SMB to Enterprise: The HR Technology Divide (#HRTechConf)

Recently I was interviewed by a good friend from SHRM’s Public Affairs team, Mary Kaylor. She asked me a few questions about the HR Technology Conference, and you can read it all here. What I want to expound upon here is the final question in the interview. I had to be succinct in my response to her but I think it’s worth a discussion. The question that spurred today’s discussion:

As technology evolves, what do you think the future of HR will look like?

My dream is for HR to be as savvy with its technological approach and focus on data as someone within the sales and marketing organization. Ask a marketer how a campaign went, and she can tell you stats about landing page visits, conversion rates, and more.

Ask an HR leader today how a particular program is running, and they will probably give you a blank look. Okay, they might be able to give you anecdotal information or even a basic piece of information, but they can't drill down to the level of these other functions. I see this as a chicken-or-the-egg type discussion. Instead of waiting for solutions and support from the vendor community, HR leaders need to be demanding the tools and services to enable this change.

The more HR executives make data and analytics capabilities a requirement for their vendor partners, the more robust and mature those functionalities will become. HR in the future will be a technology-enabled, company-leading function that drives immense value through the people resources.

The Great Divide

One of the most striking things that hit me when I became a full-time analyst a few years ago was the divide between large and small organizations when it comes to technology. Small companies have limited solutions and budgets, often cobbling together free tools or going with the old standard for an HR system: Microsoft Excel.

There are companies that will budget something to get beyond 100% manual processes in areas like learning (training delivery/tracking) or recruiting (applicant tracking). But it’s still an ad hoc approach and is hard to prove value.

Other companies at the larger end have already reaped the rewards of that initial technology implementation (time savings, reduced admin burden, etc.) This often comes in the form of a patchwork of systems and solutions that don’t integrate well, if at all. For instance, I spoke with a friend at a large (20k+ employee) firm and the company is using five different systems just to manage end-to-end recruiting. In the words of my friend, it’s a “Frankenstein” approach to getting the job done, and it’s not even all that effective at anything other than creating frustration for users.

Smaller companies are getting into the tech game thanks to solutions like Zenefits, but it’s still just a piece of the overall HR puzzle and doesn’t solve some of the challenges around integration, data, and decision-making.

One of the areas I’ve been keenly interested in over the recent months has been the slew of small to mid-market solutions that are serving the HR community with a variety of technologies and services. I’m going to be meeting with several of these firms this week at the HR Tech conference and hope to get some good insights about how they are helping to bring these smaller firms along.

The big suites are too complex for small companies. Just like paper and manual work don’t scale up beyond a hundred or two hundred employees, the massively complex systems offered by the large providers can’t scale down to fit the process needs of a small firm (assuming we ignore the price).

My Vision for HR

I want to see HR leaders being as intentional about technology as their counterparts in other areas of the business. Marketers are smarter and faster because of their technology. Why can’t HR see these tools as enablers of performance as well? As I said before, the HR function of the future will be a technology-enabled, company-leading function that drives immense value through its people resources. I don’t think tech is going to replace people any more than processes will replace people. I think it’s going to help us to deliver greater value to the workforce and to our employers over the long haul.

What are your thoughts? How has your firm used technology to support HR? If you haven’t, why not?

Why I’m Attending an IT Conference (Advice for HR Leaders)

This week I’m in Atlanta for the Microsoft Ignite event. Yes, I see the puzzled expressions. Microsoft? IT? What am I thinking?

conferenceNo, I’m not making a career change. I’m perfectly happy where I am.

Here’s the deal. I have been to tons of events over the years, and what always surprises me is the fact that I get something out of the most unlikely places. A stray comment from a 7:00am 401k administration session at SHRM 2013 still rings in my ears when I talk about workplace retirement plans. Yes, there is something of value in pretty much every interaction, and getting outside of the normal routine is a valuable practice in general.

This week I’m going to be talking with some of the team at Microsoft, but I’m also going to be seeing sessions and exploring concepts that relate to the HR world. I’m looking for the perspective from IT leaders and one of the world’s biggest technology firms around concepts such as collaboration, productivity, and delivering business results. Hopefully all three of those ring a bell for you, since they are key pieces of creating a valuable HR function.

Now, I’m not saying you need to pack up and join me, but this ties in with a valuable concept that I’ve been advocating for quite some time. HR needs allies in the workplace. Here’s a tip for you if you’re new:

If it’s only an HR initiative, it will die.

It might seem a bit cynical, but it’s true. People have had enough of the HR programs and fads. The needs of the business rule. And HR is often seen as a blockade. A problem without a solution. A challenge or hurdle to progress.

What to Do

So you need to find some allies. Create some influence. Network a little within your organization’s walls.

One great way to get started is to find some time together with other key people in the company, and that includes people leading your technology team, your accounting/finance team, etc. Those individuals can be your most vocal detractors or your most staunch allies, depending on the time and effort you have taken to understand their needs, support their goals, and deliver high value service.

Take these people to lunch. Find out what their challenges are. Learn about their best plans and their worst fears.

This is an investment in your own influence within the organization as well. Just to clarify, this isn’t sleazy-car-salesman influence. It’s the ability to speak in a language that matters to the audience you’re with. It’s the knowledge of key issues going on that currently or will eventually have an impact on the people side of the business. It’s in your best interests to be on top of these relationships and to make them a priority.

Now, as I said, I don’t expect you to head to an IT conference or jump on a plane for the next whatever-the-heck-it-is that accounting folks go to. But you can walk down the hall and start a conversation today. Here are a few quick and easy ones:

  • I’m facing some challenges with xyz. What sort of things are keeping you up at night?
  • How are you handling xyz? It seems like it would be challenging and I want to understand your strategy.
  • What is the biggest people-related challenge you see in the next 12 months? Hiring? Development? Retention?

Everyone’s situation, company, and relationships are different, but these are just as blunt as I would put them in a forthright conversation with a peer. In fact, I’ve used several of these to create those conversational opportunities to understand the other functions within the business, what their priorities were, and how I could align the HR practices to support them.

Funny enough, that’s what we call strategic HR. I wrote a while back about one of the best leaders I ever worked for and how that relationship helped to truly clarify what the HR strategy had to look like in that organization. Remember, if it’s an HR initiative, it will die.

What relationships are valuable to you in the workplace? What do you do to offer value in return? 

How Much Is Employee Turnover Costing You?

 

employee innovation retention

I will be presenting more on this topic at the HR Innovators Virtual Conference – 2 Days, 6 Education-packed sessions from top-rated speakers covering topics critical to success today, including, millennials and culture, creating meaningful workplaces, using social media to attract talent, and how talent loss affects innovation. Register Today! Space is limited.

Years ago, I worked for an organization with a turnover problem. And this wasn't just an isolated issue—it affected a significant amount of the 700-strong workforce and created an incredible burden on the HR staff to manage the issue. Despite small efforts here and there, little was done to change the direction of the firm and it ultimately went under, unable to keep afloat amidst the constant turmoil.

Everyone knows that employee turnover is a problem, but just how much of an issue is it, really? Today we're going to explore the far-reaching nature of turnover and what it means for your organization. Anecdotally, I know that undesirable turnover can harm team morale, reduce revenue, and hamper innovation. But the data supports this as well. According to an article on ERE, the impact of turnover depends on the career level of the employee.

  • For entry-level employees, it costs between 30-50 percent of their annual salary to replace them.
  • For mid-level employees, it costs upwards of 150 percent of their annual salary to replace them.
  • For high-level or highly specialized employees, you're looking at 400 percent of their annual salary.

We know that this is a challenge, but I believe there's an even more costly aspect of turnover that most organizations don't examine: the impact on innovation.

Innovation Impacts

In 2014 Carnegie Mellon had some of the world's brightest robotics minds working on its campus. These people were focused on the bleeding edge of robotics technology and their research could have created new breakthroughs and advancements in the use of robotic technology for the betterment of mankind.

But then they left. 

In a surprise move, Uber lured the scientists away and brought them into the fold. This not only caused a blow to the university—it also affected each of us. The research that was performed at Carnegie Mellon would have certainly been published in academic journals and shared with the world, forming the basis for new breakthroughs in robotics and other fields. The research they complete at Uber? It's going to be tucked away in a proprietary database for the benefit of the company's pursuit of a robotic car fleet.

So, what does this have to do with you and your organization?

While you might not have a team of PhD-level robotics experts on staff, you do have a set of smart, intuitive professionals within your organization that are constantly creating, innovating, and experimenting. They don't have to be on a formal team or even in the same hierarchy, but they are still pursuing new ideas and opportunities just the same. If an opportunity arises to serve customers in a new way or develop a new product/service, the people with that mindset are often the originators.  

In fact, I've met quite a few HR leaders that fit this description. This comes from the fact that we as HR staff have the opportunity to see across functional and organizational lines, often discovering new methods and options for performance improvement.

Wherever this talent resides, the question remains: what do we do if one of these people leaves?

We know that it's painful to have people depart. The statistics linked above point to some of the challenges this creates, and yet the research looks mainly at the impact today, not for the future.

I'm arguing that we should see employees as appreciating assets, with a higher future value.

While it's challenging to quantify the value of innovation and to be able to predict what people are going to create, it's fairly easy to see that the future value of one of these individuals is clearly higher than the cost of their wages and benefits today. And that's my position on this topic: the long-term impacts to innovation will harm the organization much more than the loss of the person performing the job function today.

Consider this example. In the past I served as the HR Director for a global government services firm. One of our employees, a software engineer, earned approximately $70,000 per year. If that person left, we would have lost that “position,” which would have required time, effort, and resources to backfill for the unique skill set. Let's estimate that total cost to be $100,000. What's interesting is the $100,000 figure is actually a relatively minor amount when compared to the overall value of the employee and her innovative ideas.  

One day on a whim that employee developed a new method for licensing hardware and software to the government. That bloomed into a multimillion dollar product line and became a steady source of organizational revenue. However, if we only looked at the “normal” cost of turnover, we would have seen only an impact of $100,000, not several million dollars.

Want to Know the Secrets to Employee Retention?

We have defined the problem, but what about the solution? In the upcoming session I'll explore more than 20 ways to impact retention ranging from the simple steps to take today to the radical changes that separate good organizations from great ones. The ideas include:

  •         Gamifying retention
  •         Changing the ownership mentality
  •         Using an executive “save” strategy
  •         And more!

I hope you'll join me for this session so we can make employee retention a positive differentiator for your business. Click this link to register and join me at the upcoming session: How Losing Your Best Employees is Killing Innovation.

 

How to Scale Culture: Notes from #GDSummit

One of the scariest parts of having a great culture is the fear that it will shift and change in negative ways as the company grows. I can remember talking with Atlassian earlier this year, an organization that has an enviable culture and has leveraged it for incredible success. Every team at Atlassian has a person dedicated to defending the culture from poor fit hires, and these culture stewards can veto any hiring decision at any level. That’s an excellent way to help protect the culture as the organization scales up, but it’s not the only method for making it work. Today at the 2016 Glassdoor Summit, one presenter offered some amazing advice that is worth exploring.

Note: you can catch the livestream of the entire conference for free online. 

So far at the event we’ve heard from several speakers, including CEO of Glassdoor, Robert Hohman, about the value of transparency into culture. One quote this morning was particularly hard-hitting for me, and it came from Katie Burke, VP of Culture and Experience at Hubspot.

After talking about culture and the role of transparency, Katie threw out the quote above. I also believe the idea that acting on employee-generated ideas is one of the greatest ways to scale culture.

When we look at how culture is misrepresented in the media on a daily basis, it’s no surprise that HR leaders are craving a more concrete option for creating and scaling a culture that truly embodies the values and beliefs of the organization. Pick up any magazine or read any news article and you’ll quickly see that culture is purely about ping pong tables, free beer in the office fridge, and dog-friendly work spaces.

But as HR and talent leaders chase that elusive goal, they quickly become disillusioned and believe that this “culture” thing is just for the Googles and Ubers of the world.

As I pointed out in a recent Lighthouse blog around killing the traditional performance management approach, it’s critical for companies to point out culture in behavioral terms so that people have a concrete idea of what culture really means. But what about this concept of innovation, especially the type that is employee-driven?

Innovation, Engagement, and Culture

Innovation is not a new topic, but it’s one that is not often discussed in relation to the way we engage employees. The people throughout the organization are closest to the work, and they often have the best ideas for how to innovate and create new value. Therefore, innovation can be used as a valuable metric of engagement.

How many employee-generated ideas do you implement in a given year? One? One hundred? One thousand? Because it matters to your employees, and it's an opportunity to improve business performance.

Last year I read The Idea-Driven Organization and thoroughly enjoyed the book. The main concept was the power of listening to employee suggestions, giving them serious consideration, and implementing them when feasible.

It's fundamental, really. We all know that we should be listening to our employees. That goes without saying. However, the next step is actively soliciting input and then acting upon it. Instead of ignoring or fearing employee input, go the extra mile to encourage them to provide suggestions. The authors share a story that I think is a powerful reminder of this.

Employees at a bar had the opportunity to provide input on their jobs by submitting ideas. There were few, if any restrictions on the type of ideas, so one might expect them to pick some that made their work easier. But it turns out that was often associated with an improvement in the customer experience as well.

For instance, instead of having to carry a massive carton of empty bottles down to the cellar when it filled up, they installed a chute at the back of the bar for empty bottles to slide down to the cellar unassisted. This decreased the risk of workplace injuries from walking down stairs with heavy objects, improved customer service by not pulling away a service employee during a busy shift, and allowed bartenders to monitor and discard the empty bottles unassisted.

Even if nothing else came from these ideas other than the improved customer service results, it would be worthwhile. Yet it also improved the engagement levels of the employees by eliminating a non-value- added task from their daily work.

Another great example is from a former employer of mine. We used a “The Big Ideas Database,” which is a grandiose title for a spreadsheet. Any employee could share an idea through the web form and it would be considered by leadership for implementation.

Many of the ideas were actually acted upon. Some were quite minor (larger garbage bags in the break room), but others were considerably more important (repurposing/licensing a piece of software led to an additional $2 million in sales annually). Employees were actually excited about sharing ideas via the platform as a way to drive innovation and continuously serve customers better.

And, as with the previous story, it drove their engagement as well.

Want to create a culture of innovation and high performance? Focus on seeking out employee feedback and acting upon it. It’s powerful fuel for organizational performance and can be a significant competitive advantage if implemented properly.

Does your organization encourage employees to share ideas? Have you ever considered the effect on engagement or culture when an employee’s idea is implemented? 

Two Employee Engagement Secrets Nobody Ever Mentions

It seems that we can't turn around today without having a conversation that touches on employee engagement. Yet despite all the attention, it hasn't really moved the needle. In one graphic (click through the link below to explore), pulled from Google Trends, you can see the level of interest in employee engagement for over ten years.

The interest level peaked in 2016, and if the trend continues, it will expand beyond its current levels by the end of the year. But to what end? Gallup's regular research into engagement points out a fairly dismal picture, and companies are trying to improve this measure to no avail.

I'm going to offer two answers to this problem that not only illuminate the issue, but give you some options to consider as you try to combat the pervasive issue of disengaged employees.

  1. Engagement is not a program. It’s a long-term, intentional set of practices.
  2. Engagement is not an outcome. It may lead to outcomes, but it shouldn’t be the end goal in itself.

Click here to read the rest of the article on the PeopleStrategy blog

Recruiting Analytics, Ownership, and Accountability (New Podcast)

Today the second episode of We’re Only Human aired on the HR Happy Hour Podcast Network. The show is focused on recruiting analytics, owners, and accountability. My guest for this show is Kristina Minyard, the Senior Talent Manager at Ignite. During the show we covered some of the interesting aspects that separate staffing and corporate recruiting as well as some of the common challenges and opportunities for recruiting leaders.

Show Notes

Episode 2: Recruiting as a Service

The We’re Only Human show was created in part to help showcase the personal aspects of the employment relationship, and recruiting pulls in a variety of opportunities to explore those interpersonal relations. Despite changes in technology and strategy, many organizations are struggling to find the right talent. Is it about picking the right tools, or is there a more fundamental issue at play with the hiring manager, recruiter, and candidate interplay?

In this episode of We’re Only Human, host Ben Eubanks interviews Kristina Minyard, Senior Talent manager at Ignite. The focus of the conversation encompasses the candidate experience, how to develop a partnership with hiring managers, and some radical thinking around ownership of recruiting metrics. Ben references the recent Lighthouse study around the Modern Measures of Success in Talent Acquisition which can be found at the link below.

Modern Measures Research:
http://lhra.io/get-report-barriers-talent-acquisition-measurement/

Kristina’s information:
Twitter: http://twitter.com/HRecruit
HR Pockets Blog: http://hrpockets.com

How Public Health Can Benefit from Mobile Technology

One of the main functions of public health officials is to notify the general public if there are any products that have been contaminated, pandemics that are spreading quickly or actually any risks or potential health risks which they may be facing. Because they are tasked with informing the public if there are any risks whatsoever, it is their duty to make sure the word gets out timely and to the right people who ‘need to know.' This is where technology comes into the picture and based on today's culture, mobile technology is probably the best platform to use.

Why the Emphasis on Mobile Technology?

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