I listened to Bill Kutik’s radio show with Adam Miller, CEO at Cornerstone on demand. They talked about the inevitable strong future of SaaS because of such things like shared infrastructure, faster implementation, lower maintenance costs, and so on.
I had checked this company’s website out recently and I feel this podcast was a good way to get to know a little more about them, especially their philanthropic side (Cornerstone on Demand foundation). I completely agree with the idea that talent management involves the entire employee cycle, from sourcing to on-boarding, to developing and even networking with alumni. If employees are the core of the business, why don’t look for the right ones and develop their skills to the maximum? Why the acquiring of TM solutions is so slow both in the profit and non-profit sector? I definitely, liked the company when they mentioned they have given their software and IT expertise to non-profit foundations to help them achieve their mission through empowering their people’s talent management!
Thursday, May 13, 2010
Some factors to be considered when buying a Talent Management System
As part of our HRIS class we’ve seen how important is to get executive support to be successful with the acquisition and deployment of a talent management system. Currently, I’m supporting my HR team doing research about several recruitment solutions. Reading “Buying a Talent Management System, The 11 Key Steps to Success” a whitepaper written by Knowledge Infusion and Cornerstone on Demand, I linked all the steps in our charter assignment and these companies’ recommendations which are:
1.Establish objectives, respond to the question: What are you trying to accomplish?
2.Win executive support, this is critical to make the change happen or not.
3.Assemble a project team, define who is involved and include key parties in the org.
4.Define requirements, validate existing processes and leverage vendor best practices.
5.Establish a preliminary timeline and resource requirements, implement only what you need!
6.Prepare a business case, what will be the business impact?
7.Establish a budget, understand your budget process and consider direct and indirect costs.
8.Evaluate solutions, consider solutions based on the org’s culture and needs.
9.Select a vendor, ask questions! Involve HR and IT parties.
10.Negotiate the contract, don’t focus only on money, negotiate service levels too.
11.Begin implementation, be aware of your scope all the time, and communicate!
Wow! All these steps require strong Project Management skills. Actually, without experienced project managers who keep their eyes on resources, timelines and focus, the implementation would be a complete failure. I even got motivated to continue working on my charter… stay tuned!
1.Establish objectives, respond to the question: What are you trying to accomplish?
2.Win executive support, this is critical to make the change happen or not.
3.Assemble a project team, define who is involved and include key parties in the org.
4.Define requirements, validate existing processes and leverage vendor best practices.
5.Establish a preliminary timeline and resource requirements, implement only what you need!
6.Prepare a business case, what will be the business impact?
7.Establish a budget, understand your budget process and consider direct and indirect costs.
8.Evaluate solutions, consider solutions based on the org’s culture and needs.
9.Select a vendor, ask questions! Involve HR and IT parties.
10.Negotiate the contract, don’t focus only on money, negotiate service levels too.
11.Begin implementation, be aware of your scope all the time, and communicate!
Wow! All these steps require strong Project Management skills. Actually, without experienced project managers who keep their eyes on resources, timelines and focus, the implementation would be a complete failure. I even got motivated to continue working on my charter… stay tuned!
Saturday, May 8, 2010
Social Network Analysis
According to a white paper titled “Tapping the power of social networking to manage talent” written by Saba in partnership with Human Capital Institute, Social Network Analysis (SNA) is the mapping and measuring of flows of knowledge between people, groups, organizations or other components like computers linked on the web.
Why does SNA matter to an HR person? SNA is supposed to improve talent management and employee performance. SNA can be used to build Corporate Social Networking (CSN) which plays an essential role in mapping relationships at work. Once, HR understands those relationships, human performance can be motivated, shaped, manipulated, in order to achieve employee/business success. It is well known that the knowledge of who the agents of change are in a group is valuable; it is even more valued to take some action with that knowledge. Web 2.0 technology eases the analysis of networking and its impact on talent management, especially in mid to large size companies, where HR cannot get to know every employee.
Once a company implements and facilitates to its employees/customers/candidates an online place to share and interact with each other, HR can deploy an strategy to improve recruiting, on-boarding, leadership development, retention and evaluation. SNA results can be represented in flowcharts, graphs, roadmaps, and so on, which contain key connections useful to design and deploy engagement programs like mentoring or leaderships trainings. From a strategic HR perspective it was motivating to read how technology can be used to make more informed decisions when managing talent.
Why does SNA matter to an HR person? SNA is supposed to improve talent management and employee performance. SNA can be used to build Corporate Social Networking (CSN) which plays an essential role in mapping relationships at work. Once, HR understands those relationships, human performance can be motivated, shaped, manipulated, in order to achieve employee/business success. It is well known that the knowledge of who the agents of change are in a group is valuable; it is even more valued to take some action with that knowledge. Web 2.0 technology eases the analysis of networking and its impact on talent management, especially in mid to large size companies, where HR cannot get to know every employee.
Once a company implements and facilitates to its employees/customers/candidates an online place to share and interact with each other, HR can deploy an strategy to improve recruiting, on-boarding, leadership development, retention and evaluation. SNA results can be represented in flowcharts, graphs, roadmaps, and so on, which contain key connections useful to design and deploy engagement programs like mentoring or leaderships trainings. From a strategic HR perspective it was motivating to read how technology can be used to make more informed decisions when managing talent.
Friday, May 7, 2010
Recruitment solutions shopping
I'm looking for a recruiting solution for a small company. I have a few good options that I'll present to my colleagues in a few days. When I was looking for solutions, I found there are several companies that offer their talent management packages only to mid size or large organizations. The search is narrower when we are talking about 50+ employee companies, I understand why. Anyway, my archaic system is becoming less useful and it is ridiculously time-consuming.
During my research, I've noticed that it is not only the quality of the platform that you use to do your recruitment what brings success or failure to your process, instead the culture and management style at your company have the biggest impact in the implementation of a new system.
Recruitment is not an isolated event, it exists because of reasons like turnover, restructuring that creates new positions or eliminates current ones, etc... Recruitment is part of talent management and has to be addressed the whole phenomenon. Business success includes talent acquisition, management, deployment and it is very important to handle the talent pool and work on succession planning. I hope to convey this need to my team in a few days...
During my research, I've noticed that it is not only the quality of the platform that you use to do your recruitment what brings success or failure to your process, instead the culture and management style at your company have the biggest impact in the implementation of a new system.
Recruitment is not an isolated event, it exists because of reasons like turnover, restructuring that creates new positions or eliminates current ones, etc... Recruitment is part of talent management and has to be addressed the whole phenomenon. Business success includes talent acquisition, management, deployment and it is very important to handle the talent pool and work on succession planning. I hope to convey this need to my team in a few days...
Learning 2.0
A few months ago, I was one of those people who refused online learning. I used to say I'm a classroom learner, I wouldn't take an online class. I've changed so much since I'm taking this HRIS class. Now, I'm all about technology!
I understand that you don't need to go miles away to be able to network with your classmates. You really get to know well your peers using all these Web 2.0 tools. Now, I even think it is more efficient to keep in touch with your colleagues and subject matter experts through virtual conversations and online knowledge sharing than other traditional methods.
Reading a blog, I found an article written by SABA (people management solution enterprise) about learning 2.0. This document mentions that informal learning is becoming more relevant in organizations and consists of a natural collective participation of sharing and acquisition of knowledge that occurs outside of classrooms.
Globalization is strengthening informal learning through Web 2.0 technologies. People are able to get the information that they want in real time. At the same time, there is an increasing need to be a better consumer of knowledge. There is more supply of information, therefore, it is more important to be selective and to have the motivation to go out there and do smart searches and contributions.
I understand that you don't need to go miles away to be able to network with your classmates. You really get to know well your peers using all these Web 2.0 tools. Now, I even think it is more efficient to keep in touch with your colleagues and subject matter experts through virtual conversations and online knowledge sharing than other traditional methods.
Reading a blog, I found an article written by SABA (people management solution enterprise) about learning 2.0. This document mentions that informal learning is becoming more relevant in organizations and consists of a natural collective participation of sharing and acquisition of knowledge that occurs outside of classrooms.
Globalization is strengthening informal learning through Web 2.0 technologies. People are able to get the information that they want in real time. At the same time, there is an increasing need to be a better consumer of knowledge. There is more supply of information, therefore, it is more important to be selective and to have the motivation to go out there and do smart searches and contributions.
Wednesday, May 5, 2010
Social networking used to recruit talent
“Social networking: how it changed networking and the next generation of online tools” is the title of a white paper published by Taleo. The document made me think of the two sides that recruiters face looking for job applicants in the cloud, one side is the broad availability of candidates and the other side is the overwhelming from hundreds or thousands of unqualified applicants. We all know that there are millions of people looking for jobs, recruiters need to understand how to filter information in order to get the right candidates; fortunately technology helps.
Social networking is still growing, there are people who haven’t tried sites like LinkedIn, Twitter, and so on; therefore, they won’t be found by recruiters using social media; there are traditional recruiting methods still in use, but for how long?. It seems like in the future almost everyone will be using social media and this technology will play an essential role in finding jobs/applicants. We as HR professionals have to be prepared to sort the huge amounts of information that we’ll be getting and we need to learn those technology applications that will make our work more efficient.
I recommend this white paper as a way to learn all those websites that people use; I found particularly interesting the fact that certain groups of people use some websites that are completely unknown by people with other characteristics. This knowledge might be useful when looking for candidates and at the same time we should keep in mind that we don’t want to violate equal employment opportunity regulations.
Social networking is still growing, there are people who haven’t tried sites like LinkedIn, Twitter, and so on; therefore, they won’t be found by recruiters using social media; there are traditional recruiting methods still in use, but for how long?. It seems like in the future almost everyone will be using social media and this technology will play an essential role in finding jobs/applicants. We as HR professionals have to be prepared to sort the huge amounts of information that we’ll be getting and we need to learn those technology applications that will make our work more efficient.
I recommend this white paper as a way to learn all those websites that people use; I found particularly interesting the fact that certain groups of people use some websites that are completely unknown by people with other characteristics. This knowledge might be useful when looking for candidates and at the same time we should keep in mind that we don’t want to violate equal employment opportunity regulations.
Friday, April 30, 2010
Recruitment solutions
I’ve been doing research on talent management technology and I’m glad Jun mentioned Mr. Ted which seems to be potential software to bring at work. My organization has 55 people and it has been challenging to find options that offer services to small companies. As I shared in class, my recruitment system is quite archaic and time-consuming; I think the lack of a serious recruitment platform gets pricey in the long-term because we use skilled people to do automatic tasks like reviewing and entering resumes manually.
People who are familiar with HR know that workforce is becoming more diverse and mobile. There is a current trend of changing jobs every two or three years, therefore, recruitment becomes a priority at work. Talent acquiring, deployment, management and evaluation are a necessity to be in line with business strategy. I need to bring change to my paper system. Some of the advantages of Mr. Ted are streamlining the recruitment process, identification of talent base, communicating open positions internally and externally, and so on. Mr. Ted offers integration with other HR software like payroll applications. At the end I need an integral solution, some kind of system that speaks to its various components. That’s my story… and this class has been a good start!
People who are familiar with HR know that workforce is becoming more diverse and mobile. There is a current trend of changing jobs every two or three years, therefore, recruitment becomes a priority at work. Talent acquiring, deployment, management and evaluation are a necessity to be in line with business strategy. I need to bring change to my paper system. Some of the advantages of Mr. Ted are streamlining the recruitment process, identification of talent base, communicating open positions internally and externally, and so on. Mr. Ted offers integration with other HR software like payroll applications. At the end I need an integral solution, some kind of system that speaks to its various components. That’s my story… and this class has been a good start!
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