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.

Week 2 Reflections...

As we approach Week 3, I'm feeling extremely energized by where we have gone so far. Just a mere 11 days ago, we were Spectators and Inactives in this new web 2.0 world. Today, we are Collectors and Creators learning and adding content and value about the HR Technology world. Great job!

This week, we started discussing the value of Project Management discipline in ensuring that any change solves its intent and is sustainable. The focus here is to ensure that you are clear about the problem definition, and that you go through the deliberate discipline of clearly understanding your problem, the people involved, and the time restrictions. From here, you can move forward with understanding the process and your customers with the goal of eventually arriving at a solution. Many people approach problem solving with a technology solution in mind. Having project management discipline will help you avoid this problem, and will help you arrive at a solution that solves the problem. Often, solutions involve simple process changes and don't involve any technology solution. However, when technology solutions are the preferred course, they often yield other unforeseen benefits.

We will continue to talk about Project Management and other key concepts in problem solving. After that, we will start embarking on learning about Technologies that are available to Human Resources professionals. We will focus on new technologies that are available today and will start developing a heuristic for evaluating and understanding the technologies available today and tomorrow.

To help plan the next couple of weeks, please complete the class Midpoint Survey. It'll take a couple of minutes. :-)

Look forward to seeing you on Monday! Good luck with your homework!

Jun

Class 2 Musings

Just a week ago, I was concerned that the class was not going to happen. I had 8 people enrolled and was prepared to stay home on Monday and Wednesday nights. I'm happy to report that as of today, 18 people are enrolled in the class. Wow! This is great! We have a diverse group of professionals including HR generalists, recruiters, and analysts, and others who hope to enter the profession. This will definitely add a great deal of color to the class conversations as well as challenge me in my goal of ensuring that everyone's unique needs are met. I'm extremely happy so far with some of the class systems that we are using (Google Docs, Twitter, Blogs) in our attempt to make the class completely paperless. I think we are succeeding so far! I also think most of the class is pretty well engaged. At this point, I'm concerned with those that feel 'overwhelmed' with the technology. This is the future, so if you need help getting traction, please feel free to ask me or your fellow students for help. You won't regret it! :-)

Now to the next class. So far, we've really gotten to know each other (through the class and via LinkedIn). We've talked about how the world is changing and how technology is helping flatten the world. In the next class, we'll continue to talk about flattening technology and we'll discuss the role of HR and Technology in the organization of the future. If we have time, we'll also start discussing project management and its role in transforming business with HR technology.

First Day of Class

Yesterday was my first experience at teaching in a non corporate environment, and I think it went pretty well. I'm receiving great feedback thus far, and the challenge now is to keep the momentum going. Fortunately, we have a short 5 weeks of learning technology and HR systems together, and I'm confident that my energy and excitement about the subject matter will get us to the finish line. My concern now is that I will either not have enough 'meat' for the class or be too 'collaborative' that we don't learn 'enough'. It's my hope that the class will provide enough feedback so that we can hit the 'sweet spot' and have a valuable learning experience together.