Posts for "Human Resources"

Workforce management, an amorphous amalgamation of services and functions that are often partially or fully subsumed under the titles of HRMS and ERP is undergoing a rapid and irreversible change in 2013. As previously distinct business software packages widen their influence to create Venn diagrams of interconnected, integrated, and downright redundant systems, new demands are being made of both the technology itself and of the people responsible for its selection, maintenance, and use. As we will see through this survey of the biggest industry trends in 2013, the question is no longer what the positive effect of a single change ... READ MORE

Explicitly or implicitly, talent management is somewhere between being diligently measured and nigh on neglected by every business in existence. Especially for small businesses, talent management has traditionally amounted to the boss’s keen eye for the right candidate, but the advent of SaaS has leveled the playing field such that there is no longer a scale or cost-based excuse for lacking a structured talent management system. As Sylvia Vorhauser-Smith cites in her recent article “Talent Management’s Perfect Storm”, “Bersin by Deloitte point to the technology trends that are enabling a new generation of HR professionals: the commoditization of talent management ... READ MORE

I'm tired of the debate on telecommuting. I’ve seen the data, and the answer is clear: Work-from-home employees are less efficient. It isn’t even close. Here are just some of the things we found at Enkata when we analyzed worforce performance data: Higher Productivity: People who come into the office just get more done.  In one data set, office based workers were 50% more productive than people at home. Maybe they’re learning from their peers. Or maybe they just have a better idea of what is expected of them. Bottom line is more output per work hour. Lower idle time: Don’t blame water ... READ MORE

Does your organization have a self-service system employees can use to check up on the status of all their employee benefits and policies? If the system exists, is it intuitive enough to use that people actually use it? UK-based Octopus, a privately owned, domestically focused vendor in a segment filled with big-name acquisitions, has crafted a SaaS HR solution geared towards smaller businesses and enterprises which addresses intuitiveness gap. In this interview with Director Paul Beaumont we learned how Octopus uses client feedback and preemption of latent trends to guide the ongoing growth of its product. Was there a specific HR issue ... READ MORE

In an industry inundated with dry segment names, Governance, Risk management and Compliance (GRC) may be one of the most prosaic of them all. However, the name belies the fact that many companies use this software as their means of training and tracking employees on their core values. We sat down with Patrick Quinlan and Philip Winterburn, CEO and chief product officer of Convercent, respectively, about how their new brand of compliance software speaks to a world where more and more companies are placing their values and ethics at the forefront of what they do. What was the inspiration behind Convercent? Patrick Quinlan ... READ MORE

What are the secrets of companies that manage to bring disruptive innovation to market? I often argue that you cannot plan for disruptive or breakthrough innovation, but you can definitely create the right framework and conditions for this to happen. But what if there is some secret sauce that can inspire others? What would this look like? I do not have the answer for this so in this post, I would like to start a discussion aimed at finding some common denominators for bringing disruptive or breakthrough innovation to market. Here are some discussion starters: Develop arms-length structures: You cannot create disruptive innovation within the ... READ MORE

Software covers so many bases in the modern enterprise, making countless administrative processes easier for the manager.  It tracks people’s hours, pay, absences, progress, aspirations, benefits, training, productivity and so on, greatly improving administrative efficiency for most businesses.  But while computers have streamlined so many administrative tasks in the last twenty years, employee satisfaction has decreased significantly.  So have we lost sight of something important, some element of human nature that is not working so well in the computerized business environment?  And what can software do to re-humanize the workplace so that satisfaction goes back up, people can work well ... READ MORE

Data is everywhere. Big or small, external or internal, every company seems to be feverishly hunting for the next piece of cold, hard data that will finally give them the answer that will point their company in the right direction. Just take a look at the Google Trends graph for the term ‘analytics’ which went from a virtual flatline in 2005 to nearly spiking off the charts in 2013. It might have begun in the sales world, but the desire for more metrics has come to dominate conversations about efficiency in all departments, and human resources is no exception. If all ... READ MORE

A trend noted by Andrew Razeghi and Jeanne Meister that began in 2012 and has come to pervade HR strategy discussions in 2013 is that of the so-called “social economy”--a change in attitude across industries that suggests visibility and influence are now more valuable to a potential employer than a laundry list of invisible accomplishments. Tied up in the discussion is social media analytics tool Klout which aggregates all of your social media accounts to provide an estimated assessment of your potential reach to a given audience. While social media is undeniably an increasingly important part of business interactions, the ... READ MORE

I've been wearing my earbuds while working out on the treadmill lately, to keep out the random noise of the gym. Lately I've taken to blasting a bit of the music of my generation through them. Who knew the Rolling Stones could be so good for motivation? But, after hearing Mick complain for about the fortieth time that he was not getting any satisfaction, I thought to myself: "Gee. Maybe his job just isn't a good fit for his Role." For any readers who don't immediately get what I mean, a person's Role (as identified by our 'technology of teaming') describes the ... READ MORE