May 2016
The Official Journal of the International Association for Human Resource Information Management
IHRIM.ORG
The Ever Changing Process of
TALENT MANAGEMENT
See the Talent Management/Workforce Planning Buyer’s Guide on Page 28
IHRIM 2016 Workforce Analytics Forum Series June 28, 2016 08:00am - June 29, 2016 05:00pm
Forum Location
(GMT-05:00) Eastern Time (US & Canada)
SAP SuccessFactors Headquarters, 10th Floor 1 Tower Place South San Francisco, CA 94080
The Workforce Analytics Forum Series is an IHRIM tradition that brings together experts from academia, public and private sector organizations, and the vendor community to address current issues in envisioning, deploying, and utilizing data-driven decision-making in HR. The Forum is a two-day event featuring a range of presentations and discussions that balance analytics fundamentals (data governance, organizational structure, statistical tools) with a big picture view of how analytics can change organization for the better. There are many challenges associated with implementing analytics. We know because we work with those very same challenges. But we also know there is great value in learning from people in the field that are actually creating value from their workforce analytics efforts. This event is a unique opportunity to meet fellow practitioners that are getting started or those who have already achieved success in analytics. Bring your team for an analytics retreat that will elevate your impact. The Forum also features a unique event – the Data Heroes Analyst Challenge. Watch as analysts from multiple companies battle it out in real-time to create compelling dashboards and storylines using a workforce dataset. You’ll have the opportunity to comment on the results and vote on the winner. Join IHRIM and HR tech industry leaders on June 28-29, 2016, to explore real-world case studies in workforce analytics. You will have lots of opportunities for networking with your peers to learn from their challenges and successes to see where innovation is happening. In addition, you will learn from practitioners in the field at the educational sessions as opposed to hearing sales pitches from vendordriven presentations.
Topics Include: • Predicting Talent Trends • Creating Urgency for Workforce Analytics • Building & Leading an Analytics Team • Preparing your HR Business Partners to Utilize Data • Techniques for Data Visualization • Data Governance
Who should attend: • CHRO’s & their HR teams • HR Business Partners • HR Domain (e.g., Learning) generalists with an interest in analytics • HR analysts • HR systems staff • Students with a focus on analytics
What to bring: • Your business cards: Make important connections at our networking receptions, conversation breaks and interactive sessions. • Your questions: Tackle your real-world problems with peers and our experts.
• Your devices: Expect experiential learning and extended chat online. • Your team: Make the Forum your team retreat to build skill and design your analytics strategy.
Hotel Information: SAP SuccessFactors offers a discounted rate at local area hotels: • Hilton Garden Inn – Gateway Boulevard • Embassy Suites, San Francisco Airport – South San Francisco • Embassy Suites San Francisco Airport – Waterfront • Crown Plaza – SFO Airport
Registration:
10 Reasons for Practitioners/Buyers to Attend: 1. Location: In the hub of the Bay Area, conveniently located near a major international airport 2. Innovation: The Forum features the only workforce analytics “Data Hero Analyst Challenge” in which audience members can vote for the analyst that creates the most compelling visuals and stories out of a workforce dataset...live in the room. There can be only one winner... 3. Real-World Examples: Will include case study presentations from some of the world’s leading brand names (and analytics experts) 4. Authority: Consistent with IHRIM’s rich heritage of university partnerships; sessions will feature academic though-leaders 5. New Technologies: Innovative thinking in analytics is often driven by technology vendors and consultants; sponsoring vendors will illustrate the latest in analytics technology 6. Content for Beginners and Seasoned Practitioners: New to workforce analytics or in it for the long-haul? The Forum features a mix of simple frameworks for you to use and expertlevel data visualization 7. Ideas: For attendees looking for their next analytics project, they’ll hear about data analysis on topics ranging from turnover to engagement 8. People: With extensive breaks and a networking reception, the Forum offers plenty of face-to-face networking opportunities in a relaxed, collaborative, environment
Regular registration starts on May 06, 2016 and ends on June 16, 2016.
9. Ease of Transportation: IHRIM has partnered with local hotels to offer a discounted rate; free parking is offered at the conference venue
Late registration starts on Jun 17, 2016. All times are 12:00am (GMT-05:00) Eastern Time (US & Canada).
10. Membership: For existing IHRIM members, the Forums are an opportunity to support the association
Visit IHRIM.org today and Register!
Contents
Volume 7, Number 3 • May 2016
features
Talent Management/Workforce Planning Buyer’s Guide
Page 28
columns From the Editors
2
Future Forward: Shifting from Talent Management to People Development
29
By Michael Rudnick, Michael Martin, Scott Bolman
By Lisa Sterling, Ceridian
Reimagining HR for 2025 Managing Talent in a Rapidly Changing Environment 4
Starting Strong: Managing Your Own Onboarding 31 By Madelynn Macur Brousil and Jennifer Zukerman, Walgreens Boots Alliance
By Usha Mirchandani and Neil Shastri, Aon Hewitt The role of HR will shift dramatically over the next decade. The HR function has a unique and necessary opportunity to align with the business and delivery services. In this way, they must build and maintain the agility required for the dynamic fluctuations of the business environment and shifting demands of the workforce.
The Candidate as Customer: A Proactive Approach to Talent Acquisition
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By Tony DeAscentis, VING
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By Michael Gretczko and William Cleary, Deloitte Consulting LLP To help ensure a steady flow of talent into the organizations, especially with the job market tightening up, companies need to start with a broader perspective on hiring. They can no longer afford to rely only on local managers to represent the company.
Mobile Learning: What’s It Good For? Absolutely Everything (That Needs to Be Done Now)
Moving from Doing to Knowing – Improving Employee Engagement
The Back Story
35
Getting HR Right: Are We Making Any Progress? By Katherine Jones, Ph.D., Mercer
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By Didi D’Errico, Saba Software While the move to mobile will mean learning and development teams will need to review their most critical content and streamline or rework it, there is a silver lining: training content for mobile learning doesn’t need to — and shouldn’t — come just from the learning and development (L&D) group.
Digital Labor Solutions: Success Means Knowing Where You’re Going
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By Toby Ward, Prescient Digital Digital labor solutions, like any application, can be highly effective when used in conjunction with a robust strategy. But without a thorough plan, multiple technologies with fragmented data, multiple user experiences, inconsistent branding, and conflicting processes, HR’s ability to realize the true potential is greatly diminished.
The Cost of the Workforce: Understanding the Value of Workforce Analytics 18 By Katherine Jones, Ph.D. and Roger Sturtevant, Mercer Given that a company’s total payroll can be the highest expense on the income statement, the ability to utilize analytics to understand the components of workforce cost is critical to both Human Resources professionals and senior management. Traditional amalgamation of the corporate costs of hourly wages or aggregated salary data yields little.
Solving the Really Big Problems of Workforce Management – the Next Iteration of HCM Technology
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By Steven T. Hunt, Ph.D., SAP SuccessFactors The time is right for HR professionals to broaden their focus beyond improving individual HR processes to address major workforce challenges. Similarly, HCM technology developers should go beyond building tools for specific HR processes to creating comprehensive, cross-functional suites of tools that enable companies to address complex workforce problems.
Workforce Solutions Review (ISSN 2154-6975) is published bi-monthly for the International Association for Human Re- source Information Management by Futura Publishing LLC, 12809 Shady Mountain Road, Leander, TX 78641. Subscription rates can be found at www.ihrimpublications. com. Please send address corrections to Workforce Solutions Review at the address above. www.ihrim.org • Workforce Solutions Review • May 2016
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Volume 7, Number 3 • May 2016
Workforce Solutions Review is a publication of the International Association for Human Resource Information Management, whose mission is to be the leading professional association for knowledge, education and solutions supporting human capital management. Opinions expressed herein are not necessarily those of the editors, the IHRIM board of directors or the membership.
ERIK BERGGREN, VP, Customer Results & Global Research, Success Factors, San Mateo, CA USA eberggren@successfactors.com
LISA ROWAN, Program Director, HR, Learning & Talent Strategies, IDC, Framingham, MA USA lrowan@idc.com
JOSH BERSIN, Principal and Founder, Bersin by Deloitte, Oakland, CA USA jbersin@bersin.com
LISA STERLING, Executive Vice President, Chief People Officer, Ceridian, Lincoln, NE USA, lisa.sterling@ceridian.com
© 2016 All rights reserved
NAOMI LEE BLOOM, Managing Partner, Bloom & Wallace, Fort Myers, FL USA naomibloom@mindspring.com
EDITORIAL COMMITTEE
YVETTE CAMERON, Global Vice President Strategy, SuccessFactors, Littleton, CO Yvette.cameron@successfactors.com
Managing Editor SCOTT BOLMAN, Director, Advisory Services, KPMG, Chicago, IL USA sbolman@kpmg.com.
Co-Managing Editor SHAWN FITZGERALD, Managing Director, Total Rewards and HR Technology, Blue Cross Blue Shield Association, Chicago, IL, USA shawn.fitzgerald@bcbsa.com
LEW CONNER, Executive Director, Higher Education User Group, Gilbert, AZ USA lconner@heug.org ELENA M. ORDÓÑEZ DEL CAMPO, Senior VP Globalization Services, SAP AG, Frankfurt, Germany elena.ordonez@sap.com GARY DURBIN, Chief Technology Officer, SynchSource, Oakland, CA USA hacker@synchsource.com Dr. CHARLES H. FAY, Professor, School of Management & Labor Relations, Rutgers University, Highland Park, NJ USA cfay@smlr.rutgers.edu
Dr. DANIEL SULLIVAN, Professor of International Business, University of Delaware, Newark, Delaware USA sullivad@lerner.udel.edu MARK SMITH, CEO, Chief Research Officer, and Founder of Ventana Research, San Ramon, CA USA mark.smith@ventanaresearch.com DAVE ULRICH, Professor, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI USA dou@umich.edu DR. MARY YOUNG, Principal Researcher, Human Capital, The Conference Board, New York, NY USA mary.young@conference-board.org
IHRIM BOARD OF DIRECTORS Officers and Executive Committee
DR. URSULA CHRISTINA FELLBERG, Owner & Managing Director, UCF-StrategieBeraterin, Munich, Germany ucfell@mac.com
JAMES PETTIT, HRIP, Chair
ALSEN HSEIN, President,Take5 People Limited, Shanghai, PRC Alsen@take5people.com
GARY MORLOCK, CFO, Finance Committee Chair, Operations Committee
DAVID GABRIEL, Ed.D., Global Reach Leadership, Berkleley, CA davidcgabriel@gmail.com
CARL C. HOFFMANN, Director, Human Capital Management & Performance LLC, Chapel Hill, NC USA cc_hoffmann@yahoo.com
JOYCE BROWN, Board Secretary, Finance Committee, Program Committee, Education Committee Board Sponsor
ROBERT C. GREENE, Channels Account Executive and Sales Training Manager, Ascentis, San Mateo, CA USA rcgreene@mindspring.com
JIM HOLINCHECK, Vice President, Services Strategy & Marketing, Workday, Inc. james.holincheck@workday.com
KEVIN CARLSON, Past Chair, IHRIM Foundation Board, Membership Committee Board Sponsor, Executive Leadership Council Chair
JEFF HIGGINS, CEO, Human Capital Management Institute, Marina Del Rey, CA USA jeff.higgins@hcminst.com
CATHERINE ANN HONEY, VP, Customer Services, Radius Worldwide catherine.honey@comcast.net
Board Members
Associate Editors Roy Altman, HRIS Manager - HR Analytics & Application Architecture at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, New York, NY roy@peopleserv.com Julie Egbert, SPHR, HRIP, Executive HR Director, SQLC Dallas/Ft. Worth, TX USA Julesegg53@aol.com
SHAFIQ LOKHANDWALA, Vice Chair, Program Committee Chair, Strategic Alliances Lead
ERIC LESSER, Research Director, IBM Institute for Business Value, Boston, MA USA elesser@us.ibm.com
DR. KATHERINE JONES, HCM Research, Bersin by Deloitte, San Mateo, CA USA kathjones@deloitte.com
DAVE BINDA, Operations Committee, Toronto 2017 Conference Co-Chair
MICHAEL H. MARTIN, Partner, Aon Hewitt Consulting, Organization & HR Effectiveness, New York, NY michael.martin.6@aonhewitt.com
SYNCO JONKEREN, VP, HCM Applications Product Development & Management, EMEA, The Netherlands synco.jonkeren@oracle.com
MICK COLLINS, Finance Committee, Program Committee, Vendor/Alliances Committee Board Sponsor, Marketing Board Sponsor
BRUNO QUERENET, HR Technology Executive, High-Tech and Medical Industries, Sunnyvale, CA USA bruno.querenet@gmail.com
MICHAEL J. KAVANAGH, Professor Emeritus of Management, State University of Albany (SUNY), Albany, NY USA mickey.kavanagh@gmail.com
MARY ANN MCILRAITH, Program Committee, Marketing Advisor
MICHAEL RUDNICK, Vice President, Principal Consultant, Logical Design Solutions, New York, NY USA michael.rudnick@gmail.com
BOB KAUNERT, Principal, Towers Watson, Philadelphia, PA USA robert.kaunert@towerswatson.com
PUBLISHING INFORMATION
FREDDYE SILVERMAN, CEO, Silver Bullet Solutions, Baltimore, MD USA, freddye.silverman@mysilverbulletsolutions.com
EDITORIAL ADVISORY BOARD CECILE ALPER-LEROUX, VP Product Strategy and Development, Ultimate Software, Weston, FL cecile_leroux@ultimatesoftware.com MARK BENNETT, Oracle Corp., Redwood Shores, CA USA mark.bennett@oracle.com
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May 2016 • Workforce Solutions Review • www.ihrim.org
BILL KUTIK, Technology Columnist, Human Resource Executive, Westport, CT USA bkutik@earthlink.net DAVID LUDLOW, Global VP, HCM Solutions, SAP, Palo Alto, CA David.ludlow@sap.com RHONDA P. MARCUCCI, CPA, Consultant for GruppoMarcucci, Chicago, IL USA rhonda@gruppomarcucci-usa.com LEXY MARTIN, Independent Consultant/Researcher, Meadow Vista, CA Lexy.martin1@gmail.com BRIAN RETZLAFF, Head of IT for HR, Legal & Communications, ING US Insurance Americas, Atlanta, GA USA brian.retzlaff@us.ing.com
STUART RUDNER, Toronto 2017 Co-Chair
TOM FAULKNER, Publisher, Futura Publishing LLC, Austin, TX USA, tomf@futurapublishing.com PATTY HUBER, Advertising Manager, Austin, TX USA phuber2@austin.rr.com
Michael Rudnick, Lead Editor Michael Rudnick is managing partner at Prescient Digital, a leading digital consultancy that plans, designs, and implements world-class enterprise digital experiences for employees. He has spent many years helping HR create and deliver consumer-grade digital experiences that are aligned to business and HR strategy. He’s a results-oriented global executive with more than 25 years of experience and a proven track record creating, growing and leading large professional services practices, enterprise software and product strategy. Prior to joining Prescient, Rudnick was VP at Logical Design Solutions, global portal practice leader at Willis Towers Watson, and was the founder of Cognitive Communications, the first intranet consulting firm created at the time the browser was first invented. He is an internationally recognized author and speaker, often quoted in industry publications. He can be reached at michael.rudnick@prescientdigital.com. Michael Martin, Contributing Editor Michael Martin is a senior leader in the Organization & HR Effectiveness consulting service line and is a partner in Aon Hewitt’ Talent Practice. He has more than 17 years of industry experience with a broad range of HR transformation initiatives including strategy and design of the HR function, shared services design, implementation and optimization, business process re-engineering, change management, and implementations of HR technology solutions in many industries. Prior to his current role, he was a principal consultant in a leading HR consulting firm, based in New York. Additionally, he has held internal HR roles, including leading a global HR Center of Expertise and running a large, outsourced HR shared services function. Martin earned a B.A. from The George Washington University with major in Psychology, and an M.A. in Industrial/Organizational Psychology from New York University. He is regularly featured in HR trade journals, and has been a speaker at the annual IHRIM conference. He can be reached at michael.martin.6@aonhewitt.com. Scott Bolman, Contributing Editor Scott Bolman is director, Advisory Services at KPMG. He has been helping Human Resources (HR) organizations become more efficient and effective for over 20 years with various organizations including Towers Watson and Mercer. He can be reached at sbolman@kpmg.com.
from the editors Ask ten executives to define talent management or learning and you’ll get ten entirely different viewpoints. This issue of Workforce Solutions Review provides insight from many industry experts on an area of HR that is undergoing significant evolution and change. Our first feature story entitled “Reimagining HR for 2025” tackles these issues headon. Usha Mirchandani and Neil Shastri, from Aon Hewitt, discuss the changing business environment that today’s corporations are experiencing, and look forward over the next ten years with thought provoking perspectives that they see resulting from the seismic changes in workforce demands and HR offerings. We then hear from Deloitte Consulting’s Michael Gretzko and William Cleary who provide a proactive approach to talent acquisition with their perspective of ‘The Candidate as Customer.” Michael and William posit that while many organizations have embraced shared services for HR, very little has been done when it comes to recruiting. And, that instead of companies focusing on transactional applicant tracking systems, they should be developing resource-rich interfaces that sell the company as well as the job. When it comes to learning, like just about everything else “digital,” the focus of innovation is mobile. And Didi D’Errico from Saba Software outlines the next quantum leap in business learning: a truly mobile experience. Didi also looks ahead to what’s next, including learning that goes beyond – into on-the-go mentoring and coaching, snackable content, predictive analystics to drive personalized learning “nuggets” and leveraging new consumer technologies, such as Meerkat for live streaming video. With so much change, and so many new solutions from which to choose, Prescient Digital’s Toby Ward focuses on the ever-important need to align a company’s HR technology with its business and HR Strategy. In his feature entitled “Digital Labor Solutions: Success Means Knowing Where You’re Going,” Toby discusses the variety of technologies available today, and how best to go about selecting the right solution or platform. In our next feature, Mercer’s Katherine Jones and Roger Sturtevant provide an in-depth look at understanding the value of workforce analytics. The authors have undertaken extensive research into 117 companies, covering 2.4 million employees, and outline a number of impactful findings. The final feature article in this issue is a fascinating look at the next iteration of HCM technology, written by SAP SuccessFactor’s Steven T. Hunt. In this article, Steven looks back over 25 years of HCM technology and provides insightful perspective on how HCM can help companies coordinate and integrate different HR activities, while addressing the complex workforce challenges facing the next transition in HCM technology. In addition to our feature articles, several shorter columns encourage us to think big and look over the horizon. Ceridian’s Lisa Sterling writes about the shift from “talent management” to “people management” in her Future Forward column. Madelynn Macur Brousil and Jennifer Zukerman from Walgreens Boots Alliance (formerly Walgreen Company) turn their focus to onboarding, which is critical not only to the employee’s future success in their new job, but plays a critical role in that person’s ability to provide short-term credibility and longer-term value. VING CEO Tony DeAscentis gives us some excellent insight into improving employee engagement by moving from “doing to knowing.” And Katherine Jones’ Back Story column asks, “Are we making any progress in getting HR Right?” Thanks to my co-editors for this issue, Scott Bolman and Michael Martin. We hope this issue provides you with a good view of where the talent management and learning “space” is today, and where it’s headed. www.ihrim.org • Workforce Solutions Review • May 2016
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feature Reimagining HR for 2025 Managing Talent in a Rapidly Changing Environment By Usha Mirchandani and Neil Shastri, Aon Hewitt
Shifting Expectations, New Challenges The Great Recession forced companies to face the reality of balancing innovation with efficiency and growth with cost. Unpredictability of the economic environment has tipped the balance, creating demand for short-term profitability, an extreme focus on optimization, a drive for efficiency in all functions, and reduction in investments across the board. As we look toward 2025, Aon Hewitt believes the flux in the business environment is something organizations will grow accustomed to. Forward-looking organizations are already eyeing ways to exploit this atmosphere of constant change and challenging themselves to remain ahead of the curve. Talent will play a central role in this transformation, helping their firm grow and thrive. There are seismic changes in the offing for HR, including virtual, global talent pools, job sharing, specific skills shortage, multigenerational talent pools, amongst others. The HR function is, therefore, going to be forced to reimagine and reinvent itself, and then articulate its value. Given the controversial debates around “splitting HR” or “the value of HR,” HR needs to prove that its important link to business strategy continues to grow. A CHRO of a Fortune 500 bank states, “We’re relying more and more on our HR business partners to help drive strategy in the business units and to be the face of HR with our clients.”1 Talent management is going to be at the core of this change. In our recent study, titled Learning to Fly – Developing the Next Generation of CHROs, we asked 45 CHROs what functions they focused on when they began this role. Each of the three areas they chose (see graphic along-side) are related to talent management. With the changes in the workforce and its evolving demands, we expect that talent management will not just become a critical area for HR, but its top priority. Talent management will continue to grow more complex, and HR must start preparing today.
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May 2016 • Workforce Solutions Review • www.ihrim.org
Seismic Shift in Managing the Workforce The workforce is changing, along with every aspect of managing the workforce, and technology is leading the charge. • Learning and Development. With the advent of massive open online courses (MOOCs), cloud-based learning and development solutions, and mobile emerging as platforms of choice, learning is poised to become bite-sized and just-in-time. This may be the perfect time – a recent Microsoft study found that the average human attention span is 8 seconds, down from 12 seconds in 2000.2 There is a growing emphasis across organizations on self-development and individual-driven learning. In combination with the pressure on learning budgets, this trend is challenging HR to move away from classic classroom training to multichannel, targeted learning models that optimize investment. • Performance Management. As research3 continues to develop on the challenging effects of performance ratings and poorly and inconsistently delivered feedback, many organizations are modifying, redesigning, and, in rare cases, eliminating performance labeling processes. Regardless of the approach to managing performance, HR-led performance management is changing. The focus is on streamlining and simplifying performance management and upskilling people managers to coach and manage performance. • Recruiting/Talent Acquisition. More and more people are reliant on their mobile devices (47 percent of Americans can’t imagine a life without one),4 and they have become an essential part of the job search. In fact, 80 percent of job seekers expect to do part of their job search on a smart phone, and the majority (70 percent) is willing to apply for a job via a mobile device.5 In addition, new talent sourcing vendors trawl
information from a variety of online sources such as blog posts, social media profiles, and forums to develop real-time labor market data and recommend potential candidates.6 The crowdsourcing of talent/leader profiles is leading to innovative and wider sourcing and is radically changing sourcing timelines. • Emerging capability needs. Employers are simply not finding the skills they need. The inability to attract and retain talent ranked fifth on Aon’s 2015 Global Risk Management Survey, and came in second place in North America and the Asia-Pacific region.7 This is a growing challenge worldwide because jobseekers’ skills don’t match employers’ needs. Businesses are in of need “skill combinations:” analysts with coding abilities, medical practitioners who understand statistics, consumer analysts who understand machine-learning prediction. Banking and financial services are examples of sectors that have seen an increasing demand for functional experts who also understand technology and data analytics. The convergence of these “fin-tech” skills is driving a revolution in the way organizations are delivering services. But, employers need to be strategic in addressing the shortage of talent that can otherwise threaten their ability to adapt, grow, and compete. Several organizations are repurposing, upskilling, and redeploying their talent, but this is a rudimentary, patch work solution. Building talent pools is going to require focused attention: • Skills building takes time. Employable talent isn’t built overnight. It can take years to bridge the demand-supply gap. Education and training can take years, and the rise in demand for digital and analytical skills in recent years has been so rapid that even today’s digital native graduates have found themselves obtaining degrees, still bereft of key skills employers are looking for. Businesses are rethinking their talent acquisition strategies. Many of the world’s largest companies and technology firms are starting to look beyond the next hire. This, at times, means looking even a decade into the future and using sophisticated analytics to project both future needs and future availability of skills across multiple locations. If certain cities, countries, and regions promise a “skills availability advantage,” companies are more than open to having this influence and guide their
location plans. Long-term skills sustainability is paramount, and ensured access to these in-demand resources will guide geographical expansion strategies. • Multiple approaches to retain “know-how.” Some firms are also actively looking to adapt and evolve their existing knowledge8 by setting up programs to share expertise between generations. Three approaches that organizations are following are: • Create “knowledge hubs” for employees across generations to share and exchange experiences and ideas. These hubs also serve as repositories for the existing knowledge assets of the firm. • Mentoring and “reverse mentoring” programs that build a one-on-one connect between experienced employees and early career employees. Younger colleagues can tap into the expertise of the older generation, and the older generation can get first-hand input on what “works” with the new generation. • Firms are also using the option of bringing on board “boomerang” employees – ones that have retired but return part-time or full-time into the workforce. • “Train the Hired” to “Hire the Trained.” Another approach – and one that is likely to become far more common over the coming years – is to get more actively involved in encouraging the students of today to develop the skills that organizations will need in the future. This goes far beyond on-the-job training or apprenticeships – although these are also likely to become increasingly popular. Businesses have been identifying talented young people earlier and earlier in their careers to develop necessary future skills. • Employee-employer relationships. Internal social networks create opportunities for employees from dispersed geographies and functions to easily share information. Content shared on these sites allows for real-time analytics, enabling leaders to get out in front of emerging issues before they become a larger problem.9 This can include anything from employee engagement in remote locations to form simplifications within HR.
www.ihrim.org • Workforce Solutions Review • May 2016
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About the Authors Usha Mirchandani is a partner and service line leader in the Talent, Rewards & Performance practice in Aon’s Morristown, New Jersey office. She has more than 19 years of HR consulting experience and 10 years of experience with Aon Hewitt. Usha leads Aon’s Talent Insight and Analytics service line. Her key focus areas include HR strategy and transformation, talent management, talent analytics, and organization design. She can be reached at usha.mirchandani@aonhewitt.com. Neil Shastri leads the Global Insights & Innovation group under Aon’s Talent, Rewards & Performance practice and is based in New York City. He has over 10 years of diverse consulting experience, working across multiple geographies. His areas of expertise include Human Capital Strategy, HR Transformation, Globalization, and Macro Talent Development. He can be reached at neil.shastri@aonhewitt.com.
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• Generation management. As the baby boomers retire, millennials will have to develop leadership and management competencies to take their place.10 Human Resources is being challenged to design new career paths, targeted capability development, and new ways of organizing work to retain and engage this demographic.
ered table stakes. Talent analytics range from using longitudinal data of successful hires and developing an algorithm to screen out profiles that don’t meet the organization’s desired profile, to analyzing return on investment of leadership programs. Data and analytics are impacting the design of talent strategy and talent programs across organizations.
• Open marketplace for skills. Temporary workers make up between 20 and 33 percent of the U.S. workforce, and 83 percent of executives say they plan to increase use of contingent workers. Thanks to advances in technology, organizations are better able to source and plan talent acquisition on a project basis, allowing for quick shifts in workforce capability.11 In addition, job sharing and remote work have made it easy for multiple part-time workers to take on the role of a full-time employee. Human Resources will be asked to design innovative workforce models that optimize people investment. Managing global and virtual workforces is requiring dynamically different sets of capabilities from HR and people managers.12
• Talent Metrics. Lowest in the maturity scale of talent analytics are descriptive analytics around efficiency and effectiveness of talent programs. However, tracking and measuring high-value metrics can offer valuable insight into the health of talent processes. Quality of new hires, cost of replacing top talent, impact of wellness programs on claims expenses, correlation of engagement scores with sales results, impact of high-performing managers on engagement scores of teams, are all examples of metrics that drive insight and support decisions around talent programs. Metrics such as enterprise-level turnover or average time-to-fill cannot solve issues around high-impact businesses or job levels.
• Data privacy. As internal labor data reaches petabyte (1,000 terabytes) levels and data breaches become more common,13 HR – in partnership with legal and IT functions – will have to determine the best ways to safeguard its data yet maintain its usefulness as a source for decision-making. • Changing nature of rewards. The war for talent continues to be unrelenting, and companies must adapt by changing their reward and recognition strategies. Rewards will need to be tailored to the needs of employees and should focus on engaging and retaining valued talent.14 Human Resources, once designed to police pay and reward equity, is being challenged to pay “unfairly.”15 • Talent analytics. Another area that has been redefined by technology and data is talent analytics. Rapid advances in HR technology have made it possible to aggregate and analyze people and talent data.16 A decade ago, getting accurate head count data from the enterprise HRIS was a challenge. Today, aggregating talent data from different solutions (applicant tracking, performance, talent review, learning) and using it to inform people decisions is consid-
May 2016 • Workforce Solutions Review • www.ihrim.org
• Predictive and Prescriptive Analytics. These analytics are driving changes in talent programs as well. Common examples in the industry include predicting longevity and success of new hires, characteristics of high-performing leaders, and performance of sales people. Prescriptive analytics are helping organizations determine the course of talent programs and help drive decisionmaking around choice points faced by an organization around talent programs, e.g., selection of stronger managers, five-point rating scale versus four-point, choice of rewards, to describe a few.17 • People Analytics. Fewer organizations are heading to the area of people analytics, where we believe the maximum value of analytics can be derived. People analytics is driving the evolution from pure HR analytics to the next level, where people data is connected to business data to drive insights and action. Examples include connecting engagement data to business outcomes, or leader capabilities that can drive business results. All of the workforce changes discussed above are having a significant impact on the HR function, compelling HR to reimagine its talent
management philosophy and tenets. Simultaneously, demands from the business are placing pressure on the traditional HR operating model. Human Resources has come a long way from its traditional role as a functional cost center, thanks to the redesign of the HR function into three pillars: centers of expertise, shared services (to manage HR operations), and HR strategic business partners. In the 1990s, “The War for Talent” began, and the rise of international mobility and technology created an opportunity for the function to grab a seat at the C-suite table, help steer the business, and become a genuine value-added partner. As the business changes, HR should not only reassess its environment, but also reimagine its roles and responsibilities, as well as its critical capabilities. The strategic work of HR will change considerably, indeed – Eric Schmidt, former CEO of Google, has stated, “Innovation and data are at the core of who we are at Google…and we are applying those same principles to HR.”18 At Aon, we are seeing changing HR models oriented toward supporting the business in its next iteration. As the workforce transforms and business needs change, the Human Resources organization needs to respond to these evolving needs. In designing HR operating models for our clients, we have found that HR professionals (and, therefore, the function) are expected to intimately understand how the business makes money, and to draw a linkage to the business strategy. Examples include lowering the fixed costs of HR, designing business-specific programs, or playing a large role in location-based employee relations. Along with changes in the operating model, the HR capabilities needed for making these models successful are also evolving.
Future HR Roles to Navigate Into 2025 New HR operating models are needed to stay agile and adaptive to emerging talent trends. In addition, as HR’s mandate in organizations is changing, we propose that there are four fundamental roles to consider when aligning talent management with business strategy:
Business Co-pilots – Strategic resources that work with key business leaders to identify and understand organizational issues: talent, capabilities, team dynamics, decision-making and restructuring. They are problem solvers and crisis managers. Analytics Engineers – Experts who can analyze data and drive insights and program designs to manage people outcomes Endnotes with predictive analytics for every 1 Top Companies for Leaders, Aon Hewitt, 2015. element of the HR life cycle. They 2 “How does digital affect Canadian attention use people data to optimize talent spans?” Microsoft, 2015. decisions on which talent to reward, 3 David Rock, Josh David, and Beth Jones. whom to promote, how to engage, “Kill Your Performance Ratings,” Strategy + and to decide which are the optimal business, August 8, 2014. tools to stem turnover and correct 4 L ydia Saad, “Nearly Half of Smartphone other human capital issues. Users Can’t Imagine Life Without It,” Gallup, Cultural Stewards – Advocates July 15, 2015. who move past the theoretical and 5 2014 Talent Acquisition Survey, Jibe, 2014. lead the business to define organiza- 6 Mary Young, “Nobody’s Perfect: Overcomtional culture and build it to sustain ing the Limitations of External Labor Market capabilities that advance the organiData to Drive Better Business Decisions,” zation. They answer questions such The Conference Board, June 2014. as: “How do you build innovative 7 Stephen Cross, et al, “Global Risk Manageorganizations?” “How do we achieve ment Survey,” Aon, 2015. sustainability in our organization?” 8 “How to keep hold of your institutional “How do we embed inclusion in our knowledge,” The One Brief, Aon, 2015. organizational processes?” 9 Mary Young and Patti Phillips, “Big Data Doesn’t Mean ‘Big Brother,” The Conference Cross-Functional Experts – Board, May 2015. Individuals who have broad skillsets 10 “ Labor Force projections to 2022: The labor and experience across a range of force participation rate continues to fall,” HR functions can diagnose business U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics Monthly issues from multiple perspectives, Labor Review, December 2013. and can design seamless solutions. 11 M ike Ettling, “The Rise of the Contingent They manage projects such as transWorker,” Forbes, December 2014. forming the workforce in response 12 J ohn Boudreau, Workplace 2025: Five to the movement of banking and Forces, Size New Roles and a Challenge to retail businesses to omni-channel HR, Visier, August 20, 2015. models, or in response to businesses entering a new market/product area 13 Mark Hosenball, “U.S. has yet to notify 21.5 million data breach victims: Officials,” or reorganizing complex portfolios. The role of HR will shift dramati- 14 Thomson Reuters, July 14, 2015. Duncan Brown, “The Future of Reward cally over the next decade. OrgaManagement: From Total Reward Strategies nizations must also determine the to Smart Rewards,” Aon Hewitt, September right infrastructure to address the 12, 2014. current and anticipated talent crite- 15 Lazlo Bock, “Work Rules: Insights from ria that attract, retain, and develop Google that will transform how you live and the right talent for the organization. lead,” April 7, 2015. The HR function has a unique and 16 E ddie Short, “People Analytics – A Point of necessary opportunity to align with View,” Aon Hewitt, January 2016 the business and delivery services. 17 L azlo Bock, “Work Rules: Insights from In this way, they must build and Google that will transform how you live and maintain the agility required for the lead,” April 7, 2015. dynamic fluctuations of the business 18 Michael O’Brien, “Building a New Breed,” environment and shifting demands Human Resource Executive Online, October of the workforce. 2, 2010. www.ihrim.org • Workforce Solutions Review • May 2016
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feature The Candidate as Customer: A Proactive Approach to Talent Acquisition By Michael Gretczko and William Cleary, Deloitte Consulting LLP The competition for talent is intensifying. Continuing economic growth is giving skilled employees more leverage in the job market, raising the bar for companies looking for an edge over rivals. Gone are the days when HR could simply announce open positions and expect to get plenty of interested candidates. To win out in this new marketplace, Human Resources needs to move firmly past its traditionally reactive, localized approach to hiring. It needs to set up systems to engage job candidates throughout the hiring cycle, with a tight connection to the firm’s overarching strategy. It can take a cue from colleagues in marketing, who are taking an increasingly expansive view of developing and retaining customers over the long-term.
The New Dynamics of Talent Acquisition With job seekers finding more options, it’s getting harder for companies to fill positions. In 2014 it took an average of 52 days to fill a position, compared to 48 days, just three years earlier.1 In another survey for Deloitte that year, three-quarters of surveyed HR leaders rated talent acquisition as an important or urgent issue.2 This leverage is making candidates more demanding of employers. That’s especially true of millennials in the 18 to 34 age range, who have grown up with highly responsive and personalized consumer technologies. They expect recruiters to provide on-demand, customized information on the company and the position. What’s more, these interactions have effects that extend well beyond whether the person ends up in the position advertised, and into your brand. Candidates are far more likely to spread the word about good or bad experiences with their friends, or even on social media. Millennials are also especially likely to see companies as a single whole. Their experiences with hiring will likely color their beliefs as a buyer of a firm’s products and services. A mishandled recruiting effort could well mean one less customer for your business.
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The Customer-Candidate Paradigm Given this holistic connection, recruiters can learn from how their marketing colleagues handle major accounts. Salespeople have grown increasingly sophisticated in how they approach these prospects. They throw out a broad net to capture leads, then systematically whittle those leads through the sales funnel to maximize repeat customers at the other end. They know they are selling not just a one-off product, but also the experience of the entire company as a good business partner. They pay attention to the entire process. To apply this approach to talent acquisition, recruiters can start by looking beyond individual departmental needs and understand larger goals driven by the company’s overall strategy. Which areas will likely grow? Which capabilities are especially important in gaining competitive advantage? Knowing which areas have priority can help HR invest wisely to promote a satisfactory experience for the most candidates. Too often, HR adjusts its recruiting reactively, depending on the company’s cash flow or the demands of powerful business units. Another Deloitte survey indicated that about two-thirds of those companies surveyed are still largely reactive in their hiring. They may have implemented standardized assessment and other disciplines, and begun to manage their employment brand. But, they haven’t connected hiring plans with their company strategy.3 A strategic assessment looks at candidates afresh, segmenting them in specific talent markets by geography and function. Recruiters can then communicate with hiring managers about the key prospects to avoid mix-ups and delays. In some cases, companies will want to hire talent ahead of need, in which case, HR needs to devise development activities. A prized retail manager, for example, might be hired even before the store is built, and then sent to train at existing operations. Once a job offer has gone out, HR still has plenty of work. If the candidate accepts, then hiring managers need to negotiate the pack-
age and effectively work them into the onboarding process. A bad experience throughout the life cycle can start to sour the relationship even before the first day at work. If the candidate declines, or even if the company chooses someone else, then it’s still important to continue the relationship. A follow-up survey can reveal why the customer did not “buy.” Maybe the time wasn’t right, but the candidate may still be a good fit later. Human Resources has low-cost ways to maintain the conversation so that it can easily re-engage the candidate in the future. And, at a minimum, HR has made sure the process ends on a positive note, regardless of the outcome. The candidate will be far more likely to leave this process with a positive view of the company, leaving the door open in the future.
A New Operating Model of Talent Acquisition In order to manage this higher level of talent management, HR is going to have get smarter as well as bigger. Recruiting is already an expensive undertaking – U.S. companies spend an average of US$4,000 per hire – and the costs are only going to rise as companies compete for the attention of millennials and other talent.4 From social media to alumni networks, it’s time for companies to focus their investments on the areas with the greatest payoff. That means linking recruitment more closely to overall corporate strategy as well as promoting a smoother ride for candidates through the process. In fact, quality-per-hire is more important than cost-per-hire. We found that surveyed companies that connected hiring the most with strategy (13 percent of our survey) spent twice as much per new recruit as the companies that were the most reactive (35 percent). But, they filled open positions 20 percent faster, and had 40 percent less turnover in new hires. The extra investment pays off in the long with a more predictable and experienced workforce.5 Companies can support this new approach to talent acquisition by starting with a degree of centralization. Most big companies have embraced shared services for HR, yet when it comes to recruiting, the local hiring managers tend to work largely alone. Only HR can invest in the
talent acquisition products that can make the company stand out. And, that’s money well spent. We used survey data to compare high- and low-investment employers. The former spent twice as much per employee, but had 40 percent lower new-hire turnover and filled vacancies 20 percent faster.6 Rather than wait for the managers to reach out, HR’s recruiters need to build relationships with the managers. Once the managers realize all the resources that can benefit them in the search – and help ensure that all their work to woo desirable candidates won’t be wasted – they will likely embrace the help. Technology can do a lot here. Many companies have already developed “systems of engagement” for their employees in order to boost retention and motivation. (See “Systems of Engagement: The Next Frontier in HR Services,” WSR, Sept. 2015.) The same approach can work for potential employees. Instead of transactional applicant tracking systems, companies are developing resource-rich interfaces that sell the company as well as the job. Not only will job candidates be better engaged, but recruiters can more easily track their progress through the sales funnel. Of course, a prospect is not the same as an employee, and companies will need to understand the global privacy implications of the information they provide. How much of this information can they retain and use for continuing the relationship over time? Candidates in different countries may have quite different tolerances for these efforts. Depending on these and other parameters, companies may organize their recruiters according to geography, function, or business unit. In all these efforts, HR leaders need to focus on three challenges. They should consider making these processes scalable, so companies can ramp up hiring as needed without a heavy investment of HR time. At the same time, these processes must be somewhat flexible, because the talent needs of the organization will change. A highly demanded capability may become automated in a few years, or rendered strategically irrelevant, while a key skill of the future may not even be on HR’s radar. Finally, in the midst of establishing these scalable yet flexible processes, leaders need to identify and keep the key experiences of the job candidate
…HR can help realize its growing responsibilities for strategic success by overseeing and coordinating all the touch points that a job candidate experiences.
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front and center – the moments that matter in their talent acquisition journey.
Endnotes “Talent Acquisition Factbook 2015: Benchmarks and Trends in Spending, Staffing, and Key Recruiting Metrics,” Bersin by Deloitte, WhatWorks Brief, April 2015. 2 Deloitte Consulting, “Global Human Capital Trends 2014: Engaging the 21st Century Workforce,” Deloitte University Press, 2014. 3 “High Impact Talent Acquisition: Key Findings and Maturity Model,” Bersin by Deloitte, WhatWorks Brief, September 2014. 4 Talent Acquisition Factbook, 2015. 5 Talent Acquisition Factbook, 2015. 6 Talent Acquisition Factbook, 2015. 1
The Model in Action A large retailer was struggling with high employee turnover, a lack of focus on the candidate experience, and overall brand/social presence as it tried to raise the level of talent in the organization. Most of its workers were nonexempt hourly staff. Hiring managers on the line were burdened with high volumes, especially at seasonal peaks. To keep from getting overwhelmed, they were taking people on with little regard for talent development. Potential new sources of talent were left untapped. The company decided to implement a new software package to replace its hodge-podge of manual and automated systems. But, the software wasn’t enough; HR also needed to get involved to show line supervisors the importance of managing talent over time, from hiring through orientation and beyond. Human Resources set up a centralized recruiting center to provide pre-screen candidates for individual stores. It also established a series of standardized processes to make sure candidates didn’t fall through the cracks and would enjoy a better and more consistent experience. New employees were set up in learning plans as part of their onboarding, and HR took note of their competencies and career interests. By centralizing the employee data, HR was able to move to the organization toward an “open market” approach to talent and mobility. That helped not just with retaining current employees, but also in attracting outside candidates. Similarly, a global consumer products organization was seeing the limits of its decentralized approach. Hiring processes were highly inconsistent and line managers were complaining about talent mismatched with the needs of the business. The company had taken on a major HR software package, but hadn’t
implemented it to fit the strategic talent needs. Without common processes, recruiters were acting idiosyncratically. To fix the problem, the company set up a global shared services center with a new applicant tracking system, implemented with a close eye to the company’s talent goals. Human Resources not only established standardized recruitment policies, but it developed close relationships with recruiters, line managers and supporting vendors. These steps have helped drive a high-touch, consistent and engaging experience for job candidates.
A One-Two Punch As these examples show, technology isn’t enough to elevate a company’s recruiting. To help ensure a steady flow of talent into the organizations, especially with the job market tightening up, companies need to start with a broader perspective on hiring. They can no longer afford to rely only on local managers to represent the company. Sophisticated software packages are essential to managing a complex array of talent over time. But, it’s also time for a more centralized, engaged, and holistic approach that considers the experience of the candidate and the hiring manager. The metaphor of candidate-as-customer can drive this process in two ways. First, it raises the stakes for recruiters. Job candidates are no longer just a source of hires, but also a key resource for the company in the wider world. They can affect the company directly in their purchase decisions, and indirectly in what they tell others. Second, companies are used to working with potential customers in a process where perceptions are often the key to achieving expected results. Doing the same with recruits, HR can help realize its growing responsibilities for strategic success by overseeing and coordinating all the touch points that a job candidate experiences.
About the Authors
Michael Gretczko, GPHR, is a principal in Deloitte Consulting LLP’s U.S. Human Capital service area and is the leader of the U.S. HR Service Delivery practice. He has more than 16 years of experience in business transformation and focuses on leading multi-function initiatives for Fortune 100 companies. He has experience consulting on business strategy, cost reduction, service delivery and operating model transformation, shared services, and outsourcing. Gretczko has focused on large, complex global organizations across industries with deep experience in life sciences and healthcare, financial services, consumer and industrial products, and travel hospitality and leisure. He can be reached at mgretczko@deloitte.com. Bill Cleary, GPHR, is a senior manager in Deloitte Consulting LLP’s U.S. Human Capital service area with 13 years of consulting experience. His primary focus has been on complex global HR transformation projects with extensive experience working with clients to assess and provide recommendations to enhance their current HR service delivery model. He has strong subject matter expertise in working with clients to develop or enhance their current talent management strategy, and has also worked with numerous clients through the search/selection and implementation of talent technology applications in all areas of talent management. He can be reached at wcleary@deloitte.com.
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Mobile Learning: What’s It Good For? Absolutely Everything (That Needs to Be Done Now) By Didi D’Errico, Saba Software The State of Learning: Mapping to a Consumer State of Mind
Where do you go to learn? Chances are, your answer today starts with a Google search or a favorite app or a direct inquiry on YouTube. It’s become the default for most of the world to figure out anything from tips on a do-it-yourself weekend project, to a new exercise routine, to a specific skill — like learning the guidelines for a contributed article for Workforce Solutions Review! Learning has become social, simple, and accessible when and where we need it. When it comes to delivering a similar experience within the workplace, for HR and learning and development professionals, that ease of learning in our private lives can be at once inspiring and frustrating. In fact, leading global research bears this out. In its 2016 Global Human Capital Trends report, Deloitte found that 84 percent of HR and business leaders say learning is one of the top five issues they are contending with in the workplace. And the heat is on: employees are driving companies to deliver consumer-like continuous learning opportunities, tailored to their individual needs. Today, smart companies are putting learning at the center of employee engagement and culture. Where e-learning was the breakthrough of the 1990s, helping companies scale access to desktop learning while dramatically cutting spending on travel for in-person classes, the next quantum leap in business learning is making learning a truly mobile experience. Human Resources teams recognize they need to align business learning practices to how people learn personally to stay relevant. And, by mobile, we mean so much more than simply giving access to your existing learning content on a mobile device. This article is intended to spotlight the big benefits to individuals, teams and organizations made possible by making learning even smaller. Want to make your business learning “YouTube-easy?” It won’t just be millennials thanking you. The value-add of mobile learning is resonating from the board and baby boomers to managers and new hires.
Good Things Come in Small Packages: Micro-Learning
First things first: what mobile learning isn’t — it isn’t making all of your existing training content available through a smartphone or tablet device. In fact, it could be counter-productive to your efforts to ask your people to pinch and expand dense amounts of content through a small 2.5 x 4.75-inch screen. At its most effective, mobile — or micro — learning is used for at-the-moment training — for quickly closing skill or knowledge gaps. Which, in our quickly changing world, is becoming ever more valuable across the spectrum of corporate learning; including on-the-job, social, and formal training? For example, consider on-demand troubleshooting tips for a technician dispatched to a customer site, or short “bites” of role-level insight for a retail clerk to take advantage of during downtime to learn new aspects about the inventory at his or her store. As these examples show, for successful mobile learning, the content needs to be scaled to the task, not just the device. It needs to be short, simple and easy to understand. General rules of thumb for micro-learning: •
Replace detailed papers with short bullet points.
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Replace telling with “showing.”
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Replace words with images.
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Replace multiple versions of a concept with a “single view of the truth.”
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Replace lecture with interactivity.
While the move to mobile will mean learning and development teams will need to review their most critical content and streamline or rework it, there is a silver lining: training content for mobile learning doesn’t need to — and shouldn’t — come just from the learning and development (L&D) group. Some of the highest impact informal learning can come from peers and subject-matter experts within the organization and can be as easy to share as uploading a video to YouTube. www.ihrim.org • Workforce Solutions Review • May 2016
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Mobile Learning in Action: Five BestPractice Use Cases
Following are five terrific examples of how mobile learning is uniquely delivering a different level of agility to organizations large and small and their teams, partners, and customers alike: 1. Democratize Learning Over many years of growth, computer giant Dell had amassed an equally giant collection of training materials about its products: nearly 12 million pages of training documentation. In an effort to improve the impact of its training content and the efficiency of nearly 475,000 users — from employees to customers and partners — the Dell learning team took a hard look at streamlining not just the quantity, but also the presentation of its content to make it equally easy to find and to use, from anywhere and on any device, for anyone, regardless of their role with Dell. One example: the L&D team created quick troubleshooting videos corresponding to a QR code attached to each piece of Dell equipment. Now, users can just scan the tag on the device and they are immediately linked to a short video of how-to’s with access to a host of related links. Mobile learning at Dell is now as easy as: Scan, Learn, Do.
Mobile learning needs to be intuitive. 2. Globalize Learning Global hotel and hospitality leader Hyatt Hotels supports 11 different brands, each with its own unique customer experience, from full-service business travel to family-friendly vacations and boutique destination get-aways. At the same time, the company needs to ensure that the manner they demonstrate care for their guests is consistent across its brands around the world. Hyatt “socializes” its training by delivering content through a learning management system that hosts on-brand content, development, and even learning workgroups to share insights across brands, geographies, and languages. Further, the global learning team took a close look at mobile content, since the vast majority of their colleagues work outside a dedicated office every day. One of their bigger breakthroughs was to create mobile image-based content for core tasks required within in a hotel —without words. Their all-visual microcontent covers a range of topics from making a bed, to pouring wine. This image-based mobile learning removes both access and language barriers at once. As a result, Hyatt team members worldwide are better enabled to learn in their work environment and are starting to self-subscribe to more mobile content to extend their skills.
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Mobile learning content should be contextually compelling. 3. Socialize Learning A large and fast-growing residential property management company recognized a need to quickly and regularly communicate ever-changing regulatory information to its community managers across the U.S. The legal team was able to use a central learning system to share national context for all, and also post regional and local content in digital learning workgroups where it was appropriate. In the process, they recognized that the same system could power “group genius” as well, and began to encourage all its employees to share expertise for the leverage of the broader organization. Empowered with some gamification, which shows likes, impressions, points, and even badges for great user-generated content, the company now has a quickly growing repertoire of short, mobile-friendly videos, articles, blogs, and ideas from the company’s subject-matter experts. The topics range from the marketing team’s new brand message sound bites to the maintenance crew’s video uploads of How to glaze a bathtub. Showcasing the company’s pockets of expertise encourages everyone to share — right from their tablets and smartphones. And it’s as easy as posting on YouTube.
Mobile learning at its best helps employees learn, as well as teach. 4. No Internet? No Problem. Offline Mobile Learning We’ve all experienced the downside of air travel: missed flights, layovers, and weather-related travel delays. And when it comes to business productivity, there’s also the intermittent access to the Internet both on and off the plane. That downside applies to airline flight crews as well. Air Canada’s learning and development team has recently mobile-enabled pilot training for compulsory recurrent training and continuing education topics, making its content short and easy to access on the fly, when its pilots are waiting at an airline terminal or when they are on crew rest. And they’ve even planned around Murphy’s Law when it comes to Internet access by choosing a learning platform that enables offline content and testing that will automatically sync when reconnected.
Mobile learning should be available, regardless of where you are and whether or not you have Internet access.
5. Bridge the Generational Gap: From Gen Y to Grandmas Countrywide PLC is a leader in residential real estate property services across the UK. Part of its continued growth in a highly regulated industry is via industry acquisition. As a result, the learning team does quite a bit of new-hire orientation training in addition to continuing regulatory training and skills development. In order to scale its efforts, Countrywide hosts all of its training materials online in a cloud-based system and prides itself on empowering its team to be selfsufficient in finding the bite-sized training they need, when they need it. At a recent onboarding session for a newly acquired team, a 78-year-old office worker asked the learning leader how the company preferred expense reports to be filed. He encouraged her to look in the learning system to find the answer. So, she asked to borrow the iPad of the young woman sitting next to her in the conference room, did a quick search on expense reports, found short instructions, filled out the form, and submitted it in a few keystrokes.
Good mobile learning works for learners of all ages.
What’s Next in Mobile Learning?
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Mobile extends budgets by building and sharing content within learning communities.
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Mobile learning’s “snackable content” — short, easy to consume ideas — is driving significantly more skills training registrations and completions — and even employee promotions — due to its relative ease-of-use and more engaging presentation.
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Companies and individuals are leveraging newer consumer technologies like Meerkat for live video streaming from their smartphone to capture and share in-the-moment learning experiences.
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Finally, the potential of predictive analytics technologies to deliver personalized learning nuggets like new contacts, new content, and new courses to each person in your organization based on their interests is just beginning to take hold. Imagine your learning management system serving up learning content just like Amazon and Netflix suggests ideas on new shoes and movies based on an individual’s unique interests.
Intuitive, irresistible, engaging, always available, and open to all: what’s not to love about mobile learning?
As a leading provider of learning management systems, we are fortunate to be inspired every day by our customers and their strategic ideas for advancing the potential of learning. Some final points to consider: •
Mobile plays a role not only in individual learning, but also in on- the-go mentoring and coaching.
About the Author Didi D’Errico is vice president of Brand and Customer Advocacy at Saba Software where she has the unique pleasure of finding and sharing innovative success stories in learning and talent management for a living. Saba is a leading provider of cloud-based intelligent talent management solutions. www.saba.com.
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feature Digital Labor Solutions: Success Means Knowing Where You’re Going By Toby Ward, Prescient Digital Companies have been moving their performance management processes online for years – eliminating paper, digitizing workflows and reducing administrative costs. In fact, McKinsey research suggests integrated digital labor platforms could increase company output by up to 9 percent, reduce employee-related costs by up to 7 percent, and increase profit margins by an average of 2.75 percent. Yet, more than half of the executives recently surveyed by Deloitte believe that their current performance management approach drives neither employee engagement nor high performance. Many executives lament that they yearn for something nimbler, more individualized, more focused on fueling forward-looking performance (rather than looking backwards), and more real-time. Everyone is aware that digital labor solutions have dramatically changed the face of recruiting new employees into companies. LinkedIn, for example, has over 125 million U.S. users and sites like Monster.com, CareerBuilder, and digital marketplaces such as Upwork, Toptal, and Freelancer.com have transformed not only the sourcing of labor, but the role of the contract worker. These tools have also dramatically increased transparency in an ever-tightening job market. But to realize the true value of a digital approach to human resources – far more than simply moving old processes online – effort and focus must be made to look at the opportunity in a much more holistic and integrated fashion. This includes not only focusing on the sourcing side of the equation, but looking at the solutions necessary inside an organization that drive employee (and contractor) performance, and enable people to continually learn and grow. Everyone knows that the war for talent is fierce. Demographics don’t lie. Today’s bright-
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est stars have a far better understanding of their personal value in the marketplace and to their employer, while recruiters and competitors have more means to find and contact these same people. As much as these increasingly robust online labor solutions create intensified competition for employees, they also provide employers with new ways to improve how human resources are used, the culture in which people work, and the ability to differentiate themselves to not only prospective employees, but, far more importantly, to existing employees (it’s far more cost efficient to keep and grow existing employees than to source, onboard, and ramp-up new employees). As with most technologies today, everything has moved to the cloud, is going “mobile-first,” and is becoming “uber-collaborative.” So much for all the buzz words. But companies still wrestle with, and need to focus on, ensuring that they have a solid strategy by which all this technology can be guided, and a plan to bring it all together in a way that is sufficiently focused on the total user experience. In other words, simply throwing performance management apps at the problem isn’t going to work. Add to this the fact that companies in knowledge-intensive businesses – which are the fastest growing areas of high-paid jobs – need a means to enable ongoing, self-directed learning, virtual training, and real-time feedback.
Technology
With literally hundreds of solutions available, it is important that you select an approach and technology that aligns to your business and HR strategy, and fits with what you are trying to accomplish, rather than trying to jam your current
processes and content into the parameters of a particular system. Selecting a vendor in today’s landscape can be an overwhelming task. Many vendors, old and new, are more than willing to show you their wares through flashy demos, brochures, and websites. All of them seem to have great features and functionality. Some vendors boast of their extraordinarily powerful and flexible collaboration including: •
Online/cloud computing;
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One-to-one personalization;
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ERP/CRM integration;
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Virtual repositories; and,
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Robust search.
But are all these bells and whistles going to meet your needs? Do you need them all? Understanding your company’s requirements is paramount before considering any vendor selection. Failure to develop an integrated plan that aligns to the HR and business strategy, and accounts for an organization’s business, stakeholder, and user requirements, can easily result in failure to launch. When choosing any software solution, functional user and stakeholder requirements must be clearly defined. A structured methodology needs to be invoked to not only ensure that the proper vendor(s) are chosen, but that the product(s) or platform has a productive lifespan, can be integrated with other potential components, and most importantly, delivers a proper level of user experience. According to Gartner estimates, one third of IT projects in small to mid-sized companies exceed budgets and schedules by almost 100 percent. This represents a lot of wasted time and money due to “scope creep” – which happens when the scope or deliverables of a project change during the project implementation due to weak planning that doesn’t fully account for the business requirements of the organization. A thorough assessment and overall strategic plan, along with documenting the needs of the organization and securing the necessary buy-in from multiple stakeholders and business managers, will greatly reduce, if not eliminate scope creep, as well as vastly increase adoption.
Planning
Before you run out and begin examining different systems and inviting vendors to demos,
construct a plan that aligns to your business and HR strategy, and details your requirements and priorities. You need not have a vision or mission statement, but there should be a handful of measurable objectives that are specific and measurable to your learning activities, e.g., “80 percent of employees to complete one online course per year in order to reduce training costs by 30 percent.” Once you’ve put pen to paper with specific objectives, create action plans, and itemize and prioritize the type of features that are most important. Many of these are now becoming more specialized in their application. Learning management systems (LMS) and learning content management systems (LCMS) have been around for years, but they are becoming more “social” and are evolving with technology.
Gartner estimates that one-third of IT projects in small to mid-sized companies exceed budgets and schedules by almost 100 percent. Management Solutions
The primary objectives of a labor management solution are far more than simply to find and acquire labor, or even rate the past performance of employees (or contractors). The new solutions for the future must also enable real-time collaboration, virtual learning, and integration with legacy data stores. Let’s start by focusing on the learning aspect, which is often the last to be included. Traditional LMSs are used to keep track of a person’s learning progress and performance, in essence the administrative side of a learning initiative. Learning content management systems, on the other hand, manage the delivery of the course content. More educators are discovering the benefits of being able to deliver such things as streaming video presentations and virtual meetings. By using synchronous tools for collaboration, these kinds of learning tools can be made available across an entire enterprise. Other tools include: •
Live chat;
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Application sharing;
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Online polling; and,
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Discussion groups.
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The aim of this effort is to effectively mirror a live classroom setting in a virtual community. A LMS is designed to support a collaborative learning community, offering multiple modes of learning. This might include self-paced coursework or scheduled classes and group learning. Learning management systems are often compared to enterprise resource planning (ERP) solutions because they streamline the delivery of learning initiatives in the same manner ERP streamlines back office tasks. Just some of the hundreds of potential features (some LMSs focus only on certain areas) worth considering include: •
Conferencing;
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Instructor-led classes;
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Self-paced learning;
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Live video;
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Mobile access;
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Gamification;
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Virtual simulation;
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Career tracking;
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Compliance; and,
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Data import/export.
A LMS and LCMS combination can provide all the necessary tools for your enterprise to carry out effective online training programs. Learning Content Management System (LCMS)
A LCMS manages the delivery of course materials. A good LCMS offers numerous advantages: rapid content creation and deployment, collaboration tools, reusable learning objects, and an intuitive student experience. The latter is the most complex factor that must be delivered. Despite our knowledge and comfort level in the digital age, concentrating on computer-delivered coursework can be a difficult task. Given this, a LCMS can assist by providing regularly updated content in a varied delivery style. The differences between LCMS and LMS functionality can be very confusing because most of the LCMS systems also have built-in LMS abilities. In fact, the vast majority of LCMSs includes LMS functionality as part of their system, while nearly all LCMSs list themselves
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as being interoperable with third-party learning management systems. A good LMS provides an infrastructure that enables planning, delivery, and management of learning programs in any chosen format. It will support multiple authoring systems and integrate easily with the leading LCMSs. As a catalyst for the overall learning environment, a LMS can integrate LCMS learning objects and assume responsibility for all content management including: •
Delivery and tracking;
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Storage in a content repository;
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Assembly and re-assembly of content objects;
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Incorporation of content objects into blended curriculums; and,
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Tracking learner progress through courses.
Analytics
One of the most compelling differences between a LMS and a LCMS are the analytic capabilities that each of these solutions provide. Learning analytics features have become more and more prevalent in vendor offerings over the past few years, with the promise of more robust enhancements to come. Typically, the analytic capabilities in a LMS help organizations understand the various levels of learning evaluation, i.e., Kirkpatrick Levels of Evaluation. In other words, an organization is able to analyze the following: •
Number of completions;
•
Number of “pass” versus “fail;” and,
•
Number of successful completions in business unit A versus business unit B.
Of greatest interest to the executive sponsors of these initiatives is the ability to compare and analyze successful completion of a learning intervention with an increase in performance, i.e., learners who successfully completed an intervention sold 42 percent more widgets than those who did not. These features are the ones that assist learning and development professionals to justify the costs associated with their programs. On the other hand, analytic capabilities of a LCMS include measuring and analyzing the results of a specific learning intervention at a more granular level. These capabilities are meant to drive an increase in performance of
the content developers themselves so that they can better serve the needs of their “clients” (learners). An example of this is the ability for a LCMS to drill down into the results of a test found at the end of an online module. If 90 percent of the learners did not answer a specific question successfully, content developers are then able to drill into the material covered by the question. Fundamentally, this type of analysis helps answer the question: Is it the learners or is it the material? A LMS and LCMS combination can provide all of the necessary tools for your enterprise to carry out effective online training programs. By utilizing a content repository, content can be reused for different training segments without having to be rewritten or redesigned. Should redesign be necessary to better suit a different learning group, this can be facilitated through the LCMS without programming knowledge or special server access.
The Opportunity Ahead
Digital labor solutions, like any application, can be highly effective when used in conjunction with a robust strategy. They can not only help organizations find and recruit top talent, but can help drive engagement of existing talent, enhance skills, retain top performers, and increase overall company performance well beyond cost savings often associated with HR systems. Most companies lack the discipline to properly create a strategy and plan before buying technology and, therefore, risk failure (by failure to launch, or low user adoption). Without a thorough plan, multiple technologies with fragmented data, multiple user experiences, inconsistent branding, and conflicting processes, HR’s ability to realize the true potential is greatly diminished.
About the Author Toby Ward is the president of Prescient Digital, a consulting firm that has been helping Fortune 500 companies create strategies and select, design and implement technology and exquisite user experiences for enterprise and HR for more than 15 years – primarily in the areas of portals, LMS, LMCS, and content management systems (CMS). For further information, contact www.PrescientDigital.com.
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feature The Cost of the Workforce:
Understanding the Value of Workforce Analytics By Katherine Jones, Ph.D. and Roger Sturtevant, Mercer
Given that a company’s total payroll can be the highest expense on the income statement, the ability to utilize analytics to understand the components of workforce cost is critical to both Human Resources professionals and senior management. Traditional amalgamation of the corporate costs of hourly wages or aggregated salary data yields little. In this article, we will: •
Look at the alternative ways to measure and use workforce costs more advantageously;
•
Review other metrics related to cost that augment compensation decision processes; and,
•
Delineate the data that HR requires to do so.
In addition, ascertaining how elements of workforce cost compare to market norms, specifically local or industry-specific market norms, adds relevant metrics for HR. Such workforce benchmarking can provide unique perspectives on an organization’s competitive labor mix. To demonstrate this point, we compared 117 technology companies’ compensation data, covering 2.4 million employees. In the example (Figure 1), one company is compared to market norms on its average compensation rates. This is a relatively simple metric, yet one that few HR professionals in our global comparison had the ability to report on. Even this simple metric is telling.
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Figure 1. Example of One Company’s Overall Total Direct Compensation Compared to Market Norms. Source: Mercer, 2015.
Let’s look at the ramifications of this seemingly innocuous variance: if we assume a company with 10,000 employees and similarsized competitors, as were used in calculating these figures, a $3,000 variance costs the company $30 million annually (in USD). Note that we are not making judgments on whether that increase above the average was well-spent; it certainly could have been. But, the point for HR professionals is ascertaining: What additional metrics are needed to tell where that $30 million was spent and what was the corporate gain from that expenditure? Another common metric, often used by executives to evaluate desired employee count for a business of their size is the amount of revenue divided by the number of employees, an example of which is found in Figure 2. This is sometimes referred to as “productivity,” even though there is no necessary correlation between the two figures.
Getting to Metrics that Matter
Figure 2. Example of a Company’s “Revenue by Employee” Metric Compared to the Average for Like Companies of the Same Size. Source: Mercer, 2015.
The primary issue with this metric is that it does not accommodate cost; it cannot answer the telling question of: What did it cost my firm to produce this ratio of employees to revenue? What we do see in these two data points, however, is that one company spends $30 million more than the average on employee compensation; another is below the like-market average in corporate revenue per employee. These figures, in and of themselves, do not provide actionable data. Total payroll, as a percent of revenue, is another commonly used metric. It is easy to compute, as it is the division of total payroll by gross revenues and creation of the percentage. It is a simple metric and can provide a basis for more in-depth analytics. Here, as demonstrated in Figure 3, the company is higher than the average for like companies. Total payroll (where payroll is defined as the sum of all employee’s total direct compensation) as a percent of revenue can serve as a useful starting point for a financial workforce audit. In this example, companies of $1 billion dollars were compared, and the targeted company has a total workforce cost that is $240 million higher than the market average. What might account for this significant variation above market norms?
Figure 3. Example of the Comparison of Payroll as a Percent of Revenue.
Far too frequently, HR professionals only measure total compensation compared to the market norm for their size and industry, or solely look at revenue divided by the number of employees. Even the metric of payroll as a percent of total revenue is just the beginning of the analytics that companies should be measuring. Given that metric, further drill-down is needed. First, the HR professional can identify and isolate selected key functional areas within the organization to determine specific areas of compensation cost that are at variance with the market. See Figure 4 for an example from one company.
Figure 4. Example of Compensation Costs in Selected Functions. Source: Mercer, 2015.
In this $1 billion company, research and development (R&D) is significantly higher than comparable companies. The R&D cost is nearly $231 million higher than market, assuming similar average revenue. This represents a point where it is imperative that the HR team making compensation decisions thoroughly understand their business and the business strategy. This apparent spike may represent one of many things: •
The company is paying higher wages to attract technical talent;
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The company has an older, more experienced, tenured workforce;
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It has a very large R&D workforce compared to the norm;
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The company is located in a region with a scarcity of the skillsets required;
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An investment in innovation is deemed critical to longer-term success for this company; and,
•
This spike may be an unwarranted distribution in salary altogether.
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In fact, in our example technology company, there are a significantly higher percentage of engineers at more senior levels within the R&D organization. Typical salaries are, of course, higher at higher levels of the wage structure, but in this example our company also pays these higher-level employees significantly more than the competition. This represents a more costly model. (In Figure 5, the orange column is the company’s population distribution and the purple line is the company’s average target total cash compensation. The yellow column and blue line represent the market norm for that level.)
variable pay component (which, hypothetically, might look something like this; for every dollar of revenue, 1.1 cents goes to pay sales commissions and bonuses, see Figure 6).
Figure 6. Sales as a Percent of Revenue by Pay Type. Source: Mercer, 2015.
Figure 5. R&D Total Cash Compensation & Population Percentages by Level. Source: Mercer, 2015.
Is it a corporate strategy to exceed the market to this extent? It well may be, but it is imperative that that strategy is fully understood by the HR team looking at metrics. Consider the function of the sales team. All companies have a sales component and many vary widely as to their incentive compensation programs. Compensation analysts and HR leaders chartered with reporting on compensation metrics can start with total sales as a percent of revenue as a productivity measure; here the metric is the comparison of percent of revenue paid to sales people compared to the market average. For example, HR can ascertain that for every dollar of revenue, 3.9 cents is paid to sales personnel (as total direct compensation, which includes salary, bonus/commissions and long-term incentives), then compare that to the market average for like companies in the same industry. As many salespeople have compensation that is both salaried and incentive-based, the next step may be drilling down to solely the
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Executive compensation has become a focus for press attention of late. In general, it behooves HR professionals to analyze and understand the status of executive compensation in their organizations, including the role of long- and short-term incentive plans and their potential to create sudden and sometimes unexpected spikes in senior management compensation. For example, in one company we researched, executive compensation (as a sum of total direct compensation) rather dramatically exceeded the norm (see Figure 7, in which the orange distribution represents one company researched; the magenta distribution is the industry market norm).
Figure 7. Executive Compensation as a Percentage of Revenue Compared to the Market Average. Source: Mercer, 2015.
This company has nearly three times the market norm for executive cost as a percentage of revenue. Is this an issue or not? Is it an excess of high-ranking senior managers, or just few very highly paid ones? Does the company’s overall revenue, position in the market, and shareholder value support a hike in executive cost that is three times the norm? Perhaps it does, but HR should be able to talk intelligently about the rationale for this vari-
ance. These are the types of analytics that HR leaders often have to present to their board; it is critical to understand them thoroughly. Amalgamating or “bucketing” roles of employees is also useful. Figure 8 demonstrates the compensation costs (as a sum of total direct compensation) of large groups of employees at differing levels in the organizations as compared to the market norms. Here, the organization is below market in support staff compensation, and slightly above market in the other professional, managerial, and executive ranks.
the ramifications of the maturity and expertise ranges, such as those shown in the company illustrated in Figure 9.
Figure 9. Metrics that Indicate Experience and Competence Levels Compared to Peer Competitors. Source: Mercer, 2015.
Figure 8. Comparing Market Norms to Groups by Job Level. (Percentage of Employees by Level). Company = Blue; Market Norms = Yellow Source Mercer, 2015.
Overall managerial salary costs can escalate quickly; a company with more managers and executives than its competition can be at a disadvantage. In one 10,000-employee company we studied, having a management staff that is two percentage points higher than a similar-sized company in the market can have a $60.3 million cost impact. And, this assumes that this company is paying exactly at market. If the company pays a higher salary than the market norm, the cost of management will be even higher. Level analysis can be a very revealing exercise, one that requires careful strategic evaluation. The cost of having too many managers or highly paid engineers can be expensive, but the consequences of having a very junior professional staff may be detrimental to the business. For example, the rigorous analysis we propose can lead HR leaders to understand and evaluate
This company has a preponderance of entryand early-stage employees, with fewer at the “proficient” and “mastery” levels as compared to the industry norms. The question for HR leaders becomes: Does this company have a professional workforce with the required experience and skills for the future? Do they have the capabilities to become the leaders of tomorrow?
Whither the Workforce?
Through the tools available today, HR leaders charged with compensation decisions can apply increasingly more sophisticated metrics to analyze the pros and cons of actions that may radically affect the overall outlay for employee compensation. One key area of fiscal concern is location – the placement of the workforce around the globe. In Figure 10, we show an example of compensation distribution by location; an easy metric to display with an appropriate workforce analytics tool. As with all the data points we have demonstrated, there is not a right or wrong answer for an individual company. Again, what is critical for HR leaders is that they have the tools to extract relevant data from their human capital management systems, and that they have the know-how to derive meaningful conclusions for their own organizations based on that organization’s strategy.
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Figure 10. Compensation by Location. Source: Mercer, 2015.
Conclusion
Endnotes 1
A ll examples used in the charts herein are based on data from the Mercer|Comptryx workforce metrics solution.
2
For more information, see the US Executive Remuneration Suite, Mercer, 2015, available on iMercer.com.
Human Resources’ leadership today increasingly seeks to be more data-driven in its decision-making ability. Fortuitously, there are tools available, which, while providing sophisticated analysis capabilities, do not require Ph.Ds. in statistics or adding dedicated data scientists to the payroll. But, tools are just that – and the analytics tools today rely on clean and complete data through which to model and display comparisons and benchmarks. In the main, the data in the examples we have provided rely on data from the HRIS system and the payroll engine within it. The tools will assume that your data is accurate – it is the HR professionals’ responsibility to ensure that erroneous or irrelevant data is removed and that there are not redundancies. In cases where a corporation has multiple HRIS systems, a common occurance in many globally operating companies, those seeking enterprisewide analytics will have to ensure parity between the data models used by those different systems to feed the analytics tool.
A further consideration for HR leadership entering the world of big data analytics is the capabilities of the team who will address not only the so-called data-crunching, but also the interpretation of the findings. As we have tried to show herein, a metric may vary radically from the norm yet be a positive key performance indicator (KPI) in one organization and a warning signal in another. A third consideration for companies seeking benchmarking data is the comparability of the industries and firms within those industries to which they are to be compared. We emphasized herein that the benchmarks are gleaned from comparisons of like companies. This means not only like industries, but often similar sizes, maturity, and revenue levels – and even locations. Comparing the compensation rates, for example, of a high-tech startup in Romania to a high-tech startup in San Francisco would likely not yield useful data if you were seeking to benchmark pay – yet it may be useful if you were seeking comparative total compensation costs for potential technology outsourcing. Ensure that your workforce benchmarking provider can in fact deliver truly useful benchmarking data for your needs. We have discussed comparative compensation as solely one compelling area within human capital in which application of analytic tools can provide business-critical insights. Human Resources, we must recognize, has been pummeled with the mandate to become more analytical for almost a decade now, often without the support for the staffing, upskilling training, or the tools to support that mandate. Analysis of compensation, using today’s tools, can be an auspicious place to start.
About the Authors Dr. Katherine Jones is a partner and director of Research at Mercer in Talent Information Solutions. With both academic and technology industry experience, she has been a high-tech market analyst for 18 years. Her doctorate is from Cornell University. She can be reached at Katherine.Jones@mercer.com or @katherine_jones.
Roger Sturtevant leads the product development and operations functions for Mercer | Comptryx, a product offering on-demand workforce metrics and global pay data. He has over 25 years of HR experience, including the position of manager of Compensation and Benefits at Tyco Healthcare following compensation and HR generalist roles at Data General Corporation. He has also co-founded and sold two innovative compensation businesses in the past 10 years. He can be reached at roger.sturtevant@mercer.com.
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feature Solving the Really Big Problems of Workforce Management – the Next Iteration of HCM Technology By Steven T. Hunt, Ph.D., SAP SuccessFactors
My job involves helping companies use human capital management (HCM) technology1 to increase workforce productivity. This work integrates empirical research from fields such as industrial-organizational psychology with practical insights gathered through applied experience with hundreds of organizations around the world. The goal is to understand how technology can enable employee and leadership behaviors and decisions that increase business performance. This might be described as studying how HCM technology intersects with workforce psychology. During the last 25 years, the field of HCM technology has gone through several significant transitions, and we are starting to enter another one. This article explains this next iteration and what it means for HR and IT professionals.
cally leads to incremental improvements in HCM technological capabilities over time. But, about every 15 years there has been a major transition in the core problems guiding development and application of HCM technology. •
How can HCM technology help companies manage personnel administration (roughly 1970 to 1990)? After mainframe computers became widely available in the late 1960s and 1970s, companies started exploring if this technology could support administrative human resource (HR) tasks associated with workforce management. From about 1970 to 1990, the primary focus of HCM technology was on automating administrative HR functions such as payroll and employment record keeping. The main goal of HCM technology in this period was to reduce administrative costs and avoid legal and financial risks associated with employing large numbers of people.
•
How can HCM technology help companies improve specific talent management methods (roughly 1990 to 2005)? As PCs became a common part of office life, companies started exploring how technology could improve decisions and actions associated with hiring, developing and motivating talent. The interest in improving talent management methods was fueled by a growing knowledge and service oriented economy where employee performance was becoming a critical business differentiator. Human capital management technology applications during this period tended to focus on specific talent management processes. For example, technology that improved
HCM Technology Transitions over the Past 50 years. The development and the application of HCM technology are highly interdependent. The technology we have influences the problems we try to solve with it, and the problems we are trying to solve influence how we develop the technology. For example, before the advent of mobile technology applications few companies were seriously exploring how to solve problems related to providing employees with continuous performance feedback. Once mobile technology was available companies began asking if it could be used to enable a better way to provide ongoing performance feedback. This, in turn, led to development of a new breed of continuous performance management technology. The interaction between technology development and the problems it is used to solve typi-
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applicant screening during the hiring process or software used to deliver employee training programs. •
How can HCM technology help companies coordinate and integrate different HR activities (roughly 2006 to now)? The development of cloudbased technology platforms encouraged companies to look at ways to align HR processes across the employee life cycle. For example, linking staffing technology, training technology, and administrative HR technology to support onboarding of new employees. Or, linking performance management technology, career development technology, staffing technology, and succession technology to build internal talent pipelines. The advantages of integration are fairly obvious from a process perspective. But achieving integration was challenging because it meant aligning HR processes and technology platforms that were historically designed and run in isolation. It was not until the last few years that companies developed truly integrated HCM technology systems spanning the full range of administrative and strategic HR functions.
These transitions do not supplant each other, but build on top of each other. In the 1980s, virtually all HCM technology was focused on administrative process efficiency. No one was using HCM technology in any meaningful way to integrate strategic HR methods focused on talent management. Now, companies are simultaneously developing and using HCM technology to better support administrative HR, strategic HR, and integrated HR. The question is what’s next? Where is HCM technology going now that we finally have comprehensive, integrated HR technology platforms?
Addressing Complex Workforce Challenges is the Next Transition in HCM Technology. I believe the next transition in HCM technology will focus on addressing highly complex workforce management challenges that have limited business performance for decades, if not centuries. These challenges include inequitable workforce management, ineffective employeemanager relationships, poorly managed workforce restructuring, and many other perennial
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workforce management issues. What makes these challenges difficult to overcome is they are not tied to just one aspect of HR. They can only be addressed through coordinating multiple HR activities. Increasing workforce diversity. Most organizations believe it is critical to create inclusive and equitable workforces. There are many legal, ethical, and financial reasons why companies do not want to systematically exclude or overlook talented employees belonging to historically under-represented segments of society. Despite strong intentions to create inclusive cultures, companies persistently fail to achieve their stated goals when it comes to hiring, retaining, and promoting people from certain demographic groups. Consider gender equity as an example. Companies have been struggling to close the gap in retention, promotion, and compensation between men and women for over 50 years (Joshi, et al., 2015). The problems created by gender inequity are fairly easy to measure but the solutions are very complex. Most gender inequity arises from subtle and often unconscious biases occurring throughout the employee life cycle. Inequity starts with hidden biases that influence how companies identify and build applicant pools. It resurfaces in various forms during hiring, onboarding, management, benefits, performance measurement, compensation, and promotion. Furthermore, biases at one step impact other steps. Biases that affect how employees are managed create biases in who applies to begin with, and vice versa. Companies cannot address gender inequity just by focusing on a single HR process such as training managers or changing staffing methods. The whole employment life cycle must be influenced. Increasing workforce diversity requires addressing the full range of talent management areas that cause bias. In the past, launching such a comprehensive effort was virtually impossible due to the level of resources and coordination required. But now that we have fully integrated HCM technology, it seems like such comprehensive efforts may be in our reach. I am not naïve or optimistic enough to believe that HCM technology will eliminate inequity issues that have plagued people probably as long as there have been people, but I believe we will see significant headway made in this area over the coming decade. Addressing ineffective employee-manager relationships. It is often said employees don’t quit companies, they quit managers.
Managers have tremendous influence over the careers of employees through hiring decisions, communicating performance expectations, providing ongoing coaching, and allocating compensation, promotions, and development opportunities. Despite the value of good managers, issues of incompetent management are so common there is a genre of humor solely devoted to making fun of bad management, e.g., Dilbert, The Office. It isn’t surprising that we have a lot of incompetent managers given that many people are not promoted to managerial positions because they are good at managing. Furthermore, many companies fail to train and equip managers with tools to effectively manage employees, or hold them accountable or reward them based on being good managers. Historically, companies deployed HCM technology to fix one management activity while often ignoring others. For example, a company would implement compensation technology without aligning it with technology used to evaluate performance or guide career development. But, companies are now exploring how to use technology to improve the entire employee-manager relationship. Companies are approaching management as a complex process that involves goal setting, coaching, evaluation, development, compensation, and staffing. These activities must be kept separate to be effective but must be linked to be impactful. For example, HCM technology is being used to separate activities associated with coaching and providing performance feedback from activities associated with identifying and rewarding high performers, while still ensuring there is a link between ongoing employee-manager coaching conversations and annual organizational talent reviews. This allows managers to focus on coaching without getting caught up in evaluations, and also allows employees to know that what their manager is coaching them on will eventually have an impact on decisions that impact their careers, such as pay and promotions. We are a long way off from eliminating bad management. But, through effective use of HCT technology, we may reach a point where we can say that the only reason companies have bad managers is because they tolerate them. Enabling workforce transitions. One of the major challenges facing organizations is how to adapt their workforce to address the increasing pace of change in business markets. There are two basic actions involved in managing workforce transitions. First, companies must determine how to
The question is what’s next? Where is HCM technology going now that we finally have comprehensive, integrated HR technology platforms? change the structure of the organization and its jobs to reflect new strategies and market conditions. This is usually done using tools like organizational charts and spreadsheets. Most of these tools have not fundamentally changed in 50 years or more. The modern organization chart is something that could probably have been easily understood by officers in the Roman Empire. The tools used to guide workforce restructuring do not reflect the modern nature of work where job roles constantly shift, increasing amounts of work are performed by contractors instead of full-time employees, and informal relationships are often more important than formally defined team structures. Modern HCM technology has the potential to replace these hopelessly outdated tools. For example, goal management technology can provide real-time insight into what employees are actually doing at work so that leaders do not have to make incorrect assumptions based solely on job titles. And, social technology can be used to understand actual working relationships instead of guessing at how work is performed based on boxes and lines on an organizational chart. The second step in workforce transitions is enabling employees to adapt to the new organizational structure. This is a combination of setting performance expectations, training employees to perform new tasks, and establishing new working relationships. Many companies largely ignore this step and end the restructuring process as soon as the new organizational chart is rolled out. The result is a massive loss in productivity as employees struggle to figure out what they should be doing now that their jobs and organizations have changed. Modern HCM technology holds promise to change how this is done. In particular using goal management, learning management, and social technology in a coordinated fashion to help employees quickly re-orient after workforce restructurings so they know what to do, how to do it, and who to do it with. Workforce agility is the key differentiator between companies that succeed in business
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markets characterized by constant change and those that fail to adapt. Companies that cling to outdated tools for restructuring organizations will find it harder to survive as the pace of change steadily increases. Integrated HCM technology platforms hold promise for rethinking how companies manage workforce transitions. These new solutions will have to enable companies to quickly assess employee’s current skills and job interests, examine the nature of their current jobs and working relationships, and rapidly communicate new job expectations and provide associated training and job networking so they can switch their focus with minimal loss of productivity. It is too early to say what these new methods will look like. But the bar isn’t set too high since the workforce transition methods they are replacing often amount to reviewing spreadsheets, changing lines on an org chart, and sending out optimistic sounding emails from the C-suite about the new organizational structure. I do not know exactly what it will look like, but over the next 10 years, I am confident we will see radical evolution in the technology and methods used to guide workforce transitions.
Innovation is driven by People, not by Technology. The questions we ask determine the solutions we create. When I started working with HCM technology 25 years ago, people were surprised when we posed questions like: What if there was a better way to automatically screen candidates instead of reading through résumés? How can technology be used to improve succession management decisions? At that time, HCM technology was viewed as a tool to improve efficiency. Companies didn’t think of it as a tool to improve the quality of talent decision-making. Fifteen years later, companies were surprised when we made cross-functional recommendations such as “when you redesign your staffing technology, also consider the implications this has for the technology used to develop employees after they are hired.” The very idea of having different HR functions work collaboratively to build integrated HR technology platforms was novel. To take HCM technology to the next level, we need courage to ask questions that will take
us there. Today this means addressing major workforce challenges by asking questions like: How can we use HCM technology to eliminate bad management behavior? Is there a way to use HCM technology to develop new methods for organizational restructuring that do not negatively impact employee productivity and morale? Can technology help us eliminate gender inequity? Only by asking these questions will we succeed in building the solutions needed to answer them. We also need HR professionals with the skillsets required to address these sorts of questions. This starts with HR people who have knowledge across multiple HR functions. We cannot build integrated HR solutions to address complex problems if HR continues to be run as silos of compensation, staffing, development and learning professionals. Second, we need HR professionals who are well versed in the capabilities of HCM technology. Twenty-five years ago, it was possible to implement HR processes with limited use of technology. The relationship between HR and IT was more of a partnership than true collaboration. Human Resources would design the process and IT would build tools to support it. Today, it is hard to imagine rolling out an HR process in a large organization without extensive use of HCM technology. Modern HR process design must include early and active consideration of the capabilities and constraints of the technology that will be used to support it. Human capital management technology cannot be viewed as an afterthought to HR process design. It must be part of process design. And HCM technological competence must be viewed as a core part of HR expertise. In addition, we need information technology (IT) professionals who truly understand HR. Historically, HRIT professionals were often IT professionals who supported HR departments, but who did not truly understand the HR profession. This segmented view of the world must evolve if we are to get to the next level of HCM technology. Information technology people must have a strong appreciation of HR methods, theories, and regulations that influence process design. And, they must use this knowledge to guide selection and development of HCM technology systems that can effectively support the changing and complex HR needs of the organization.
Endnotes 1
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For the sake of simplicity, I will use HCM technology to refer to all forms of technology designed to help companies manage their workforces. It is being used to replace other terms that have been used historically such as personnel technology, workforce technology, HR Technology, HRIS and HRIT.
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The Future is ours to Create. When I look back over the past 25 years, I’m struck by two observations. First, it is amazing how far HCM technology has progressed. Companies now routinely use HCM technology to do things people were not even considering in 1990. On the other hand, I’m struck by how many workforce challenges we were facing in 1990 are the same challenges we face today. Technology may have given us the ability to hire people over the phone and collaborate with colleagues on the other side of the world in real-time, but companies still struggle to create inclusive workforces and manage workforce transitions, and employees still complain about managers who don’t
know how to manage. But, I’m optimistic we have reached a level where we can address these perennial challenges. The time is right for HR professionals to broaden their focus beyond improving individual HR processes to address major workforce challenges. Similarly, HCM technology developers should go beyond building tools for specific HR processes to creating comprehensive, cross-functional suites of tools that enable companies to address complex workforce problems. This may seem like a lofty goal. But, real progress requires real ambition. If we don’t think differently, then we won’t act differently. The opportunity has arrived for us to radically improve the world of work, but it is up to us to seize it.
About the Author Dr. Steven Hunt is senior vice president of Customer Value at SAP SuccessFactors. A recognized expert on strategic human resources, he has helped implement HR systems positively affecting the workplace quality and performance of millions of employees working for hundreds of companies around the world. An active author and presenter, Dr. Hunt has written two books on strategic HR process design and deployment: Commonsense talent management: using strategic human resources to increase company performance (Wiley Press, 2014), and Hiring success: the art and science of staffing assessment and Artwork prepared at be 200% Final Ad Size Prints at 71/2 X 5 inches) employee selection (Wiley is Press, 2007). He can reached at s.hunt@sap.com.
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2016 Talent Management/Workforce Planning Buyer’s Guide The 2016 Talent Management/Work Force Planning Buyers Guide will serve as a valuable reference tool. For your convenience, the guide has two sections: a Categorical Listing and an Alphabetical listing. In the Categorical Listing, companies are listed under the product and service categories of their choice. For information on a specific company and its products and/or service, please refer to the Alphabetical Company Listing. While a listing in this guide does not constitute an endorsement by IHRIM, it does indicate that these companies are interested in serving the needs of HRIS professionals. We hope this Buyer’s Guide will assist you in your 2016 purchasing decisions.
Product Categories
Analytics
Consulting Enterprise Information Resources Inc. Predictive TALENT ANALYTICS, CORP.
Applicant Tracking
Ceridian Ceridian
Career Site Hosting Compensation
Enterprise Information Resources Inc.
Integration
Ceridian Ceridian
Job Posting
Performance Management
Ceridian CRG emPerform Enterprise Information Resources Inc.
Requisition Management
Ceridian
Resume Parsing & Processing
Ceridian
Sourcing Talent Acquisition
Ceridian TALENT ANALYTICS, CORP.
Workforce Management & Planning
Ceridian
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Paid Advertising
*Systems and applications referred to in this section are trademarked, registered, or in progress. These names should not be used generically.
Ceridian
3311 E. Old Shakopee Road Minneapolis, MN 55425 Resource Center 800-729-7655 onesource@ceridian.com www.ceridian.com/IHRIM Ceridian is a global human capital management technology company serving more than 50 countries. Our offering includes the award winning, cloud-based Dayforce HCM, Global Solutions, and Small Business Payroll. Ceridian. Makes Work Life Better. For more information about Ceridian solutions call 1.800.729.7655 or visit www.ceridian.com
Onboarding
Ceridian
Ceridian
Alphabetical Company Listing*
CRG emPerform
6 Antares Dr. Phase 1 Suite 200 Ottawa, ON K2E 8A9 Natalie Trudel 877.711.0367 613.232.4295 info@employee-performance.com www.employee-performance.com Eliminate the hassle of manual appraisals and get easy-to-use, affordable, and effective ongoing performance management with emPerform. emPerform delivers a full suite of employee performance management functionality to align, develop, reward, and retail a world-class workforce. Online appraisals & self-assessments, ongoing feedback, 360° reviews, compensation management, reporting, surveys, and talent identification. Get started with a free trial.
Enterprise Information Resources Inc. 271 Waverley Oaks Rd. Suite 207 Waltham, MA 02452 Gin O’Leary 855-589-9451 617-924-4802 info@erpinforesources.com www.erpinforesources.com
Enterprise Information Resources Inc. (EIR) Get the most from your talent management strategy with EIR expertise, proven technology and service offerings. EIR DataTools are advanced automation tools that turn your system into a major company asset providing the accurate, actionable data necessary for reaching a true competitive advantage. EIR is a member of the SAP PartnerEdge program. We are authorized to resell and are a certified implementation partner for SAP SuccessFactors solutions. See our ad on page 45.
TALENT ANALYTICS, CORP.
One Mifflin Place, Suite 400 Cambridge, MA 02138 USA 617-864-7474 617-812-6021 Greta Roberts greta@talentanalytics.com www.talentanalytics.com Talent Analytics Advisor predicts employee performance-pre-hire. Predictions can also be sent to your HRIS, HCM or ATS. Realize highest ROI predicting performance or attrition w/roles like Call Center Reps, Insurance Agents, Sales Reps, Bank Tellers, Truck Drivers & other roles w/more than 200 employees in a single role.
From our Advisors
Future Forward: Shifting from Talent Management to People Development By Lisa Sterling, Ceridian
The Situation
What’s Next?
As most organizations have come to realize, talent management has evolved considerably over the last 10 years. Today there is a “people-topeople” movement happening, on a global scale. What do we mean by this? First, thinking of an employee entirely as “talent” – one who is hired, trained, and groomed to lead people and deliver results – is limiting. In a world where employee engagement and retention issues are top of mind, today’s organizations need to acknowledge the fact that each employee is an individual person, whose motivations for success at work may differ from that of their colleagues. Talent management used to consist of siloed events such as workforce planning, recruiting, learning and development, performance management, and compensation. In the new world of “people development,” employees are demanding ongoing experiences: continuous employee-toemployee and manager feedback, personalized recognition, workplace flexibility to stay engaged, i.e., emotionally committed to the organization and its goals – connected and empowered. Underlining this fundamental shift is the fact that people’s expectations of their employer have changed over the years, as well. Today, people work for an organization as long as it is valuable for both parties, and then they move on. Alongside this new reality is the desire for faster access to information from anywhere, technological resources to make the latter happen, organizational transparency and the expectation that work will be as rewarding and fulfilling as one’s personal life.
In light of all this, organizations need to seriously examine and rethink their overall talent management strategies, and remember that they are dealing with different audiences. They must be cognizant of the fact that no one person is exactly alike, regardless of the generation they happen to belong to. It is no longer about managing talent; it is about managing individual people who – if done right – will embrace the company culture and help drive the organization forward. To do this, organizations need to stop thinking about performance, succession, and career development in silos with pre-defined completion dates, and stop segmenting and generalizing employees into generations. Employees of all generations can value opportunities to grow and receive frequent feedback. Employers need to think about how an individual’s employment life cycle plays out in the organization, and then proceed to develop best practices that successfully align individual employee goals with overall organizational objectives.
How to Keep Up First, organizations need to get the C-suite on board with HR priorities. Now more than ever, CEOs and business leaders are demanding HR strategies, solutions, and perspectives that drive employee engagement, improve the employment brand and help find, source, and attract individuals to join the company and come to work everyday and deliver. Today’s HR leaders also need to rethink their responsibilities and how they interact with the Csuite. The CEO and CHRO need to be in lockstep.
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Then, the CHRO can have the same seat at the table as other executives, ensuring leadership understands and supports the fact that people are the key to present day and future company success – and should remain the organization’s top priority. Second, organizations need to create people strategies that align with business strategies. This means moving away from once-a-year performance management meetings, toward continuous coaching and people development discussions and creating a “learning environment” to help people continuously develop and grow at work. Next, encourage an engaging and enjoyable work experience by providing people with software tools that are easy to use and empower them to make work life better. Understand how your employees want to be rewarded and/or recognized and ensure their contributions are acknowledged in a way they prefer. Lastly, make a concerted effort to encourage organizational transparency in terms of clear communication on company direction and career opportunities. A great example of how companies are evolving can be demonstrated by the work we are doing internally at Ceridian. At Ceridian, we know we need to continue to evolve to meet the needs of our people, our customers, and our shareholders. HR needs to play a more strategic role and not just focus on the traditional aspects and transactions around compliance or pay and benefits. One of the ways we are addressing this is by revolutionizing our performance experience. No longer is it about managing individual performance for the sake of compliance. We are philosophically changing why we engage in
performance and making our focus on employee development, engagement, and commitment. It’s not enough just to move away from ratings or to change the frequency of the conversation. At Ceridian, we are going “all in” by removing ratings, moving to continuous discussions, and so much more. We are disconnecting our compensation discussions from our performance experiences, and revamping our recognition and rewards processes. We are educating our leaders on how to have coaching and development-centric conversations that elicit change from people and drive improvement. This is something that will continue to evolve and isn’t done overnight. We want to create the right experiences that engage our people, making work life better.
A Final Thought Most organizations are attuned to the fact that talent management has evolved to become less of an “HR only” domain. People development means a re-evaluation of traditional performance measurement programs and modifying how companies traditionally think about employee engagement, frequency of engagement, and what they’re trying to measure. The shift can be overwhelming at first. HR leaders need to select an area of focus – be it performance management, learning and development, or compensation – in order to elicit meaningful and manageable change. This change will drastically improve communication and foster meaningful relationships with employees, their employers, and even company clients – delivering a highly sought-after trickledown effect.
About the Author Lisa Sterling is the executive vice president, chief people officer for Ceridian. Her focus is executing the global people strategy combined with leading the vision on the Dayforce Talent Management offering. She joined Ceridian in June 2015 as vice president of Dayforce Talent Management, responsible for global product strategy for talent technologies; managing relationships with industry experts and alliance partners; leading product management and positioning go-to-market strategies, and executing on current and future product offerings. She has more than 17 years of experience in people, process and software design, and execution. Her broad range of expertise covers recruitment, onboarding, performance, development and retention technologies. In addition to her focus on people and technology, she serves as a thought leader to the market and to Ceridian’s talent clientele. She holds a degree in Business Administration and Management from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and can be reached at lisa.sterling@ceridian.com.
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Onboarding Planning
Starting Strong: Managing Your Own Onboarding By Madelynn Macur Brousil and Jennifer Zukerman
Transitions are always challenging. A job transition is particularly so because you’re working to create and cultivate a strong impression with your new boss and colleagues while your professional world is in flux. One way to make the best of the situation, or even use it to your advantage, is to take charge of your own onboarding. In fact, the goals you have when starting a new job, such as meeting or exceeding the expectations of the new role or achieving your career goals, depend on strong onboarding. People who take an active role in their onboarding learn their new jobs more efficiently, develop key relationships sooner, accelerate their own success, as well as that of their company. Onboarding is typically a one-year process with special focus on the first 90 days. In his book, The First 90 Days: Proven strategies for getting up to speed faster and smarter, Michael Watkins describes the goal of onboarding as reaching the “break-even point,” when the value you contribute equals and begins to exceed the cost of hiring, training, and retaining you. Some companies have formal onboarding programs for new hires; many do not. Whatever your situation, you can either design your own onboarding or be very engaged and proactive in what is provided for you. What follows is a plan for doing that. The first element of this onboarding plan is to establish a learning strategy. Consider what you need to know about your new company and industry, your specific department or division and its challenges and opportunities, and your role and the expectations connected to it. Keep in mind that learning involves experiences and exposures and may include formal training. Be
mindful of all available learning resources such as internal documents, reports, plans, employee communications, as well as external information such as recent press releases, analysts’ reports, and people to meet. Finally, establish a pace for learning by setting goals for what you want to know before you start, within the first weeks, by the end of the first month, etc. While your learning goals may change as you get into the job, keeping a timeline for what you want to learn will help assure that you do. The second element of onboarding involves assessing your fitness for your new job. This is really about letting go of your previous situation and preparing yourself for the new road ahead. Think about the job itself: Why do you want it? What’s the downside of taking it? How is it similar to your last job and how is different? Think about your strengths, preferences, and weaknesses. What will you be doing that you are good at and really like doing? What will you not be doing that you’ve done in the past and enjoyed? How will you let that go? Lastly, what will you be doing that doesn’t play to your strengths and preferences and how will you compensate for that – can you delegate or trade those tasks away or will you need to develop your capabilities in these areas? The next part of a sound onboarding plan is to purposefully build key relationships. The first people you meet in a new company are generally the talent acquisition specialist, your new direct manager, and often a “buddy” or peer sponsor who guides you through your first days on the job. These people are important because of what they can teach you as well as who they can lead you to. Ask them who they think you should meet and to please introduce you. Your goal is to meet everyone whose work depends on yours and vice versa,
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References Michael D. Watkins, The First 90 Days: Proven strategies for getting up to speed faster and smarter, Boston, Massachusetts, Harvard Business Review Press, 2013
including direct reports, peers, and any internal or external customers or suppliers. Ask these people for 15 to 30 minutes of their time to get acquainted. While these conversations should be relatively informal, having an idea of what you’d like to talk about is important. Find out what each person does and how their job relates to yours. Ask for their perceptions of the strengths and challenges of your department or division. See what you can learn about the culture and the politics of the organization, what facilitates good working arrangements and what impedes them. At the end of each meeting, ask who else the person thinks you should know. Keep mental or written notes on what each person tells you in order to compare and contrast information, and form a fuller picture of the job you’ve taken and the company you’ve joined. The final element of this onboarding plan is to establish and maintain credibility. The previous elements – purposeful learning, a thoughtful assessment of your fitness for the job, and building key relationships – are really the first steps toward establishing credibility. Beyond these, the task is best described in terms of what not to do as well as what to do. People have a tendency to think we have to do something and do it quickly to demonstrate value. In most new jobs, however, just doing something without some amount of learning and relationship building can have the exact opposite effect. Michael Watkins calls this an “action imperative,” which can set in motion a vicious cycle of making uninformed decisions that undermine a new manager’s credibility and damage relationships. When this happens, people don’t trust the new person or see them as approachable so they don’t give them feedback or
information, leading them to continue to make poor decisions. The truth is that people don’t expect a new manager to know everything at the beginning and they are more likely to respect and admire one who arrives on the scene with intelligent questions, keen observations, and strong active listening skills. Using these three tools creates a virtuous cycle that leads to “actionable insight,” which is gathering sufficient information to make better decisions and take smarter actions allowing you to enjoy early successes. In addition, the fact that you’ve asked others for input strengthens the impression that you’re making considered choices and leads to people trusting that they can share feedback and information with you, which helps you continue to make good decisions and enjoy additional successes. Of course, the nature of the job you’re taking affects the definition of “sufficient information.” In some situations, time is compressed and you may be expected to make decisions with more ambiguity than in other situations where taking more time is actually critical. The common denominator is using the time you have purposefully to learn as much as you can in order to make the most considered decisions and take the best actions possible given the company and the specific job situation that you are navigating. Moving into a new job is always a professional gamble but success is not purely chance. By proactively planning and managing your onboarding through your new company’s established program and/or creating your own increases your odds of meeting or exceeding the expectations of the new role, as well as achieving your own career goals.
About the Authors Madelynn Macur Brousil is the retired manager of Executive Development for Walgreens Company, now a division of Walgreens Boots Alliance. In her final six years there, she managed the executive onboarding program. She also helped to design, develop, and deliver the award-winning executive learning program, “Leading Well at Walgreens,” and developed and managed the protocol for leadership coaching. She has a bachelor’s in education and certifications in G.R.O.W. Coaching training (Inside Out Development), CultureTrack training (Partners in Leadership), and several commercial multi-rater (360) feedback instruments. She can be reached via LinkedIn. Jennifer Zukerman, MBA, is a Walgreens University senior learning consultant for Walgreens Company, a division of Walgreens Boots Alliance. In her time with Walgreen Co., she has held several roles in HR including talent acquisition, learning, and talent management. Her current work at Walgreens University focuses on learning strategy and design. She has had the opportunity to develop several onboarding programs including an executive onboarding program and department onboarding programs. She can be reached at Jennifer.zukerman@walgreens.com.
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Employee Engagement
Moving from Doing to Knowing – Improving Employee Engagement By Tony DeAscentis, VING
According to Deloitte’s Global Human Capital Trends 2016, a global survey of more than 7,000 HR and business leaders from 130 countries, employee engagement continues to be a challenge for businesses, with 48 percent of this year’s survey respondents citing it as very important. The demands and expectations of today’s diverse, multigenerational, mobile workforce requires a more flexible, employee-centric work environment, one which companies are just beginning to learn to develop. In this new world of “alwaysconnected” employees, the barriers between work and life have been all but eliminated. Employees are hyper-connected to their jobs through pervasive mobile technology, which can have a negative impact on their productivity and morale. One of the takeaways from the research is the fact that “doing more” is not enough. Today companies have to manage people differently and re-engineer human capital practices. The critical trends shaping the human capital agenda were identified and organized into three broad areas: lead and develop; attract and engage; and transform and reinvent. Organizations are doing a poor job of helping workers address information overload, as more than half of all HR executives surveyed rated their capability to help employees manage information as “weak” or “average.” There are two sides to managing information. One side is that of organizing information. There are great tools out there that help you keep organized or manage the information that is sent to you in a way that you can quickly retrieve it. However, being organized isn’t necessarily the Holy Grail – and it doesn’t mean that the information shared is either effective or engaging. If someone shares an email or a document and the
respondent files it for quick access later, chances are they are not engaged. The second side is accountability, which lies with the sender of the information. The challenge in most digital workplaces is that oftentimes, “information sharer” turns to his or her favorite tool that enables rapid fire share, the “check-thebox,” done – okay, I’ve shared it – did my part. But what about understanding the most effective way to share with the workforce for maximum engagement, to ensure that the information you’re sending won’t become noise? In this case, “knowing more” is equally important, if not more important, than “doing more.” Knowing who reads the email, who responds to the communications, who opens the document and most importantly, what actions are taken in regards to the content of the communications is key to improving engagement. We see “people analytics” as an accelerating trend — part of a new set of critical skills for HR, business, and leadership. Companies that take the time and make the investment to build analytics capabilities focused on communications and engagement will likely outperform their competitors significantly in the coming years. Too much access to information has turned workers into “overwhelmed” employees. Nearly every company sees this phenomenon as a challenge to productivity and overall performance, but struggles to handle it. The reality of the situation is that in recent years, we’ve seen a huge influx of tools available to help us share information and get things done. Yet, there comes a point when people overshare. In our personal lives, we capture everything on video or we take photos and post immediately to social media, text
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everything, chat, etc. This cultural phenomenon has carried over into the workforce, as tools very similar to those used in our social life have crept into our daily work lives. Employees are sharing information and documents in a rapid fire manner – and the workforce can’t keep up. The result is everyone is sharing, even if it isn’t relevant to the person on the other end. So then what happens is that the person on the other end – the recipient – begins sifting and sorting and falls victim to information overload, which may result in important messages getting deleted or overlooked and forgotten. How can we pay attention to “understanding” whether the information is beneficial or a hindrance? Is all this sharing really helping us? Or is it hindering us? HR leaders can help reduce information overload by making sure they are sending relevant information to the right employee, at the right time. One way to improve employee communications is through interactive tools. When people have the tools to convey information in the format that is most appropriate, they are more likely to fully absorb the intended message. However, as effective as interactive tools can be in the workplace, companies need to be careful that they are not contributing to the information overload issue in another way. Just because someone sends a video message does not mean that it is effective. Certainly one can find statistics on just about any communication medium and its effectiveness. The challenge is no one has time to dig for this information and then translate it into application for the message they want to send right now. The result is that a very small percentage of a workforce is going to do this – maybe as a one off, but rarely as ongoing basis. In comes technology. The following are some examples of how interactive tools can be applied in the workplace to improve communications:
•
Video is a useful tool for engaging employees and improving message retention, and can be used to share onboarding, orientation, and training materials, as well as connecting with remote employees.
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Audio messages can be used to ensure a complex set of directions is more easily understood and acted upon.
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Surveys can be conducted among employees after sending out an important document, such as a strategy or compliance update, to gauge their understanding and encourage feedback.
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Tracking messages can help measure engagement levels, and what impact the content is having and how individual messages performed.
We live in a rapidly moving, globalized, decentralized workforce world, where internal and external information is bombarding us from all angles. What the Deloitte report reveals is spoton – too much access to information has turned productive, informed employees into an overwhelmed, even confused workforce. As leaders and managers, it is our job to help our teams understand that information sharing is key. That knowing is as important, if not vital, as doing. With technology available everywhere that promotes rapid-fire sharing, we have reason to pause, think, and ask the question: How will this information help me and my team or others move forward and achieve the goal at hand – or am I just contributing to the noise? By closing the digital communications gap with more knowledge and understanding of what works and what doesn’t, more and more companies will create a more engaged, responsive, and collaborative work environment.
About the Author Tony DeAscentis, CEO of Ving, has more than 20 years of combined global business, IT, and technology experience, with three successful startups under his belt. Ving is an emerging technology startup that leverages today’s most current and entrenched tech tools for engaging students and parents, and aims at increasing the connection between the teacher, student, and their home. Prior to Ving, he was vice president of Marketing at Turning Technology, a global leader for learning engagement and assessment services focused on measurably improving teaching and learner success. While at Turning Technologies, he helped transform their Student Response Systems into a global force. He established partnerships with Thompson Publishing and McGraw Hill to bring student response to universities nationwide, and Intel foundation, which introduced technology into the k-12 and higher education system. He has spoken at multiple trade shows both nationally and statewide on the importance of emerging tech in the classroom to ensure student engagement. He can be reached on Twitter @vingapp.
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The Back Story
Getting HR Right: Are We Making Any Progress? By Katherine Jones, Ph.D., Mercer The trouble with doing research is you get answers. Consider: Eighty five percent of organizations participating in a recent global Mercer study1 say that their talent management programs and policies are in need of an overhaul. And only four percent of the surveyed HR professionals reported that HR is viewed as a strategic business partner in their organizations. Now, these statistics are likely not surprising – in fact, they are remarkably similar to past results – and that is my point. Why haven’t we gotten better? Is HR delivering the workforce needed today – and can it deliver the workforce of tomorrow? Let’s back up and look at the environment. There is so-so economic growth and a shrinking working age population across most of the world impacting employers looking for the talent they need to fuel growth. But, the issue isn’t simply a lack of available talent – as we know, unemployment remains high in many countries today. Rather, the issue is a lack of the right talent where and when it is needed to drive competitive advantage and deliver results to the business. In particular, demand continues to outstrip the supply of people with needed analytic leadership and people development, and certain technical skills. Also, in short supply are those with the skills to manage in complex, global organizations, especially in industries facing the prospect of disruptive innovation. In this climate of talent scarcity and globalization, employers understand that their talent strategies are increasingly dependent on their ability to leverage people globally from different genders, ages, races, and backgrounds.
Top-Five Challenges Identified in the Mercer 2016 Workforce Trends Study
Mercer’s study asked what trends were likely to prove the most impactful in their organizations. Here is what the HR leadership reported: 1. Rising competition for talent from emerging economies; 2. Talent scarcity; 3. Leveraging an increasingly diverse labor pool;
4. Here we had a tie: big data management and managing a multigenerational workforce; and, 5. World-sourcing: hiring talent from locations around the globe. These trends vary regionally. Organizations in India, North America and Asia—including one out of three organizations in Japan and Hong Kong—are greatly concerned about the impact of talent scarcity and the resulting increase in the competition for talent. European companies, in contrast, are more sanguine about the availability of needed talent, with only 10 percent of European organizations listing talent scarcity as the top trend expected to impact them this year. The slowing economic conditions in Europe have led to less talent migration in and out of businesses – a double-edged sword. On the one hand, this ensures stability of talent pools and helps with institutional knowledge. On the other hand, it leaves a stagnant middle as one in four employees are staying due to a lack of outside opportunities. Key Factoids • Nine out of ten of employers surveyed anticipate that the competition for talent will further increase in 2016 – and more than one-third expect that increase to be significant. •
Employees are three times more likely to name “more/better training” than any other choice when asked about the one thing their organizations can do to improve their work experience.
•
Employers and employees, in large part, agree on which skills will be in highest demand in the next 12 months. Inspirational leadership and people development topped the list, along with analytical skills, innovation, and building a global mindset.
Eighty-two percent of participating organizations say they plan to increase promoting talent from within, which makes development a clear priority. Here is a big “whoops” – current apwww.ihrim.org • Workforce Solutions Review • May 2016
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Source: Mercer 2016 Workforce Trends Study, 2016.
Endnotes
1 Mercer’s 2016 Global Talent Trends Study examines the top trends impacting today’s workforce and how organizations are responding, incorporating the views of both employers and employees on key workplace issues and priorities. http:// www.mercer.com/newsroom/globaltalent-trends-2016.html 2 http://www.wsj.com/articles/ how-demographics-rule-the-globaleconomy-1448203724
About the Author Dr. Katherine Jones is a partner and director of Research at Mercer in Talent Information Solutions. With both academic and technology industry experience, she has been a high-tech market analyst for 18 years. Her doctoral degree is from Cornell University. She can be reached at Katherine.Jones@mercer. com or @katherine_jones.
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proaches are falling short. Only one-quarter of employees globally believe that their organization is doing enough to keep their skills relevant, and nearly one-third say their employer is doing little or nothing. Furthermore, only 25 percent of companies strongly agree that they have a robust method for identifying those employees with potential.
When Employees Give Grades
Employees – more than 4,500 of them around the world – provided grades in a variety of managerial and HR areas that affect them at work. The chart above gives just a subset (percentages do not add up to 100 percent because of rounding, and those few who responded, “I don’t know”). There were more F’s than A’s, more D’s than B’s, and mainly C’s, which generally means “average” (it won’t get you into grad school!). It seems that HR and managers are stuck in neutral; if we put this data on a bell curve, the low grades skew the bell to the negative.
The Mandate for 2016
We face a need for some substantial changes from HR. The first step may be in improving operational capabilities, not just around sourcing and development, but also in HR’s ability to flex programs to the needs of a diverse workforce. And, here is a chal-
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lenge: We all know the importance of the manager to an employee’s development and retention, but maybe it is time to review the deeply entrenched view that talent belongs to a manager or department, not the organization as a whole, which holds back an organization’s capacity to build its talent capital from within. I am sure HR professionals are sick of directives to become more analytical, even though big data appeared fourth in the impactful trends rankings. But, let’s just look at the middle-sized data HR has in hand that is equally, if not more, impactful to the organization – and it is often data that doesn’t require a statistics degree to decipher. Let’s try to answer questions such as: How many women coming into the organization as midmanagers get promoted and after how long on the job? What sources are best for increasing the diversity we seek? What key skills do we need to develop in our workforce today that may best support the company goals in the future – knowing first what potential we have to work with in house? This we can do. Making decisions about talent without listening to that talent is a false economy for change. The priorities highlighted in this report are based on the perspectives of over 1,730 HR leaders and over 4,500 employees across 17 countries, along with the input of Mercer subject matter experts.
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