.. Different People, Systems, and Technology...

The summer session has begun, and amidst all the changes going on in my personal life, the constant of my class is now a reality. Going into my third semester, common wisdom would assume that things should be easier. In some ways, things are easier. The nervousness associated with standing in front of your peers and speaking intelligently about a subject where you are the 'expert' lessens, but the content, because of the nature of content (technology) changes and therefore the class inherently changes.

I've always been a individual who values continuous improvement, and this class is no different. Last semester, things went well. However, the traditional way of 'testing' with midterms and finals rubbed me and the students the wrong way. Even though the students were comprehending and internalizing the content, the midterm and finals simply got in the way of learning. It became a formality. Grades are still required and important because it provides valuable objective feedback to the students. However, I wanted to eliminate the angst associated with cramming for midterms and finals, but still have a way of gauging comprehension.

This semester, we're going to have weekly class quizzes instead of midterm and final tests. This, I hope, will be better for everyone. It would provide students more immediate feedback, allowing them to make a correction with a smaller impact on their overall grade (what a concept, wouldn't it be great if work was like this! :-) This would also, I hope, increase retention of the material allowing for more effective learning in the long-term. Granted, this might be a little more work for me, but thanks to testing technology, the work should be a lot less compared to a manual process.

The other change I hope to make is with homework. In the past, homework was given in the traditional fashion. They were given, read, and credited. I found this difficult to manage because of the volume of homework and it's relevancy. Because of the subject (HR technology), I would need to continue to find current and relevant content related to the class themes. This semester, I hope to leverage the brain trust out in the 'HR technology' world to provide content for homework for my class. This would make the homework 'assignments' more relevant and current, and the homework process becomes a more sustainable part of the class.

How do I propose to do this? Using the power of twitter technology, we will create a small community consisting of our class members. We will communicate using this tool, using the hashtag of #hrst, for posts on the public timeline. I will post articles, videos, blogs, and other relevant topics, and will add the hashtag of #hrst if relevant to our class. I will also retweet (RT) other posts that might be of interest to the class. I would hope that the students would explore and do the same if they follow posts that might be of interest to others in the class. In this way, we can multiply the content that's available to the class that's relevant to our topic for the week. To get credit for homework, the student would read, watch, listen to something relevant to our class and blog about it. Once blogged, post link to twitter with a summary (eg great read on future of work, http://link), and add the hashtag #hrst. This would allow not only me, the instructor, to read the blog and give credit, but also others in the class, as well as other people who are following that student can also read that person's comments and opinions. Thoughts are then shared easier across the class and potentially the world, increasing the knowledge available to the world. Wow!

Thoughts?

Week 1... on to Week 2!

Week 1 is in the books. Four more weeks to go, and frankly, I'm not sure if I've made a connection with the new 'team' yet. Like last semester, the technology piece is shaping up to be a challenge for some, so I'm going to need to simplify and make sense out it for them. It's my feeling that if you're going to be an effective HR business partner, technology has to be your friend. It's inevitable, and we, in HR, need to embrace and understand it. 'Struggle with it, and you will be rewarded.'

Bill Kutik had a great guest on his radio show this week, and it was timely. John Boudreau of USC's Marshall School of Business talked about his research on HR's strategic role in organizations and how technology and metrics fit into how HR can provide strategic value by linking talent and business outcomes. This is what it's all about and what we hope to talk about in class this week. I got into HR because I felt like HR was perfectly positioned to add real value to the organization by hiring, developing, and staffing the right people for its business. The correlation between these activities and the company's success has been difficult to quantify. Technology, I hope, will be the lynchpin that makes HR role critical in the success of any company.