WSR July 2016 by IHRIM Publication

July 2016

The Official Journal of the International Association for Human Resource Information Management

THE HCM INDUSTRY:

PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE

See the WSR Mid-Year Source Buyers Guide on Pages 29-31

IHRIM.ORG

Contents

Volume 7, Number 4 • July 2016

features Mid-Year Source Buyers Guide

Pages 29-31

columns From the Editors

By Shawn Fitzgerald, David Gabriel and Scott Bolman

Executive Interview

Lenny Mendonca, director emeritus of McKinsey & Company and co-founder of FUSE Corps

Manager: Take Accountability for Onboarding

By Ted Bauer, thecontextofthings.com

Critical Skills Every HR Technologist Needs by 2026

By Dave Weisbeck, Visier

Predictive Analytics

By Greta Roberts, Talent Analytics, Corp.

Building a sophisticated analytics team in HR – one that proactively addresses potential threats to the workforce – and providing this function with cloud applied big data tools and effective ways of triaging simple requests can enable those HR technologists with potential to shine.

Wi-Fi: Costs vs. Benefits

By Patricia R. Hume, iPass, Inc.

The Future of Feedback: Frequent, Candid, and Entirely More Effective

By Jim Barnett and Goutham Kurra, Glint

Executive Interview

By adopting feedback practices that are more frequent, more candid, and more focused on development and growth, leading organizations today will see significant returns in improved organizational effectiveness.

Jill Beckman, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Kansas City

HR Organizational Structure – Past, Present, and Future

By Dr. Katherine Jones, Mercer

The Back Story

By Roy Altman, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center Tools now exist to model our work in ways that more accurately reflect how work gets done, allowing us to discover new ways of optimizing the workforce. HR software needs to catch up with this need, and offer more flexible ways of representing the relationships between workers.

Five Changes Companies Need to Make in Their HR Strategies Now

By Andee Harris, HighGround Instead of simply checking a box once a year, tallying years of service, or assuming all managers know how to lead a team, it’s up to HR to create a new process – one that will actually result in employees reaching their goals and help organizations do a better job of attracting and retaining the best talent.

The HCM Industry: Transitional or Transformative?

By Nov Omana, Collective HR Solutions, Inc. Human Resources needs to rethink their role and guide the organizations into transformative channels. I believe that technology will continue to push HR to evolve, moving into unheard of directions, reframing the workforce and their needs. and thus challenging HR to adapt or perish.

Objects in Mirror are Behind You: Microservices and the Consumer-capable Platform-as-a-Service

By Bennett Reddin, CloudMills Human Resources Platform-as-a-Service, especially powered by Microservices, may seem a theoretical (and fairly technical!) dream at the moment, but we can anticipate product announcements and releases coming in the near term. We’ll once again see previous architectures beginning to recede in the rear view.

Talent Management Maturity: High-Performing Organizations Invest in a Relationship with their Talent By Stacia Sherman Garr, Bersin by Deloitte, Deloitte Consulting LLP The first step for any organization is to understand its current level of maturity. After that, the organization should focus on strengthening foundational talent management practices, developing a business-aligned talent strategy, and investing in critical differentiating talent management practices.

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 • July 2016

Volume 7, Number 4 • July 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

BRIAN RETZLAFF, Head of IT for HR, Legal & Communications, ING US Insurance Americas, Atlanta, GA USA brian.retzlaff@us.ing.com

JOSH BERSIN, Principal and Founder, Bersin by Deloitte, Oakland, CA USA jbersin@bersin.com

LISA ROWAN, Program Director, HR, Learning & Talent Strategies, IDC, Framingham, MA USA lrowan@idc.com

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 bolmanscott@yahoo.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

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

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. URSULA CHRISTINA FELLBERG, Owner & Managing Director, UCF-StrategieBeraterin, Munich, Germany ucfell@mac.com ALSEN HSEIN, President,Take5 People Limited, Shanghai, PRC Alsen@take5people.com

LISA STERLING, Executive Vice President, Chief People Officer, Ceridian, Lincoln, NE USA, lisa.sterling@ceridian.com 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 JAMES PETTIT, HRIP, Chair SHAFIQ LOKHANDWALA, Vice Chair, Program Committee Chair, Strategic Alliances Lead

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

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

JOYCE BROWN, Board Secretary, Finance Committee, Program Committee, Education Committee Board Sponsor

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

KEVIN CARLSON, Past Chair, IHRIM Foundation Board, Membership Committee Board Sponsor, Executive Leadership Council Chair

GARY MORLOCK, CFO, Finance Committee Chair, Operations Committee

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

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

DAVE BINDA, Operations Committee, Toronto 2017 Conference Co-Chair

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

MICK COLLINS, Finance Committee, Program Committee, Vendor/Alliances Committee Board Sponsor, Marketing Board Sponsor

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

MARY ANN MCILRAITH, Program Committee, Marketing Advisor

BILL KUTIK, Technology Columnist, Human Resource Executive, Westport, CT USA bkutik@earthlink.net

PUBLISHING INFORMATION

EDITORIAL ADVISORY BOARD

DAVID LUDLOW, Global VP, HCM Solutions, SAP, Palo Alto, CA David.ludlow@sap.com

CECILE ALPER-LEROUX, VP Product Strategy and Development, Ultimate Software, Weston, FL cecile_leroux@ultimatesoftware.com

RHONDA P. MARCUCCI, CPA, Consultant for GruppoMarcucci, Chicago, IL USA rhonda@gruppomarcucci-usa.com

MARK BENNETT, Oracle Corp., Redwood Shores, CA USA mark.bennett@oracle.com

LEXY MARTIN, Independent Consultant/Researcher, Meadow Vista, CA Lexy.martin1@gmail.com

July 2016 • Workforce Solutions Review • www.ihrim.org

Board Members

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

from the editors Shawn Fitzgerald, Lead Editor Shawn Fitzgerald is a global HR leader with expertise in workforce technologies, talent management, and HR transformation. She has experience transforming the HR function to align HR strategy with organizational strategy. She is currently the managing director, Total Rewards and HR Technology for Blue Cross Blue Shield Association. She has worked in the financial services, technology, professional services, utilities, higher education, and health care industries. She has an undergraduate and MBA from Dominican University and holds the PMP, SPHR, and HRIP certifications. Shawn is comanaging editor of WSR and a frequent speaker at industry conferences. She can be reached at shawn.fitzgerald@bcbsa.com. David Gabriel, Contributing Editor David Gabriel co-founded and is managing director of Global Reach Leadership LLC – a consulting firm specializing in organizational assessment, coaching, leadership development, and talent management. He also serves as senior advisor and executive fellow at San Francisco International Airport. He has worked with clients in the technology, health care, pharmaceutical, government, education and nonprofit sectors. He previously served as senior director of Organization Effectiveness and Talent Management at McKesson. He received his doctorate in Organization and Leadership from the University of San Francisco. He can be reached at david@globalreachleadership.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 bolmanscott@yahoo.com.

In this issue of Workforce Solutions Review we cover where we have been, where we are, and where we, as HR practitioners and technologists, need to go. As the saying goes, “The past is behind, learn from it. The future is ahead, prepare for it. The present is here, live it.” These are never truer than in the area of HCM. We live with the technology that we have now, often capitalizing on past technology, but if we want to break through, we have to be ready for what’s around the corner. Our authors will help you do just that. Dave Weisbeck leads off by examining the skills needed for HRIS practitioners of the future in his article “Critical Skills Every HR Technologist Needs by 2026.” He identifies five forces shaping the future and uses these to identify the skills we will need in the next 10 years. This is a must read for anyone who wants to stay relevant in our rapidly changing world. Next, Glint Inc. co-founders Jim Barnett and Goutham Kurra present a three-pronged approach to improving feedback to drive engagement, insights, and organizational health. Roy Altman of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center explores the evolution of organizational structures, highlighting a couple of emergent organization designs. The article argues that human capital software needs to reflect today’s increasingly multifaceted enterprises. In “Five Changes Companies Need to Make in Their HR Strategies Now,” Andee Harris of HighGround, outlines areas that all of us should focus on now to strengthen their organizations and have a positive impact on retaining and attracting talent. Industry veteran Nov Omana, from HR Collective Solutions, looks at the evolution of HCM in “The HCM industry: Transitional or Transformational.” In this article, Nov goes back in time (the 1970’s!) and brings us all the way forward to today’s latest and greatest technologies. In his always “no-nonsense” way of making technology come to life, Bennett Reddin of CloudMills discusses the use of microservices and Platform-as-a-Service in HR technology. By providing a look back at Software-as-a-Service, Bennett prepares us for what lies ahead and how it can enhance our HR systems. In her article, “Talent Management Maturity: High-Performing Organizations Invest in a Relationship with their Talent,” Stacia Garr shares the Bersin by Deloitte Talent Management Maturity Model that identifies key talent practices that Global 2000 organizations with strong business and talent outcomes use most effectively. The model provides a barometer for which talent management practices organizations should invest in more, which ones they can reduce or stop their investment in, and which new ones require attention. In our first of two Executive Interview columns, Lenny Mendonca, director emeritus of McKinsey & Company and co-founder of FUSE Corps, talks with WSR about the complex human capital challenges facing cities and states across the U.S., and how “cross-sector athletes” from non-profits like FUSE Corps are bridging the gap. Prolific author and blogger Ted Bauer challenges managers to do a better job of employee onboarding, and in the process set a tone for sustainable performance and engagement. In “Predictive Analytics is Essential to your Candidate Pre-screening process,” Greta Roberts argues that the pre-screening process is one of HR’s best predictive analytics projects. It makes sense from a number of perspectives and if you are looking to get your “feet wet” with analytics, you may want to start here. Is free Wi-Fi all it’s cracked up to be? In Patricia Hume’s view, organizations should take a long, hard look at the use of free Wi-Fi by their employees. You may be surprised by the costs and risks associated with this seemingly simple solution. It’s worth taking a look in “Does Free Wi-Fi Make Good Business Sense?” In our second Executive Interview, we talk with Jill Beckman, vice president, Human Resources at Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Kansas City. In this informative interview, she provides her CHRO insights on talent and technology along with the lessons learned throughout her career. Finally, Katherine Jones returns with The Back Story and takes a look at “The Business of HR.” If we look at HR as a business, what is the production engine? How do HR professionals and technology come together to meet the needs of the business? While the technology deployed in today’s human capital management industry has advanced light years from its personnel management beginnings, there still remains some old management philosophies. We hope this WSR issue will help you and your organization’s leadership find new ways to attract, train, reward, and retain the best and brightest talent. Our editors would love to have your feedback. www.ihrim.org • Workforce Solutions Review • July 2016

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Dave Weisbeck, Visier

Critical Skills Every HR Technologist Needs by 2026 It takes the right mix of people, process, and technology to make today’s organization function successfully. This has been true as long as the workplace has existed, but what has changed is how fast technology is disrupting the way we live and work. Technology impacts all of us personally in how we communicate, make purchases, plan travel, find love, discover a great restaurant, or get a ride across town. The disruption to how we work has been just as profound, and it has led to changes in the very nature of work and the skills that the HR technologist of the future will need. Today’s HR practitioners are beginning to ask themselves questions such as: Will robots provide a new way to do skills-based testing during the hiring process? Will predictive algorithms tell me who to hire or promote? How will improvements in telecommunication infrastructure affect our reliance on contingent and global workers? What decisions and jobs will be replaced with technology, and what will this mean for my workplace? If these are the questions we’re asking now, imagine what we will be asking a year from now. How about in 10 years? Fortunately, there have already been strides to find the answers. In September 2013, a group of top HR leaders, together with the global Consortium to Reimagine HR, Employment Alternatives, Talent, and the Enterprise (CHREATE), gathered together to envision the HR profession in 2025. Among their findings were five forces that shape the future of work, and technology featured prominently in at least three of these forces. According to Dr. John Boudreau,1 professor and research director at the University of Southern California’s Marshall School of Business and Center for Effective Organizations, these three forces are: Exceptional technology change: This includes technological breakthroughs that produce exponentially accelerated disruptions in markets and business. They include rapid adoption of robots, autonomous vehicles and

July 2016 • Workforce Solutions Review • www.ihrim.org

Artificial Intelligence (AI). To respond, organizations will engage flexible, distributed, and transient workforces that adapt to rapid cycles of business reinvention. A truly connected world: Inexpensive mobile devices, personal interfaces, virtual collaboration, and new media will enable global and real-time communications that accelerate ideation and product development. Work will be engineered through newly defined talent management systems that support a distributed and global workforce, high-trust cultures, and purpose-built networks, empowered with big data. Human and machine collaboration: Adoption of workforce analytics, algorithms, and big data will accelerate and enhance productivity and decision-making, and automate and abolish tasks previously performed by humans. Organizations will augment their capabilities beyond regular fulltime employment by creating and maintaining external partnerships that manage workforce transitions without hurting their reputation as a fair and attractive place to work. As HR faces the challenges and opportunities brought on by these forces, there will be an increasing demand for the role of the HR technologist and the skills required of this role will evolve from today to those required in 2026.

What skills will an HR technologist need in 10 Years? The role of today’s HR technologist is highly technical, and will be increasingly so as new breakthroughs have a larger disruptive effect on the workplace. However, the CHREATE teams envision this role going beyond the management of technology. In the future, HR technologists will be focused on better integrating technology and people in order to design a higher quality system of work. This role will continue to be critical to the success of the entire business as it will be

the fundamental means by which companies outcompete each other. Already today, we see the market moving away from organizations who simply reduce costs in their supply chain or lower production costs through offshoring to those who can outsmart the competition. With the increase in the amount of information collected, and the ease of communication, those who leverage these advantages will increasingly win. Today, we have already seen early evidence of this through the emergence of wholesale new economies such as the gig economy. Employers must take steps today to ensure that HR technologists have the necessary skillsets to ensure success in a future where the speed and quality of decisions is what matters, and fact-based decision-makers – including those in HR – are how you gain advantage. The following are the skills HR technologists must possess in 10 years: Innovative Reasoning Based on Data Already, there are more devices connected to the Internet than people. A decade from now, the Internet of Things will create massive amounts of data on the workforce as everything from the office water cooler to meeting room light switches become connected. Human Resources technologists will need to be able to find novel ways to funnel and interpret this information effectively. You must be a master of analytics, able to tease out the most important details from increasingly bigger and more complex big data in order to make decisions that will have a strategic value to the business. Just as importantly, you must be a master of workforce intelligence, and able to use predictive models to improve workforce planning and routinely update these plans as the business and market changes.

In the future, the HR technologist will no longer have to answer questions on simple metrics such as what is the current head count or how many people were hired last month – self-service analytic platforms and algorithms to manage data will be taking on this repetitive task. Instead, this role will be responsible for advanced inquiry into how the workforce can be continuously adapted and improved to strengthen business outcomes. You will be uncovering connections between the business and workforce, such as customer turnover rate and increases in employee absenteeism. You will help the business decide whether it should be investing in the growing talent pool in Africa, sticking to traditional plans in Asia, or taking an innovative stance by increasing the reliance on machines and artificial intelligence (AI) solutions. These will be profound questions with outcomes that will change the nature of work, and leadership will be looking to HR technologists to provide the innovative ideas based on facts and data. A Business-Oriented Mindset By 2026, technology investments will no longer be made where the only justification amounts to internal efficiencies and productivity gains. Chief Human Resources Officers (CHROs) will demand an explanation of the impact that new technology will have on overall financial goals, and so those evaluating and recommending technology must always be aware of what’s going on inside and outside of the business. The HR technologist’s core focus will no longer just be HR and the workforce; it will also focus on the effect of these two forces on the entire organization. A lack of business acumen will hurt any business leader, including those in HR technology. If you don’t know “why” business

www.ihrim.org • Workforce Solutions Review • July 2016

decisions are being made, you cannot connect decisions to business outcomes. In the paper, The New HR Competencies: Business Partnering from the Outside-In,2 Dave Ulrich and his team found that: “High-performing HR professionals think and act from the outside-in. They are deeply knowledgeable of, and able to, translate external business trends into internal decisions and actions. They understand the general business conditions, e.g., social, technological, economic, political, environmental, and demographic trends that affect their industry and geography. They target and serve key customers of their organization by identifying customer segments, knowing customer expectations, and aligning organizational actions to meet customer needs.” Simply put, it won’t be enough to be an expert technologist in the future – you must be fluent in the business, too. Design Thinking HR Design thinking has revolutionized the way we interact with technology, and the outcome has been simpler, more intuitive solutions that focus on the user. This has opened up technology, such as smartphones, to be adopted by everyone. The principles of design thinking extend further and are already impacting businesses and the expectations for how organizations solve problems and how we make decisions. It won’t be enough to focus on ease of use or aesthetics in the technology that HR technologists will acquire. The notions of design thinking will create cultural change that requires starting with the user and connecting to them emotionally. It will require creating artifacts such as an employee/role journey map. And, it will require creating models to explore complex problems. The consequences in practical terms will require you to acquire new skills to be able to bring organizational design and workforce planning techniques to the challenge of modeling change to the workforce. And, in everything, it will require the ability to connect to stakeholders by engaging them with impactful stories, which are based on data and told visually, and do far more than just share the numbers. Social Intelligence Ten years from now, effective collaboration will no longer be bound by office walls and city limits. Virtual communication tools will make face-to-face interactions even less prevalent, and face-to-screen time will dominate.

July 2016 • Workforce Solutions Review • www.ihrim.org

Human Resources technologists must know what strategies will work best for engaging and motivating a globally and virtually dispersed group. You will need to figure out how to quickly adapt your language and actions when the normal social cues of face-to-face meetings, such as body language, are absent. Whether you’re speaking to a livestream or a hologram, you must be able to seamlessly implement complex technologies and collaborate on new processes around these technologies no matter where your stakeholders and team members are located. In a world where machines and algorithms will become co-workers, strong social intelligence will be a competitive advantage over bots that can’t yet act on emotions. Cross-Cultural and Technological Competency In 2026, better telecommunication infrastructure will empower teamwork from all corners of the world, and change the setting of the workplace as we know it. Human Resources technologists will need to be adaptable – able to work in any environment they find themselves in and with anyone they encounter. Finding connections with diverse teams and adjusting your behavior and language to accommodate cultural sensitivities are just some important capabilities in forging effective working relationships with diverse co-workers – including those that aren’t human. When your drivers are an algorithm and your front-line support team is largely made up of bots, human workers have the opportunity to abandon rote activities and instead extend and strengthen new capabilities. Human Resources technologists will be responsible for monitoring the effects of these new partnerships and making adjustments and recommendations to ensure harmonious collaboration and continuous productivity. As machines take over routine tasks and leave the jobs of their human counterparts in flux, your knowledge of both current and disruptive technologies will be vital in overcoming any friction that arises, providing guidance to teams on how to move over to new ways of work, and working with leadership and other stakeholders on proper workforce plans and career paths that take machine workers into account. Creative Inquiry When the future is changing quickly, creativity and an inquisitive mindset are

needed to find the right solutions to complex business problems. A willingness to delve deep into the available data must be coupled with creative ways to gather all the information needed, whether it be surveying stakeholders, using the latest software, or developing a new algorithm. Human Resources technologists who can think outside the box and bring forth innovative recommendations will be essential to moving the business forward. Furthermore, this same skillset can be applied to change management, which will continue to be a critical success factor through 2026. Introducing any new technology to the workplace comes with hurdles, which means you must find the smoothest path possible to the future using creative thinking and a healthy curiosity. The CHRO will look to you to provide a plan that will cause as little disruption as possible to the team, workforce, and business. New Media Literacy HR technologists will be expected to engage and persuade audiences using all kinds of new media, and also be able to derive useful data from these tools. Wearables, virtual reality headsets, and holograms are just a few nearterm technologies that will be collecting data, breaking down communication barriers, and improving the way we present information to

each other. You must be able to critically assess these tools, develop content that uses new mediums, and leverage these tools for persuasive communication with executives, managers, team members, vendors, and other stakeholders. Where Does this Talent Lie Today? Workforce intelligence experts – those HR analysts that also understand how to use data towards predictive modelling and workforce planning – have the best foundational skills for building the rest of these capabilities. Their analytical background enables them to make connections between workforce data and business outcomes, but traditionally, they have been held back by data requests that don’t offer strategic business value, as well as inadequate technology and processes. Building a sophisticated analytics team in HR – one that proactively addresses potential threats to the workforce – and providing this function with cloud applied big data tools and effective ways of triaging simple requests can enable those HR technologists with potential to shine. No longer focused on gathering data from disparate systems, wrestling with spreadsheets, or answering operational head count questions, these technologists can start to develop the rest of the skillsets necessary to successfully navigate the business towards the workplace of 2026.

Endnotes 1

Dr. John Boudreau. Workplace 2025: Five Forces, Six New Roles and a Challenge to HR (Blog Post). August 20, 2015. Retrieved from http://www.visier.com/hr-leadership/workplace-2025-five-forces-six-new-roles-and-a-challenge-to-hr/

D. Ulrich, J. Younger, W. Brockbank, W. Ulrich. The New HR Competencies: Business Partnering from the Outside-In, 2011. Retrieved from http://rbl-net.s3.amazonaws.com/hrcs/2012/New%20HR%20 Competencies%C2%8BBusiness%20Partnering%20from%20the%20Outside-In.pdf.

About the Author Dave Weisbeck, chief strategy officer at Visier, is a seasoned software executive whose experience ranges from building development teams to growing multibillion dollar businesses as a general manager. With 20 years in the information management and analytics industry, his prior roles include developing Crystal Decisions and Business Objects products and product strategy. Most recently, he was the senior vice president and general manager responsible for Business Intelligence, Enterprise Information Management, and Data Warehousing at SAP. He holds a position on the HR.com Advisory Board. Get more insights from Dave on the Visier Workforce Intelligence Blog. He can be reached at dave.weisbeck@visiercorp.com.

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Goutham Kurra and Jim Barnett, Glint Inc.

The Future of Feedback: Frequent, Candid, and Entirely More Effective In the business press and organizational development circles, few topics are more discussed and debated than the concept of feedback. Feedback is having its moment, with multitudes of high-profile organizations publicly announcing a fall out with traditional methods of giving and receiving feedback. Sustainable company growth has always required attracting, hiring, and developing high-performing talent. But today a movement is underway that puts consistency and transparency of feedback at its center. There’s good reason for this shift. Whether it’s manager-to-employee, employee-to-company, or any direction in your organization, it’s clear that feedback is more than just a check-thebox exercise reserved for back-patting and bonus-giving. According to Edith Cooper, head of human capital management at Goldman Sachs, “Feedback is an investment” — a critical component of growth at the individual, team, and organizational levels.”1 It’s the mechanism through which employees can continuously learn to perform more skillfully, and through which companies can create environments that promote improved retention, growth, and innovation. Now, an increasing number of organizations are experimenting with new methods of feedback designed with three goals in mind: first, to solicit feedback on a more frequent basis, allowing adjustments to be made in real time; second, to provide and receive more candid, specific feedback that helps people and the organization grow; and finally, to better align the organization, through feedback programs directly focused on achieving the business’s goals.

A Paradigm Shift toward Continuous Improvement Unchanged for the past 20 years, the majority of organizations have relied on methods of giving and receiving feedback that we now know to be less than effective. Performance reviews/

July 2016 • Workforce Solutions Review • www.ihrim.org

rankings and employee engagement surveys — both performed on an annual basis — have at best provided organizations with data to inform succession planning decisions and spur incremental, high-level improvements to culture and resources. At worst, these methods have been proven to be more of a burden — disruptive, cumbersome, and demotivating — than the value-driving procedures they were intended to be. Annual performance reviews and the rankings that often accompany them (methods still employed in some manner by nearly 90 percent of corporations),2 often do more harm than good. In many cases, they are fraught with rater bias and are often rooted in outdated management philosophies that have limited impact on development in favor of maintaining the status quo.3 When announcing the elimination of the company’s infamous ranking system, GE’s head of HR Susan Peters described the practice as “more a ritual than moving the company upwards and forwards.”4 Meanwhile, IBM overhauled its review and feedback systems to include more balanced assessments along with more frequent feedback. Kevin Murphy, a senior research scientist, agreed with the move, noting that traditional performance reviews “...are very expensive, complex systems for making people unhappy.”5 Accenture came to a similar conclusion last year when it announced the elimination of forced rankings in favor of real-time feedback for employees. CEO Peter Nanterme articulated the fruitless methods of the past, revealing, “The process is too heavy, too costly for the outcome. And the outcome is not great.”6 On the other side of the coin, annual engagement surveys, which solicit employee feedback on everything from benefits to culture, can leave HR teams with cumbersome reports that are mostly high-level and neither shareable nor urgent, as results come in months after the fact. Annual engagement surveys can demotivate employees and discourage managers, and preclude honest feedback with little promise of change.7

Employees who voice opinions and see no results can become disengaged and, ultimately, leave.8 Fortunately, with some of the world’s most high profile organizations leading the charge, the business world is beginning to recognize the missed opportunity inherent with the current feedback methods. Increasingly, organizations are implementing new feedback strategies specifically designed to develop more effective employees, as well as build organizational environments that lead to higher business performance. These new programs, already implemented by industry leaders like Goldman Sachs, Accenture, GE, IBM, and Jet. com, acknowledge workplace trends toward transparency, frequent feedback, and trust, and shift their focus away from annual reviews and surveys to continuous growth and performance.

Consumer Expectations Leading to Redesigned Feedback Mechanisms In today’s world, filled with opinionsharing and an overwhelming number of avenues that promote constant validation and communication, the traditional methods are looking more outdated and perfunctory by the day. In their lives outside of work, employees (no matter the generation) are inundated with requests for feedback and provided with easy channels for doing so. Dine out, take a flight, share a ride, or download an app and you’re instantly prompted to evaluate your experience. What’s more, these surveys and assessments aren’t meant to be just exercises in candor — they’re expected to lead to improvement. Consumer organizations often respond candidly to feedback and change course as a result. Rate a rideshare driver below a certain threshold and you may never see him headed your way again.9 Tweet a complaint to a hotel chain and receive a heartfelt apology and a few extra points in your account the same day. Or agree with enough fellow Yelp reviewers and see a beloved, defunct menu item make its way back into the mix. As consumers, people expect to have an impact on a brand’s roadmap and mission (albeit a collective one), and take their role as purveyors of success or failure seriously. Yet, at work, the opportunity to receive development advice from a manager or provide feedback to the organization too often comes once each year or even less often. Worse, due to the infrequency and siloed nature of these programs, resultant change can often be elusive. Beyond the ability to give and receive feedback on a near-continuous basis, employees expect transparency to be a driving value when

evaluating potential employers.10 Hierarchical, siloed organizations continue to falter while those that value openness and inclusiveness are seeing returns in retention, performance, and innovation. Employees are demanding to be brought into the fold, calling for insight into the organization’s performance and how their contributions matter, or they will leave. Online marketplace Jet.com, which has grown to a $1 billion company in its first year of business,11 believes transparency is fundamental to its success, and provides all full-time employees with on-demand access to the company’s financial data.12 Already leading the way in terms of workforce engagement, Jet. com’s commitment is an indicator as to how fast-growing corporations of the future will be expected to operate. It follows that organizations are beginning to implement programs designed to both meet employee expectations of access and transparency, as well as focus more on the specific outcomes the organization is trying to achieve, rather than forced ranking and annual assessments.

In today’s world, filled with opinionsharing and an overwhelming number of avenues that promote constant validation and communication . . .

More Frequent Feedback Improves Business Performance Several weeks ago, the leaders at Goldman Sachs announced a “new approach to feedback.” This new approach, based on an overwhelming cry from its employees, is designed to encourage high-quality, regular feedback for all associates.13 With the goal of developing employees, rather than labeling them, the firm eliminated its annual ratings assessment and began encouraging more in-the-moment, constructive criticism in every direction. In the announcement, Goldman Sachs’s leaders agreed that the firm’s decision to move away from rankings and to encourage more frequent and candid feedback was expected to lead to growth at every level. Mark Schwartz, vice chairman of the Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. and chairman of Goldman Sachs Asia Pacific, said “Feedback is given at Goldman Sachs for one purpose and one purpose only: to make every one of us a better professional – more efficient, more disciplined, better organized, and more effective.” “It’s the constructive feedback that people are looking for,” said EVP of Human Capital Management Edith Cooper. “The feedback after a client meeting, after an interaction…the specific things that you can do to improve your performance. It’s the purest form of investment in an individual.” And while a move from the qualitative, www.ihrim.org • Workforce Solutions Review • July 2016

infrequent review system of the past aligns with employee expectations, at the heart of Goldman Sachs’ overhaul is something more concrete: a belief that new feedback practices will improve the firm’s business performance.14 GE and IBM have both come to similar conclusions, overhauling their feedback programs in response to changing business models. The same goes for employee-to-company feedback. More and more organizations are recognizing the business impact of asking employees for feedback on a more frequent basis, identifying areas of opportunity, and taking swift action to make improvements. This can have business ramifications from improved retention and engagement to “harder” business metrics like customer satisfaction, safety, and profitability. We created Glint to make it easier for employees to provide feedback to their organizations on an ongoing basis — and to provide results to HR teams, leaders, and managers in real time. Our clients have had incredible success when they simply ask employees for feedback more frequently, and then take action at the local level to respond. They’re no longer relying on the annual employee-to-company processes that have traditionally slowed their organization’s ability to be effective. One of the organizations leading this charge is Jet.com. The organization uses Glint to ask employees how they are doing consistently throughout the year, analyze the feedback in real time, and take action to prevent attrition and improve performance. According to last fall’s New York Times feature about Jet.com’s commitment to engaged employees, “By Jet’s logic, it has a chance to thrive in the long-term only if it has the smartest and most motivated employees — and if it can prevent them from fleeing at the first sign of trouble.”15

New Feedback Mechanisms Propel Organizations Forward When executed properly, feedback is the fuel of organizational effectiveness — all the more successful when it’s given frequently, honestly, and with development and improvement top of mind. A continuous cycle of feedback from manager to employee, employee to company, and everywhere in between leads to momentum that otherwise may stall. Goldman Sachs’s Edith Cooper recognized the continuous flow of feedback from managers to employees as an essential element of successful management, defining management at the firm as “creating an environment with your team that they are performing to their potential.”16 It’s no secret that frequent manager-toemployee feedback — a consistent flow of advice, constructive criticism, recognition — drives performance. More frequent employee-to-company feedback has a similar impact. When organizations solicit opinions from employees more frequently than once a year, in ways that don’t disrupt the flow of work (think shorter, mobile-friendly surveys), they are far better equipped to stem attrition problems and halt lagging performance issues. More than that, because they can see data at the local level, they can pinpoint how programs are working (or not working), and create more targeted programs that more efficiently improve processes and provide employees with the tools that make them more successful. With more frequent surveys and other sources of data, organizations are able to pinpoint challenges that would otherwise have gone unnoticed or unchecked for months with traditional methods. With more frequent feedback, they’re able to take quicker action, reducing regrettable attrition dramatically. Peer-to-peer feedback is equally important. Employees are spending more time working collaboratively than ever before – up 50 percent in the past 20 years. We spend 75 percent of our time communicating with our coworkers.17 According to research from Bersin by Deloitte, the digital world in which we work has caused the typical organization to look more like a “network of teams” than the “traditional functional hierarchy.” That means that in many cases, the teams they work in and collaborate with can have more influence over employees’ success than the hierarchies they are assigned to.18 For that reason, encouraging frequent and direct peer-to-peer feedback helps employees understand what they’re doing right, what they

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can work on, and their impact on the business. Organizations that have embraced these principles, like Goldman Sachs, Accenture, GE, and Jet.com, have proven a commitment to continuous growth and development for employees, teams, and the organization. They’ve been among the first to venture into the future of feedback. They have also opened up the opportunity to their peers to follow in their footsteps, to improve their feedback systems, and ultimately improve organizational effectiveness.

Restructure Your Feedback Strategy with a Three-Pronged Approach In the future, organizations will do away with all annual feedback processes that are unable to prove their value to the business. Lengthy, infrequent processes will make way for methods that are more frequent, more candid, and more focused on growth and development, for both the company and employees. In order to begin moving toward the future, consider taking a three-pronged approach to improving your feedback programs.

1. Manager-to-Employee

Goldman Sachs, Accenture, and GE eliminated their formal manager-to-employee reviews and rankings in favor of more frequent, growth-oriented conversations between managers and employees. Taking a less formal approach leads to more candid conversations that encourage growth and development rather than labels. Aim instead for less formal, candid conversations between managers and employees. A good place to start is to encourage these conversations to take place on a monthly or at least a quarterly basis. At the heart of GE’s choice to eliminate its formal annual feedback program was to refocus the role of managers to that of coaches, rather than evaluators. The basis of these conversations should be to answer questions about career development, provide specific feedback on successes and missteps, and guide employees with recognition as well as opportunities for growth. HR and leadership can step in to help show managers how to lead these conversations and ensure their value. Feedback works best when managers follow these guidelines: •

Be specific: Clearly define the gap between desired and current performance. Ambiguity when providing feedback can be demotivating, and at best, unhelpful.

• • •

• •

Be balanced: Share positive and negative thoughts. Be constructive: Articulate the impact on the individual, team, and organization. Be explicit: Are you appreciating, coaching, or evaluating? Encourage them to organize their thoughts into buckets before entering the conversation. Work together: Encourage both managers and employees to do good discovery work. Emphasize self-guidance. Communicate well: Use clear, concise language. Ask clarifying questions. Notice your body language.

These conversations will help boost transparency, psychological safety, and leadership development. Further, they have the potential to improve the organization’s ability to effectively assess talent for compensation, succession planning, and role fit.

2. Employee-to-Company

Take a more frequent and outcomes-based approach to gathering employee feedback to improve their outputs. Frequency is the first major change. According to the latest research from Bersin by Deloitte, 13 percent of organizations have already begun using shorter, more frequent surveys to gather feedback from employees.19 The key to success, according to Bersin’s research, is action. In fact, the report states, “The single most powerful predictor of creating an effective long-term survey practice is the extent to which survey feedback is translated into actions that eventually lead to positive change.”20 Communicate the results and be candid in your organization’s ability and willingness to make changes. You will have to decide where you draw the line: make changes or expect to watch some people walk. The good news is, with state-of-the-art systems, you can get real-time data and insights at the local or team level and empower managers to take action. This results in a dramatically more agile and effective processes for increasing engagement levels. When taking action, choose one or two areas for improvement and focus exclusively on these areas, rather than attempt to fix every low score or cause for concern. Not only will this help you prioritize efforts and resources, but it will also help you track the impact of your efforts when you survey again. The key, again, is to communicate: Once you’ve made changes, communicate your efforts so employees know they’re heard, and so they can appreciate your efforts. www.ihrim.org • Workforce Solutions Review • July 2016

Endnotes

h ttp://www.goldmansachs.com/careers/blog/ posts/our-new-approach-to-feedback.html 2 h ttp://www.economist.com/news/21693151employers-are-modifying-not-abolishing-themperformance-reviews-not-dead-yet 3 https://www.thestreet.com/story/13178455/1/ are-performance-reviews-a-waste-of-time-andresources.html 4 h ttp://fortune.com/2015/08/13/performancereviews/ 5 h ttp://fortune.com/2016/02/01/ibm-employeeperformance-reviews/ 6 h ttps://www.washingtonpost.com/news/ on-leadership/wp/2015/07/21/in-big-moveaccenture-will-get-rid-of-annual-performancereviews-and-rankings/ 7 Bersin by Deloitte, “Evaluating Employee Engagement Measurement Options.” 2016. http://www.bersin.com/Lib/Rs/ShowDocument. aspx?docid=19725 8 h ttp://www.eremedia.com/tlnt/3-good-reasonswhy-employee-engagement-surveys-fail/ 9 h ttp://www.businessinsider.com/leaked-chartsshow-how-ubers-driver-rating-system-works2015-2?r=UK&IR=T 10 h ttp://fortune.com/2016/02/17/employeestransparency-bad-news/ 11 h ttp://www.businessinsider.com/jetcomprojects-1-billion-in-sales-by-nextmonth-2016-4 12 h ttp://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/27/ technology/jetcoms-strategy-low-prices-fastdelivery-happy-workers.html 13 h ttp://www.goldmansachs.com/careers/blog/ posts/our-new-approach-to-feedback.html 14 h ttp://www.goldmansachs.com/careers/blog/ posts/our-new-approach-to-feedback.html 15 h ttp://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/27/ technology/jetcoms-strategy-low-prices-fastdelivery-happy-workers.html 16 h ttp://www.goldmansachs.com/careers/blog/ posts/our-new-approach-to-feedback.html 17 h ttp://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/28/magazine/ what-google-learned-from-its-quest-to-buildthe-perfect-team.html 18 h ttp://www.forbes.com/sites/ joshbersin/2016/03/03/why-a-focus-on-teamsnot-just-leaders-is-the-secret-to-businessperformance/#2cf195de433f 19 Bersin by Deloitte, “Evaluating Employee Engagement Measurement Options.” 2016. http://www.bersin.com/Lib/Rs/ShowDocument. aspx?docid=19725 20 Bersin by Deloitte, “Evaluating Employee Engagement Measurement Options.” 2016. http://www.bersin.com/Lib/Rs/ShowDocument. aspx?docid=19725 21 h ttp://www.wsj.com/articles/goldmansachs-dumps-employee-ranking-system-1464272443 22 h ttp://www.goldmansachs.com/careers/blog/ posts/our-new-approach-to-feedback.html 23 h ttp://www.clomedia.com/2015/08/20/accenture-canned-annual-reviews-should-you/ 1

3. Peer-to-Peer

The final step is to encourage feedback everywhere in between and create an environment of peer-to-peer feedback. Peer-to-peer feedback is typically given through 360-degree reviews, with sometimes as many as 10 peer reviewers.21 That approach, however, may inhibit candor due to the amount of time the process demands, and is usually far too infrequent to have a meaningful impact on growth. The key instead is to be timely, constructive, and actionable with feedback whenever there is an opportunity to share it. “The primary feedback mechanism is the daily and weekly advice, encouragement, criticism that we get from everyone working around us,” says Goldman Sachs’ Mark Schwartz.22 Like more frequent manager conversations, this encourages self-reflection and development on a continuous basis. HR and leaders should encourage direct feedback often, and model that behavior in their own relationships within the organization. To help employees build on this environment, provide them with these tips for giving and receiving feedback regularly: •

•

Understand yourself. Think about your tendencies. Do you usually welcome feedback or get defensive? Recognize these habits. Focus on the “what.” Try to separate information from your feelings about the messenger. What do you have to gain from this interaction? Assume you’re being coached.

• • •

While some feedback can be evaluative, it’s safer (and more effective) to assume you’re receiving advice that will help you be more successful. Explore the feedback. Ask clarifying questions. Avoid snap judgments. Be curious. Be specific. Ask for one improvement opportunity. Make small bets. Try using the feedback in small ways and see if it works. Iterate. Compare the impact of different pieces of advice. Improvement is a journey; take every opportunity to explore areas for advancement.

Invest in the Future of Feedback to Drive Organizational Effectiveness

In the workplace, feedback is experiencing a major shift – one that is based on the way employees give and receive feedback as consumers in their lives outside of work. Spurred by these new expectations for how they interact with their employees, organizations are moving away from the infrequent, ratings-based methods of the past in favor of something more impactful. By adopting feedback practices that are more frequent, more candid, and more focused on development and growth, leading organizations today will see significant returns in improved organizational effectiveness. In the words of Marketo SVP of HR Joan Burke, “Feedback is a gift.”23 More organizations are realizing the opportunity inherent in more frequent feedback: the chance to set their organizations on the path to continuous improvement.

About the Authors

Jim Barnett is the chief executive officer, co-founder and chairman of Glint. He is an accomplished executive and entrepreneur, having built and run several successful companies. He is also the co-founder and chairman of Turn Inc., where he was CEO for many years, and chairman of Sojern, Inc. Prior to Turn, he served as president of Overture Search, a division of Overture Services, Inc. Barnett joined Overture after its acquisition of AltaVista Company, where he was president and CEO. Prior to AltaVista, he was president of Ancestry.com (previously named MyFamily) and CEO of Accolade. He earned a BA from Stanford University, a J.D. from Stanford Law School and an MBA from Stanford Graduate School of Business. Goutham Kurra is the VP of Product and co-founder of Glint. Most recently, he founded Rock Paper Labs where he created a software platform that helps glean meaningful insights hidden in large amounts of raw data. Prior to that, at Turn Inc., he helped pioneer the algorithmic, real-time bidding revolution that has transformed how advertising works online. Earlier, at Kazeon (acquired by EMC), he helped build one of the first eDiscovery products in the market. He has spent the last 15 years creating innovative products and technology across advertising, data science, machine learning, robotics, enterprise search, and virtual computing. He holds an MS degree in Computer Science from the University of Cincinnati, an MS degree in Physics, and a BS in Mechanical Engineering from BITS Pilani.

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Roy Altman, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center

HR Organizational Structure – Past, Present, and Future Introduction

An organization is a group of people working together to produce value.1 How much value is produced is a function of several factors: the strategic direction, leadership, engagement of the workers, and the interaction among the workers, or synergy, which is defined as the total output of a system being greater than the sum of its parts. Therefore, the way the people are organized can create that synergy – or impede it. Throughout history, people have been trying to find the best way to organize the workforce to extract the maximum value. The history of organizational structures is as old as the history of management. With the advent of the HR Information System (HRIS), we use automation to try to optimize the management of people in the workplace. Defining the organizational structure is essential for automating HR processes, and also for identifying and coordinating responsibility for hiring, pay, and promotion decisions. As HRIS evolved to include self-service (direct access) capabilities with workflow automation, the org structure became more essential for determining transaction routing. The organizational structure is also useful in determining security: Who has access to which workers’ data, and who gets what reports? But what happened along the way is that companies realized there is no single organizational structure that is relevant for managing work. There are multiple “organizations” based on the context of the task at hand. Also, changes in the workforce occur at a rapid pace, reinforcing the need to keep organizational structure in sync. We need a way to effectively manage structures representing a workforce in flux. This article will examine selected organizational structures to date, discuss how traditional frameworks are rapidly changing, and explore emergent thinking in organization design.

The Hierarchy

The word “hierarchy” comes from the Greek word hierarchia or “rule of a high priest.” It is an arrangement of workers whereby one is above or below another. Throughout recorded history, this has been the predominant organizational structure. Hierarchies are all about command and control — one node in the structure supervising others, and in turn being supervised by yet another, until the top node (chief executive officer) is reached.

What are hierarchies good for?

They are easy to understand. Functioning hierarchies provide clear work roles and accountabilities. Strict hierarchies have historically been associated with authoritarian organizations, such as the military or the Catholic Church. However, more recently, the U.S. military’s hierarchical command and control structure has been supplemented with a “new mode of organization — a “network of teams” with a high degree of empowerment, strong communication, and rapid information flow”— to enable more dynamic real-time flexibility within the formal hierarchy.

What are hierarchies not good for?

In strict hierarchical structures there is redundancy and inefficiency of resource utilization. For instance, if arranged by business function, you must duplicate support functions, such as HR or IT within each business unit. Also, workers functioning in different roles or collaborating across the organization break the strict hierarchical structure. Cross-functional communication and collaboration are not encouraged in hierarchies, because the workers are not accountable to anyone except their direct supervisor. Hierarchies, therefore, tend to become bureaucratic and siloed. However, the main problem with hierarchies isn’t the fact that they’re hierarchies; it’s that there is only a single hierarchy that is intended to represent all of the relevant relationships in www.ihrim.org • Workforce Solutions Review • July 2016

Endnotes 1

eneral Stanley McChrystal, G et al., Team of Teams: New Rules of Engagement for a Complex World, New York. Penguin Publishing Group, 2015.

Roy Altman, “Enterprise Process Automation – Providing the Gift of Time,” 2010 BPM Workflow Handbook, Future Strategies, June 2010.

David Gellis, “At Zappos, Pushing Shoes and a Vision,’” The New York Times, July 17, 2015, http://www.nytimes. com/2015/07/19/business/ at-zappos-selling-shoes-anda-vision.html.

Josh Bersin, “Is It Time to Do Away with the Organizational Chart – Pretty Much,” https:// www.linkedin.com/pulse/ time-do-away-organizationchart-josh-bersin?trk=profpost.

the organization. For instance, businesses often have a financial organization structure, which represents the roll-up of the organization from a cost accounting point of view. This must be reconciled with a supervisory structure, often creating conflicts and exceptions where head count is charged to a different cost center, resulting at times in inefficiencies and process breakdowns. Attempts to optimize the Single Hierarchical Organizational Model have led to frequent reorganizations. These are often expensive, confusing, and unsettling to the organization. What’s more, they are often undertaken without any evidence or metrics to suggest that the new model would be an improvement.

Matrix Management

Since the late 1970s, matrix management has been a popular organizational model. In it, a person can report to one organization, say a supervisory hierarchy, but also work on a project team or alternate supervisory structure. An example is a systems architect reporting to a technology manager, but also assigned out to projects (dual reporting to a project manager). In health care, a nurse might report up to the nursing division within the hospital, but also be responsive to the care unit he is assigned to, which may vary on a shift-by-shift basis. A HR Business Partner would report into the HR organization, and ultimately to the CHRO, but also be responsive to the business areas within her scope of authority. Matrix management, representing alternative organizations within the company, solves the problem of routing workflow approvals to the right person. However, it also requires strong communication of participants’ roles to alleviate any confusion or conflicts with people working in different capacities.

Social Networks

Unless you have lived under a rock for the last 15 years, you’re undoubtedly aware of the impact social networks have had on our lives and our work. Unlike a hierarchy, a social network is a series of peer-to-peer connections that are established by the participants, rather than imposed by a higher authority. They represent the democratization of communication and collaboration. Much can be gleaned about the connections that people choose to make, and how that information can be used to optimize the organizational model. More on that later…

July 2016 • Workforce Solutions Review • www.ihrim.org

The Multi-Organizational Model

Today, HR software companies have realized that there isn’t just one hierarchy that is relevant for security, reporting, and workflow – but several. Modern HR Information Systems like Workday now support multiple simultaneous organizational structures. For instance, the financial hierarchy can live side-by-side with the HR supervisory structure, as well as temporary matrix structures for project teams. However, maintenance of these organizations is an ongoing issue; the more structures to maintain, the greater the challenge. HR systems have limited ability to create rules for placing people in organizations. But they are still only support hierarchies, not always fully reflective of complex organizational arrangements.

Holacracy and Sociocracy

A holacracy is a flat, flexible organizational structure, which gives more autonomy to teams and individuals. The goal of a holacracy is to create a dynamic workplace where bureaucracy doesn’t stifle innovation. The traditional hierarchy is gone, as are managers. Everyone has a voice. However to function, the participants have broad roles rather than narrow job descriptions, and a strict system of governance. In place of a traditional organizational chart are concentric circles of responsibility. Holacracy was instituted at Zappos, the online shoe retailer founded by Tony Hsieh, and later acquired by Amazon. In his New York Times article, writer David Gellis reported that the holacracy experiment was not without its challenges: employees cited the procedural formality and endless meetings were a drain on productivity.2 In a follow-up from January 2016, Gellis reported that Zappos had 18 percent turnover in just the previous nine months! Holacracy has been compared to, and was based on sociocracy, a system of governance developed in the second half of the 20th century. In a sociocracy, people are organized in circles, and circles meet to make policy decisions (as opposed to operational decisions). Large organizations are represented as a hierarchy of circles, with representatives always bridging from one circle to another. Decisions are made by consent (which is defined as “no objections”), but not necessarily by consensus. Holacracies and Sociocracies are attempts to reassess the optimum structure for creativity and decision-making. Hsieh has said that the ultimate goal is to structure Zappos more like a city and less like a top-down, command and control organization. What’s significant is that

companies are realizing that the organizational structures of the past don’t work, and they’re willing to try something else to grow larger without growing slower.

Where is this going?

Leading industry researcher Josh Bersin recently wrote: “What our research discovered, after talking with dozens of companies around the world, is that the high-performing companies of today are not functional hierarchies, they are “networks of teams,” and the “network of teams” requires a whole new way of thinking about jobs, roles, leadership, talent mobility, goals, and the tools we use to share information, provide feedback, and measure our success.”3

Figure 1. A Small Team Structure.

Figure 2. Network of Teams.

Experimental structures such as holacracy and sociocracy will evolve and refine. Successful adoption will depend on the open mindedness of the participants and culture of the organization. What’s clear is the Single Hierarchical Organizational Structure is a thing of the past. Even rigid environments where leaders embrace the “command and control” structure must adapt and be cognizant of the multiple, simultaneous structures that are necessary for the functioning of the company. Human Resources software must evolve and adapt to meet these challenges. A multidimensional view of the workforce must be supported by HR systems in order to formalize all relationships so they can be

used for security, reporting, and workflow. Keeping multiple organizations in sync requires rule-based administration and automation. As support teams and collaborative groups grow in importance in the workplace, organizational software must support a mix of hierarchies and peer-to-peer relationships. The software must support nested structures or concentric circles to represent holacracy and sociocracy-like structures. Just as the workforce extends beyond the firewall to include external business partners along the value chain, organizational software should be able to include contingent workers and other partners in the extended organization. Data points from external systems, or unstructured data on the web should be accessible as meta-data from which to derive rules for inclusion. Advanced analytics and machine learning are having a profound impact on workforce intelligence. Just as analytics can predict who would be a good fit in an organization, the same principles can be applied to who would fit best in various organizational structures. Just as process mining software, enables process discovery by examining data flow of transactions through systems, relationship mining software can analyze unstructured data, such as emails, collaborative network activity, or ad-hoc workflow approvals to determine the relationships in an organization that are truly important for accomplishing goals. This information can be leveraged to configure and optimize teams, reducing the need for costly and confusing reorganizations.

Conclusion

What is the best way of organizing for your organization? Should one adhere to strict hierarchies, matrix structures, social networks, holacracy, or a combination of the above? The answer is complicated, involving your needs, the nature of your business, and culture of your company. One certainty is that we are no longer limited to a Single Hierarchical Structure. Tools now exist to model our work in ways that more accurately reflect how work gets done, allowing us to discover new ways of optimizing the workforce. HR software needs to catch up with this need, and offer more flexible ways of representing the relationships between workers.

About the Author

Roy Altman is manager of HRIS Analytics and Architecture at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. He is responsible for putting actionable data in the hands of workers to assist in decision-making, manages a work stream of their Workday implementation, and determines short and long-term application architecture strategy. Previously, he was founder/CEO of Peopleserv, a software/services company. Over a multifaceted career, he has a history of delivering ROI to well-known companies in several industry sectors. Altman is the architect of multiple commercial software products. He has published extensively and has coauthored five books on Business Process Management (BPM), and published articles for IHRIM Workforce Solutions Review and The Saturday Evening Post. Altman has presented at the following HR and BPM industry and academic conferences: HR Technology Conference, IHRIM, Workday Rising, Garden State SHRM, BPM and Case Management Global Summit, BPMNext, eHRM and Academy of Management. He serves on IHRIM Workforce Solutions Review editorial committee, and he is on the boards of Professional Exchange of HR Solutions, where he is director of Programs, and Electronic Music Foundation, an international music organization. He can be reached at altmanr@mskcc.org.

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Andee Harris, HighGround

Five Changes Companies Need to Make in Their HR Strategies Now What does your company gain from annual reviews, infrequent company surveys, and impersonal service awards? Very little, yet those make up many employee engagement programs today. On top of these ineffective processes, does your company train your managers with the skills needed to grow their employees? Do you worry about high turnover and even lower morale? Instead of simply checking a box once a year, tallying years of service, or assuming all managers know how to lead a team, it’s up to HR to create a new process – one that will actually result in employees reaching their goals and help organizations do a better job of attracting and retaining the best talent. But the old employee engagement manual can’t simply be swapped out for a new one. A key takeaway from successful companies is that this process isn’t standalone – it must be embedded into your company culture and employees’ everyday activities. Below are five changes that will put your organization down the right path.

1. Do away with annual performance reviews and shift to continuous feedback. Managers find it difficult, awkward and time consuming to summarize a year’s worth of work during long, one-sided meetings with each direct report. And, this process certainly doesn’t help managers become better coaches or learn how to nurture and support their talent. From the employee perspective, annual reviews are stressful and unhelpful. Employees often have little sense beforehand what will be discussed and are often given a generic numeric ranking that actually discourages better performance. Another issue is the nature of work and how it is performed has changed. Most employees wear more than one hat within their organizations, which means work is being done across multiple teams more frequently. This approach makes individual tracking and numerical ratings challenging, since the employee gets direction

July 2016 • Workforce Solutions Review • www.ihrim.org

from a variety of managers. So what method will allow managers to both evaluate and develop their employees in a meaningful way? Continuous, two-way conversation allows managers to address issues and acknowledge successes in real-time while employees are empowered to change behavior on-the-fly and develop their skills more quickly. Adopting a hands-on, immediate approach to performance development, not just management, directly correlates to better worker engagement. According to a Towers Watson survey, 43 percent of people who identified as “highly engaged” received coaching at least once a week. The move to continuous communication can be attributed in part to consumer technology. Today you can instantly reach someone, post a need, or provide feedback through applications like Facebook, Uber. and Yelp. This “culture of instant accessibility” is now the expectation for the workplace. One way to ensure more frequent communication between managers and employees is via implementing an engagement platform. Managers now have easy-to-use, mobile-friendly tools at their fingertips to coach and develop their teams. Technology also provides a documentation mechanism so that both the employee and the manager can refer to prior discussions. Kent Frazier, vice president of Talent for Lieberman Research Worldwide, recognized that looking back at past performance was an ineffective way to gauge performance. The company recently implemented an engagement solution and Frazier explained that it is used “as an in-the-moment tool to ask, ‘How’s it going? How are you feeling? How are you doing? Here’s coaching. Here’s feedback. Here’s recognition.’ Those conversations happen as part of normal, everyday discussions and they’re archived on the platform. [Performance management] is not a once-a-year conversation that everyone dreads.” More nimble, frequent, future-focused conversations create better managers, employers and, in turn, organizational cultures.

2. Implement agile and transparent goals.

In today’s fast-paced work environment, everyone is busy. It’s easy to get lost in the weeds, become unfocused and then run out of steam. For this reason, goals are the basis of any strong performance management strategy. Evaluating an employee based on how they perform against individual metrics and their contributions to team and company objectives provides the most accurate assessment of their work. While we know that setting and tracking against goals is the best way to ensure momentum, not all of them are created equally. Building off the need for more frequent coaching and conversations, research shows how goals are set actually impacts employee happiness as well, with Gallup reporting 69 percent of employees who work with their manager to set them are engaged. To ensure success from the beginning, set goals on a quarterly or less basis. Breaking down larger ones into smaller milestones builds employee confidence, creates a natural place to coursecorrect if needed, and keeps them on track. Individual goals shouldn’t be set in a silo. It’s important to ensure an employee’s daily work has a larger purpose in the context of the team and company. If your organization cares more about increasing customer retention than breaking into a new vertical, then team and department targets should reflect that. And transparency is critical. All goals should be visible across teams and departments to foster an environment of collaboration and accountability, which creates a more open company culture. Goals create a starting point for success. By ensuring they are meaningful and part of the everyday conversation, they can be a valuable engagement strategy. An agile employee engagement platform can seamlessly incorporate goal-setting and tracking into the performance management process and create an environment where two-way conversations, regular coaching, and quarterly check-ins happen organically.

3. Prioritize real-time recognition.

While career opportunities and competitive pay are typically top priorities when selecting an employer, an important factor that increases retention is that employees feel recognized for their work. However, traditional “employee of the month” honorifics and annual service awards aren’t cutting it any more – companies need to recognize their employees for the things that matter (i.e., good work) in a timely and visible way. HR can encourage and facilitate a company

culture where real-time, peer-to-peer and topdown recognition acknowledging individual and team accomplishments is the norm. Today’s workforce wants not only to be recognized for their work, but to be rewarded with items that have some significance to either them personally, or to the company’s culture. If charity is an important value for your organization, give employees the opportunity to donate on behalf of others. If your workforce is bonded through sports or the arts, make tickets to events available for those who wish to recognize a teammate for a job well done. Just as important as changing the reward is changing when it’s given. Sharing recognition as soon as it’s deserved (e.g., after a major client win or company success) is more impactful than simply rewarding a certain number of people each year or on a standard basis. The closer to the achievement the recognition is given, the more impact it has. The most effective employee recognition programs are incorporated into the greater performance management process. Intermedix, a technology company serving the health care industry, has been a pioneer in tying these two important components together. Its top priority is building both a culture of recognition and a strong culture of learning. It uses an employee engagement platform to continuously track individual recognition and apply that during the performance management process. Managers have a digital archive of recognitions their direct reports have received throughout the year and can incorporate that feedback into the performance review conversation. Leadership has visibility into which employees, teams and departments are collaborating and contributing to the larger company mission. Exchanges and congratulations that took place exclusively, if at all, offline, are now a digital report card that gives another piece of visibility into organizational health. These programs also bridge the gap between today’s diverse, multigenerational workforce. VRI, a developer of patient monitoring systems, leverages engagement technology to engage employees of all ages. It uses the solution to engage its millennial workforce through frequent feedback and gamified recognition. The same solution is used to engage its baby boomer workforce, who wants acknowledgement for being impactful, important, and valuable.

4. Capture the voice of the employees.

The best way to ensure that your employees are active participants in your culture is to make them feel included, important, and heard. Most www.ihrim.org • Workforce Solutions Review • July 2016

companies already conduct some type of annual survey to get an understanding about how their employees feel about the organization, but oftentimes it’s not frequent enough nor does management make any changes from it. By utilizing real-time mood and sentiment tracking, aka “pulse checks,” and periodic benchmarking surveys, a company can create an open dialogue for positive change. It’s important to monitor the overall mood of an organization, and then use that feedback to uncover inefficiencies and anticipate potential roadblocks. It’s especially vital to tune into the voice of the employee during times of change when your culture is most vulnerable. Check in with employees often, whether your organization is experiencing rapid growth, downsizing, announcing a merger or acquisition, or undergoing a leadership change. Even more important than listening to employees is how your organization reacts to their feedback. No matter how big or small the change, implementing suggestions directly from your employees will empower your workforce and significantly increase engagement. Allowing everyone a voice and involving them in the decision-making process will keep employees happy and improve retention.

5. Bring it all together to get a clear picture of organizational health.

Analytics are more important than ever, and that’s certainly the case today in HR. By taking advantage of an employee engagement platform, leadership gains valuable insights about the overall organizational health. And it only gets better over time. As the volume of data grows with use, so does the value, as the system becomes smarter and can predict trends. Just like a manufacturing technology tracks production and inventory trends, an engagement application exposes employee data and spotlights individuals, teams, and departments

About the Author

that are engaged and productive. It also can call attention to potential problem areas before they become bigger issues. Which managers are holding frequent coaching sessions with their team members? Which employees are being recognized most often, and by whom? What is the engagement level across teams, roles, and locations? These are all answers you already know if you’re tracking your activities via a technology platform. These strategic shifts will help improve a company’s culture and health, as well as improve employee retention and productivity while reducing recruiting costs. Not to mention the efficiency gained through reduced time spent on the bulky traditional annual processes. By doing away with an annual review, focusing on continuous feedback, implementing goal management, prioritizing real-time recognition, and listening to the voice of the employees, HR professionals will be able to effectively understand the state of its workforce and proactively address issues. These HR changes will help align goals and objectives to empower employees to be more innovative, and improve a company’s talent brand and become an employer of choice. Making these changes all at once isn’t feasible, nor would it be effective. First, assemble a group of stakeholders across your organization that will serve as your project team and provide support throughout the process. Next, turn to your employees to get their take on your company’s current processes. Their buy-in to any changes is critical, and their responses will help you determine what elements are the priority. It’s also a good time to evaluate your current technology and perhaps some new tools needed to carry out these processes. By having a plan, stakeholder and employee buy-in and the right tools in place, changing your HR processes should be a positive transition for your organization.

Andee Harris brings more than 20 years of experience to her role as chief engagement officer of HighGround. In this role, she has proven to be a true leader, guiding the company in thought leadership, market share growth, new business development, multi-channel marketing strategies and revenue management. Harris develops key strategic client relationships that move the business forward, and also evangelizes engagement and performance best practices by representing HighGround publically. Most recently, she served as the vice president of marketing and alliances for The Marcus Buckingham Company. Before that she led sales and marketing for Syndio, a people analytics software company. She provided strategic direction and day-to-day operations for the sales and marketing team. In 2015, Harris was named to Crain’s Chicago Business’ Tech 50 as one of the city’s most successful but least well-known female technology entrepreneurs. She is passionate about helping young girls achieve their dreams through mentoring them on real world projects, and has appeared on CBS on a segment called, “Chicago Women You Should Know.” She is also a board member of Chicago Ideas Week, and the youngest member of the Lurie Children’s Hospital board. She can be reached at andee@highground.com.

July 2016 • Workforce Solutions Review • www.ihrim.org

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Nov Omana, Collective HR Solutions, Inc.

The HCM Industry: Transitional or Transformative? Has HR evolved over the past 50+ years leveraging technology, or has technology pushed HR to evolve? Let’s examine the history as it relates to the technology supporting the HR functions and then you can decide the answer to the question. To set the framework, when I speak about HR, I am including the broad definition of recordkeeping, benefits administration, payroll, time and attendance, recruiting, onboarding, performance management, career development, succession planning, compensation, learning and development, content management (communication), social networking and collaboration, all reporting, and analytics. As you can see, I believe HR is all things that touch the workforce and as such, HR is in the best place to leverage technology to guide and support the workforce. And one last perspective to share before we dive into history to bring us to the future; HR needs to be transformative, not transitional. Now what does that mean to HR and to the workforce, and what is the difference? Transitional change replaces “what is” with something new. This requires designing and implementing a “new state.” Examples include reorganizations, simple mergers or acquisitions, creation of new products or services that replace old ones, and IT implementations that do not radically impact people’s work or require a significant shift in culture or behavior to be effective. Two variables define transitional change: (1) you can determine your destination in detail before you begin, and can, therefore, “manage” your transition, and (2) people are largely impacted only at the levels of skills and actions, not the more personal levels of mindset, behavior, and culture. Transformation, however, is far more challenging for two distinct reasons. First, the future state is unknown and is determined through trial and error as new information is gathered. This makes it impossible to “manage” transformation with pre-determined, time-

bound, and linear project plans. You can have an over-arching change strategy, but the actual change process literally must “emerge” as you go. This means that your executives, managers, and frontline workers alike must operate in the unknown—that scary, unpredictable place where stress skyrockets and emotions run high. Second, the future state is so radically different than the current state that the people and culture must change to implement it successfully. New mindsets and behaviors are required. In fact, often leaders and workers must shift their views to even invent the required new future, let alone operate it effectively. Because transformation impacts people so personally, we must get them involved in it to garner their support – and the earlier the better! Employee adoption is proportional to the degree of communication and inclusion.1 So, let’s reach back a few years, to the early 1970s; computers are new, large, nifty, and are starting to automate things we have stored on paper. For HR this becomes their beginnings of HR recordkeeping. Personnel information, demographics about the employees becomes available, primarily pushed by compliance with legislation. Reporting, withholding taxes, providing proof of payroll, these all led HR to become a more policy-making and enforcement mechanism for the company. More “what you can’t do” versus “what can we do to optimize and engage you.” In essence, the HR systems of the day were data storage devices, holding information to comply with various rules. At this time, although it was not apparent that HR information was a business asset, HR data was beginning to be seen as valuable in terms of basic metrics; head count, employee types, payroll processed, taxes, etc. The limited reporting was seen as a backdrop of data about the workforce, but not extensively valued. The next stage of evolution came with the introduction of self-service. This was transitioned from the efficiencies gained in data entry by HR staff (screens linked to move www.ihrim.org • Workforce Solutions Review • July 2016

And with the continuing prevalence of self-service, suddenly information was available more than during office hours and from outside the firewall and HR was being freed to become strategic.

through entry faster, tabbed entry, some logic in filling in additional data to complete information – address with state/zip filled in) to be provided to others outside of HR. This efficiency, coupled with the need for higher data integrity for reporting needs, allowed for the opening of the self-service door – moving the data entry to the point of origin (employee or manager) with processes such as vacation requests, compensation changes, viewing of paychecks, time entry on clocks, enhanced by workflow that routed the information to the appropriate sections for notification or approval. What came from this was an increased awareness that data integrity was key, that the entire organization was responsible for its usage, and that data governance had now entered into the vocabulary of HR. And with the continuing prevalence of self-service, suddenly information was available more than during office hours and from outside the firewall and HR was being freed to become strategic. Technology continued to advance, picking up speed and creating a need for vendors to adopt newer and better processes and functions for HR. It is at this point, in my opinion, HR felt they were trailing the curve, being asked to think of newer and different ways in which to interact with the workforce because vendor technology provided it. This should have been the point of transformation for HR, pushing the vendors and the technology to be faster and easier to disburse, to become as ubiquitous as Excel or Word, and to allow for much greater insights to optimizing the workforce on all dimensions. The era of talent management entered with all the hoopla of being “better than sliced bread.” And yet, in examining the vendor’s claims of strategic HR, to me it seemed to be only the automation, albeit better, of things HR had done for years. Performance management pushing electronic forms, compensation planning shared across the enterprise instead of Excel worksheets, or learning with self-service for tracking classes and attendance. The talent management set of capabilities was touted as the new strategic HR tool, yet HR really did not change much in their business of managing and interacting with the workforce. Some aspects of rethinking started to take place in the recruiting and metrics arenas using the information available in the talent management suite, but not much changed in terms of the employment agreement, career development, or connecting the workforce to one another. Then comes the cloud and the SaaS model, which by most parameters simply redrew the technical architecture to being connected

July 2016 • Workforce Solutions Review • www.ihrim.org

directly to the internet and information stored on someone else’s servers – think back to the “hosted” platforms of the 1990s, and SaaS is just a little “tweak.” But the cloud captured the imagination of the younger generation, the upcoming workforce, where their need and desire for information was anywhere 24/7. And the devices they used to access it were the mobile platform of the future – personal, part of their personality, individualized, and with them most, if not all the time. As the generations switch places in the workforce, undeniably, the newest generations are not only expecting but demanding these capabilities, and we need to understand how prevalent the mobile platform is in personal lives of all generations, which means we need to leverage the platform for all it is worth. Now I will let my mind wander down the paths of possibilities, perhaps stretching the boundaries of HR programs; bear with me and travel down an unknown path and see if you feel the same as I do, that this could be “transformational.” Recruiting (or more likely sourcing) – Days of posting jobs and having folks apply will move to that of a more “I have something I need to have done, who can do it?” Vast pools of individuals, with varied experiences will be matched to opportunities of both longer and short term engagements (BEWORKHAPPY.us). Jobs will be restructured and deconstructed into smaller projects/tasks, placing individuals whose strengths meet the task level requirements (CollabWorks.com). We will no longer be hiring for lengthy times, but rather for deliverables that can be renewed by both parties for the next engagement. Contingent workforce bidding (like an Angie’s List) with references, likes, reviews, and such will allow us to find, select, and bring on board the right resources when needed (mytabsapp.com). And our agreements for employment will need to be flexible (personally I feel that legislation, pension, benefits, and other parameters will have to change and accommodate, and I see this as the biggest obstacle to adoption of this environment). Call it the “Uberworld” of jobseekers, but it will be awards going to the person who keeps their skills up, delivers great service, demands a fair price, and understands the business of promoting yourself through the networks. Impacts to the staffing firms, consulting shops, recruiting firms, and others will be significant and technology will drive such a great deal of this process, from hiring to monitoring, rewarding, and re-engaging. Secondarily, the need to keep an up-to-

date profile will be an absolute necessity as individuals shop their skills through the workplaces. As such, the peripheral support skills of coaching, skills improvement, and marketing will grow around the workplace and job seekers. And, not to overlook the obvious, your “internet persona” will be both scrutinized and be your leverage as you post yourself into the limelight through accomplishments and recognitions. Paying it forward will take on new meaning as we all engage in co-opetition through the new workforce environment. Social/Networking/Collaboration – We see it today in global donation and problemsolving collaboration, but the social networks of tomorrow will extend well beyond the firewalls of a company. How we contribute, how we share knowledge, and how we collaborate to an end objective may change the very nature of the work we do. This is the much touted “System of Engagement” that sits above the transactional system (emplo. com). Again, technology plays a great part in making the connections happen, through profiles/assessments/likes and other facets of the individual’s person. It is happening even now, as (eHarmony’s elevatedcareers.com) moves into the recruiting world, coming from a heritage of matching people. And why would this not happen, as we become more virtual and global. Teams of skilled individuals, move through a problem and provide resolution, which parallels the military. A model of command structure and discipline, it could easily be carried into the work world on a global basis through the technology we are seeing even today. Cloud Integration – We will move to a new phase of best-of-breed from vendors, counting on the fact that data models will be normalized across the vendors (like HRXML) to allow reporting across the enterprise (onemodel.com). And the delivery will be optimized for mobile. Learning – This arena is already moving to mobile delivery, short, consumable video based lessons without the aid of an instructor or classroom. The next wave of virtual training will allow interaction globally (like a classroom) and be done with simulations of situations, where learning will come through trying anything and everything, learning through experimentation and failure, sharing experiences and collaborating on solving problems, and cataloging the methods for others to use and build upon (xbox.com, secondlife.com). Well-being – The health of the workforce,

either as a body or as individuals is critical to the productivity of the business, so ongoing care will need to be provided in the forms of programs and platforms tailored and personalized for the individual with plug-ins for lots of content and support aids (assethealth.com). The impact to create programs that may mitigate or even eliminate chronic illnesses could transform the workforce and impact our daily lives. And bringing programs of this nature to our younger generations early in life could have profound affects. Telemedicine will play a large role in tracking well-being along with wearables (mobilehealth.com), but the programs will need to support more than physical health, extending into financial, legal, planning, and other services (benefitfocus. com). And those programs will need to be consumer-related, since we will have broken the bonds of employment as we know it. Again, technology will be able to assist in both offering and monitoring the well-being index of the workforce, perhaps even creating benchmarks of well-being. Analytics on the Run - Data compiled from multiple sources, crafted into information, culled at the time needed, and delivered in a new visualization (officeworksoftware.com) will be the competitive edge that will put HR information into the realm of a valued business asset (crunchrapps.com). Knowledge of the workforce, how and where they are deployed, measuring contribution to all aspects of the business, understanding the intricacies of the individual business impact will give businesses a new tool to guide growth and prosperity. And for the companies, who embrace this along with metrics/benchmarks provided by the myriad vendors whose data mining can give better, real-time data, will be competitive and appealing companies for the workforce. Vendor Ecosystems – And through these transitions, I believe vendors will focus on their strongest competencies and develop new ways of capturing the workforce and what it does, and they will align themselves with other niche players. New incubator startups will continue to crop up, giving them traction and channels to reach the HR audience. All this will continue to spur new technologies impacting the HR world, causing it to evolve and keep up with the challenges presented. Human Resources will need to align themselves internally with the entire organization to transform the company into new realms of thinking; HR will not be able to accomplish this alone. Now, to my personal observation, I will use

Again, technology plays a great part in making the connections happen, through profiles/ assessments/likes and other facets of the individual’s person.

www.ihrim.org • Workforce Solutions Review • July 2016

Endnotes 1

“Change Leader’s Network” 2015

a quote I use in many presentations: “It is no longer an HR technology industry we must watch, but rather the technology that impacts HR.” That may bias my answer to the question posed at the beginning of this article, but, after all, I am an HR technologist, and I see technology continuing to bombard industries daily, so why not HR? Human Resources needs to rethink their role and guide the organizations into transformative channels. I believe that technology will continue to push HR to evolve, moving into unheard of directions, reframing the workforce and their needs. and

About the Author

thus challenging HR to adapt or perish. Please consider sharing your thoughts on this by posting your opinion, affirming or contrasting my perspective, to the IHRIM and the Collective HR Solutions LinkedIn groups respectively: https://www.linkedin. com/groups/741637 and https://www. linkedin.com/groups/2666685 , please reference the article - “The HCM Industry: Transitional or Transformative?” I look forward to your thoughts.

Nov Omana, founder of Collective HR Solutions, Inc., has more than 35 years of experience in assisting companies with structuring their HR technology strategy and systems. His company provides HR technology, human resources programs, and business consulting, using innovative technology to solve business needs, and partnering with other small businesses with specialty skills in HR and technology to create a deep knowledge community of services. In 2016, he launched two new businesses, InnovqtionOne.US and MapHR. InnovationOne.US is an assessment of a company’s Innovation Cultural Health Index which leads to higher profitability and optimization of the workforce towards innovation. MapHR is an HR technology directory of solutions and services servicing the HR industry, with several vendor services to provide marketing exposure for vendors to HR Associations. He is a long-time member ofatIHRIM and has served on the directorsatand is currently serving as vice president on the IHRIM Artwork is prepared 200% Final Adboard SizeofPrints 71/2 X 5 inches) Educational Foundation Board. He is a certified Human Resources Information Professional, HRIP, since 2010 and winner of the prestigious IHRIM Summit award. He can be reached at nov@collectivehrsolutions.com.

July 2016 • Workforce Solutions Review • www.ihrim.org

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Bennett Reddin, CloudMills

Objects in Mirror are Behind You Microservices and the Consumer-capable Platform-as-a-Service Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) has been available in Human Resources for just over a decade now. In those 10 years, software architecture and delivery has been radically altered, evolving more rapidly than in the previous 60-plus years of computing. The principles of cloud computing, especially in providing low-maintenance, scalable access to pools of computing resources, drove not only the hardware and network resources, Infrastructureas-a-Service (IaaS), from which “cloud” originally sprung, but also SaaS architecture and delivery. From the HRIS perspective, we see SaaS as the predominant licensing and delivery model for our applications, whether they be silos like Recruiting, Learning Management, Succession Planning, etc., or full Enterprise HR systems. IaaS and SaaS share many common characteristics despite the fact that each delivers and manages very different resources. In particular, the delivery of capabilities in both is performed through selection of configuration options, and not through traditional software coding and assembly processes. With IaaS, the type of computing resource (Windows Server vs. Linux), amount of memory and disk space allocated, type of network (public or private) are all selected as configuration options at launch. Similarly, in SaaS applications, features are all configured from organizational structures for workflow and approvals to the plethora of payroll options that may be required. In neither case though, is any custom programming performed. Between providing all those computing resources, and delivering all those applications services, lays a less familiar cloud computing category: Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS). The PaaS delivery model provides a platform containing the development tools and run-times that allow application development activities to be performed. PaaS normally includes management of the underlying IaaS components as well, making it a bridge between the computing infrastructure and the delivered SaaS application. PaaS isn’t clearly visible in the HRIS domain, but does have both tangential, as well as embedded presence. General Purpose application vendors such as those delivering analytics or data integration often provide a PaaS environment that allows stake-

holders to develop functionality beyond that provided by their “as-a-Service” configuration capabilities. In these cases, custom development normally takes on the acquisition of data from a HRIS and potential extensions of functionality within their environment where standard configuration isn’t sufficient to meet business needs. Regardless, in this PaaS use case, any extensions are performed with the development tools provided or allowed on the vendor’s platform, and tend to be tangential to core HRIS delivery. PaaS embedded in an HRIS application isn’t well-known to application consumers either; these environments are available only to vendor implementers or developers. Client-facing resources within the vendor’s staff typically have access to configuration and management tools whose capabilities exceed those of client administrators. Some of these are not strictly PaaS, but offer global configuration capabilities across a multi-tenant environment. This is often used to create custom data elements, or screen layouts for clients. Other vendor-accessible tools do provide specific high-level development access for implementation specialists, including custom screen layouts with HTML/CSS or advanced validation of data entry with JavaScript. A more complete version of internal PaaS is also prevalent. A vendor’s internal development teams have the capacity to deploy complete images of servers that contain both production-ready artifacts, as well as the development access to significantly modify that image. Each developer, or each small team of developers, can then launch images, design, and program to enhance or correct features in the core system without impacting any other ongoing activities, whether those be parallel development efforts, downstream acceptance testing, or (certainly) promotion of new features to general availability. They can repeatedly create, develop, and destroy these instances as they rapidly deliver feature enhancements, all without the delays inherent in pre-as-a-Service environments. Business needs, especially those regarding speed www.ihrim.org • Workforce Solutions Review • July 2016

of delivery, and the increasing need for security, continue to drive evolution in development practices and the fundamental frameworks of cloud computing. Much as PaaS currently bridges and blurs IaaS into SaaS, the current pace of evolution is further binding the two together. Despite the modernity of SaaS, most of our HRIS architectures have roots in monolithic software architectures. With these all-encompassing frameworks, all features are coupled tightly, and need to be upgraded all at once and with careful impact analysis. Release Management, determining which features can be included in a next version, becomes a full-time endeavor, especially in ensuring that dependencies between both new and existing components aren’t overlooked. Monolithic architectures also place additional security burdens on the entire application: data and processes with the least need for security must be as secure as those with the greatest need for security, only because they’re all lumped together. For example, though a company’s list of locations doesn’t have the same level of security and privacy requirements as does an employee’s information, a monolithic architecture forces the same security constraints on both. Security mechanisms become increasingly complex with each set of information (and sets of access roles) that are added to the application. Breaking up the monolithic application into smaller and smaller parts (increasing the granularity) allows for more ability to change the smaller parts without affecting the entirety of the application. In doing so, segregation of highlysensitive data from less-sensitive allows finergrained control of security and privacy as well. Segmenting functionality into a logical silo allows segmentation of sensitive signup and updating of personal information, and view-only access to login, view one’s own data and access reports. There are certainly different security requirements for each of these sets of functionality, allowing the services that perform that functionality to define and enforce their own security compliance constraints. In addition though, the increased granularity allows separate teams to work independently on functionality with little impact on other teams’ efforts. (Coordination between teams is still and always required, but segmentation allows them to work on independent features and minimize impacts on one another.) The cloud computing response to this evolution has been the Microservices architecture. The overarching statement is that “Microservices running in Containers enable Serverless deployment.” A Microservice would be the functionality entailed in the activity “Update

July 2016 • Workforce Solutions Review • www.ihrim.org

Location” while a corresponding container would provide the run-time capabilities to execute that Microservice. The container would launch and run only for the time required to complete the “Update Location” process. In contrast, traditional processing architectures have all services continually running to meet business requirements. Microservices segmentation with containers reduces the computing resources required for an application to run, but also reduces the application’s overall “surface” exposed to security attacks. Considering that the container is launched for only a brief period of time, it must communicate with the overall environment in a very well-defined and predictable manner. “Update Location” needs to know what other service is performing the request (so that it can authenticate and respond appropriately as the task is completed), and the details of the request itself (e.g., changing the street address for a particular location). This welldefined “contract” for the container’s interaction in the environment leads to another benefit to Microservices architectures: so long as the container always acts the same way when launched, it doesn’t matter who maintains the internal functionality of the container, nor does it matter what programming method might be used inside the container. The promise is this — while continuing to enjoy the benefits of SaaS (vendor-managed infrastructure, security, features) organizations will be able to utilize configuration capabilities and extend the SaaS application to meet custom requirements. The majority of organizations are well-suited to the extensive configuration capabilities in SaaS applications, but we find a large number of enterprises, both large and small, who have custom business requirements, often industryspecific, that require customization outside of offered configuration. There are certainly significant considerations to undertake as this threshold is crossed; at the very least, we must learn lessons from the past onpremise customization experiences and put better controls and processes in place. Industry examples are already appearing to pave the way for that future experience. The ADP Marketplace, while not an application environment itself, is defining patterns of community development that can be referenced as models

in other venues. In particular, ADP has defined processes to accept, audit, and certify submissions to their Marketplace (an App Store for HR/Payroll). Once reviewed, and certified, a submission to the Marketplace becomes available to all other subscribers, with the confidence that the submission will function properly with the targeted ADP application, and with other Marketplace applications and API’s. In similar fashion, client modifications in a container’s Microservice would require some approval process before being injected into larger scale ecology of services, even on a tenantspecific basis. Those submissions though, could themselves have a range of availability, from private, for the individual company in their tenant space, to individually authorized availability for other companies, or completely open to all other companies on the platform. Several early-stage vendors are currently constructing the underlying architecture to deliver Microservices-based PaaS to HR. We’ll see some early-adopter beta releases before the end of 2016. These vendors have selected and implemented the majority of their own technology stacks; in doing so are answering significant questions about futureproofing HR solutions in an environment where options continually shift and evolve. As illustrated, every facet of the development and deployment for Microservices is represented by a number of choices, and the few exemplified are just samples extracted from longer lists for each facet. The top horizontal list comprise the components that allow Microservices to “live.” A specific container definition, configuration of the containers, discovery of all containers (and their properties), routing processes between multiple containers, and monitoring the health of containers, are all essential for the operations of Microservices. There are several available container options, for instance, with Docker being one of the most prominent. Operationally, there’s also a vertical stack of services and considerations. These describe where the application will actually run, on what database, which platform to run the containers, etc. Once HR applications are available, we in the HRIS industry will be most interested in the Development and Policy areas of the operational stack. Whether we’re

changing functionality within a Microservice via provided configuration capabilities, or completely customizing them with our own development tools, we’ll be using the provided PaaS facilities in order to meet our unique business requirements, and the policy tools to secure granular access to the business functionality. The expectation with a Microservices PaaS is that we’ll be able to increase the rate of change as needed to meet existing and emerging business needs, while simultaneously reducing the cost, size, and risk of these changes. Microservices won’t be limited to new HRIS offerings either; other industries and enterprises have paved the way for migration of large scale application migration to Microservices architectures. In the process, companies like Netflix have created tools enabling Microservice delivery and released those tools to the open source community. The patterns and processes for migration are becoming well-established, separating the monolithic architecture first into large grains, then increasing the granularity stepby-step in subsequent iterations until a “pure Microservices” environment has been completed. We’ve both worked with several vendors as they begin this process, as well as have seen signs that others are retooling their applications with an eye toward Microservices-based PaaS. Human Resources Platform-as-a-Service, especially powered by Microservices, may seem a theoretical (and fairly technical!) dream at the moment, but we can anticipate product announcements and releases coming in the near term. We’ll once again see previous architectures beginning to recede in the rear view.

Endnotes 1

Netflix has open-sourced their Archaius configuration, Linkerd routing, and Hystrix monitoring/resilience tools.

About the Author

Bennett (Bennie) Reddin is chief technology officer of CloudMills and is every HR officer’s dream come true. He can have a conversation with a payroll clerk or board member and everyone walks away satisfied with having gained valuable knowledge. A technologist at heart, with a true passion for revolutionizing information delivery to transform HR into corporate innovation catalysts, he frequently contributes this vision to HR strategy and technology publications. Consulting directly to client enterprises, he helps them lay the strategic and technological foundations for emerging innovation in HRIS. Reddin has designed and continues to architect HRIS to meet the needs of 21st century enterprises. He comes to CloudMills with 25 years of HRIS expertise ranging from early PCbased HR systems through current Service-Oriented Architectures. He has engineered and deployed several HR and Payroll architectures for service bureaus and ERP vendors, improving toolsets and practices for implementation in the process. As founder of TiltingWindmills (the predecessor to CloudMills), he has participated in numerous strategic technological initiatives for corporate HR, injecting human capital vision and value into executives’ focus. Email info@ cloudmills.com for more information about the many services available from CloudMills. www.ihrim.org • Workforce Solutions Review • July 2016

feature

Stacia Sherman Garr, Bersin by Deloitte, Deloitte Consulting LLP

Talent Management Maturity: High-Performing Organizations Invest in a Relationship with their Talent Introduction

Today’s organizations face substantial challenges in engaging, retaining, and leading their workforces for reasons that range from major demographic shifts to the impact of technology to increased globalization. For the better part of a decade, organizations have invested in “integrated” talent management, yet to many leaders that approach now seems inadequate to meet the challenges at hand. Human Resources leaders today are wondering which talent management practices they should invest in more, which ones they can reduce or stop their investment in, and which new ones require attention. Our High-Impact Talent Management research1 was designed to answer these questions.

capabilities, with Level 1 organizations having the least amount of sophistication and Level 4 organizations the most. The four levels of maturity are as follows: •

Level 1: Essential Talent Activities – Organizations are focused on performance management and talent acquisition functions, but with most practices still siloed and little or no talent strategy in place.

•

Level 2: Critical Talent Growth – Organizations have an increasingly clear talent strategy, more sophisticated talent processes, and increased integration.

•

Level 3: Managed Talent Relationships – Organizations have a clear talent strategy and a strong learning culture, and are beginning to move beyond compliance-based diversity & inclusion (D&I) activities.

•

Level 4: Inclusive Talent Systems – Organizations have fully developed and integrated talent activities aligned to strategic outcomes, and a progressive D&I approach that is embedded in the employee experience.

The Talent Management Maturity Model

In our new talent management research, we developed a maturity model that identifies key talent practices Global 2000 organizations with strong business and talent outcomes use most effectively. The Talent Management Maturity Model (see Figure 1) shows a clear progression of

Figure 1. Bersin by Deloitte Talent Management Maturity Model. Source: Bersin by Deloitte, 2015.

July 2016 • Workforce Solutions Review • www.ihrim.org

More than 70 percent of Global 2000 organizations surveyed are in lower levels (Level 1 or 2) of the model. These organizations primarily focus on individual talent practices. Specifically, Level 1 organizations tend to focus on fundamental talent management practices and lack consistency in these activities. Level 2 organizations attain a level of talent management excellence, meaning they have solid practices in place and are increasingly focused on employee growth. Our data indicate a major difference between Level 2 and 3 organizations, and that most organizations struggle to cross the chasm between these two maturity levels. While it is true that organizations at higher levels of the maturity model (Levels 3 and 4) are gaining sophistication

in talent management that statement does not go far enough. Level 3 organizations (19 percent of surveyed organizations) begin to fundamentally approach talent in a different way. Instead of viewing talent as a cost, they see it as a part of their competitive advantage. Therefore, they do not just focus on talent management excellence, but also invest in a relationship with that talent to gather its collective intelligence and respond to that insight appropriately. To do this, these organizations implement technology systems, processes, and practices designed to ensure that both individuals and the organization communicate with and understand each other. Think of it as a sort of mass talent customization approach where the organization does the following: 1. Knows about individual employees (as a result of data analytics, widespread succession management conversations, real-time feedback systems, etc.). 2. Communicates back to them (via blogs or social media, changes to policies, projects, or approaches, or through other appropriate mechanisms). 3. Makes changes to the organization that reflect employees’ needs. As a result of these efforts, many individuals in these organizations begin to have a talent experience that feels at least somewhat customized for them, with the organization listening and responding to their needs. The primary differentiator between Level 3 and 4 organizations is that Level 4 organizations focus much more intentionally on D&I. This is an extension of the two-way conversation with talent, whereby the organization is trying to understand employees and to create an environment that enables them to feel comfortable and to contribute fully. Level 4 organizations’ efforts in this area go beyond embracing D&I from a rhetorical or compliance perspective, and instead extend into making D&I more strategic and embedded in the holistic talent management system. These efforts are part of mature organizations’ intentions to create an employee experience that encourages employees to bring their whole selves to work and, in turn, to contribute at a maximal level of engagement to the organization.

The Benefits of Higher Maturity

One of the most important questions to answer when assessing a maturity model is, “does higher maturity have an impact on the outcomes we care about?” In short, the answer is yes. Our analysis shows that organizations at high levels of maturity (as compared with low levels of

maturity) are: • Nearly four times more likely to effectively coach and develop people for better performance; • Approximately three times more likely to identify and develop leaders effectively; and, • Approximately two times more likely to be more agile and innovative. We also found a relationship between maturity and objective financial measures. As compared with organizations of similar size with less mature talent management practices: • Mature large2 organizations had approximately two times higher cash flow per employee over a three-year period. • Mature small3 organizations had 13 times higher mean cash flow from operations, five times higher mean cash flow as a percentage of revenue, and five times mean annual change in share price (all based on a three-year average).

Endnotes 1

High-Impact Talent Management: The New Talent Management Maturity Model, Bersin by Deloitte / Stacia Sherman Garr and Candace Atamanik, 2015. This research is the result of more than two years of study, and is based on a survey that included 1,465 organizations in its sample from a wide variety of industries, organization sizes, and geographies. This analysis is based on the subset of organizations called the “Global 2000,” which are the 454 global organizations in our survey population that had more than $750 million in revenue, which aligns to the cutoff of Global 2000 organizations.

For the purposes of our research, we define “large organizations” as public companies with more than 25,000 employees. The differences in means are statistically meaningful at the 95 percent confidence level.

For the purposes of our research, we define “small public companies” as those with less than 10,000 employees. The differences in means are statistically meaningful at the 90 percent confidence level.

“ Differentiating factors” are those that are most predictive of performance on our maturity model.

Implications of the Talent Management Maturity Model

Given these findings, what should leaders do differently with their talent? An initial activity is to assess the organization’s talent management maturity. With this insight in hand, leaders should follow a three-step process for working to improve maturity (see Figure 2).

Figure 2. Three-Step Process for Improving Talent Management Maturity Source: Bersin by Deloitte, 2016.

Strengthen Foundational Talent Management Practices

For organizations at lower levels of maturity, leaders should invest in creating a basic level of talent management excellence at foundational talent management activities. Specifically, this means: • Analyzing the organization’s structure to ensure it is aligned to business needs and that decision-making processes are clear; • Enhancing the organization’s talent sourcing and selection capabilities; • Implementing and communicating fair talent policies and procedures; and, • Creating performance management (PM) activities focused on improving managers’ and direct reports’ conversation quality, direct reports’ development, and overall fairness of PM activities.

www.ihrim.org • Workforce Solutions Review • July 2016

Develop a Business-Aligned Talent Strategy

About the Author

Stacia Sherman Garr, vice president, directs Bersin by Deloitte’s Talent and HR research, and has nearly a decade of experience writing research and advising clients. Her expertise extends to a wide variety of topics, including talent strategy, performance management, leadership development, employee engagement, career management, employee recognition, workforce planning, and diversity and inclusion. Prior to joining Bersin, she worked as a senior analyst for the Corporate Executive Board, serving as both a research analyst and an instructional designer. She also served as an adjunct history professor at Northern Virginia Community College. Garr holds a Master of Business Administration from the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley. She also has a master’s degree from the London School of Economics and bachelors’ degrees in History and Political Science from Randolph-Macon Woman’s College.

After addressing the foundational talent activities, organizations should develop or enhance their talent strategy. Our research found that only 12 percent of organizations currently have a clear talent strategy. To effectively reach higher levels of maturity, organizations need to create a talent strategy that: • Aligns to the business strategy; • Maintains appropriate focus on foundational talent activities; and, • Invests in “differentiating”4 talent management practices aligned to business needs (see below).

Invest in Critical Differentiating Talent Management Practices

Our research identified three “differentiating” talent management practices organizations can invest in: • Improving the organization’s understanding of and relationship with talent; • Increasing the culture of leadership and learning in the organization; and, • Expanding the investment in D&I. Each of these practices is critical to achieving higher levels of maturity and we will examine them in turn. Our analysis reveals that high-performing organizations tend to have a systemic (versus ad hoc) “two-way” dialogue with talent, which enables leaders to understand and respond to employees more effectively. To develop this relationship, organizations need to examine if they should: • Implement real-time feedback systems (e.g., pulse surveys, recognition systems); • Leverage blogs and social media; and/or, • Launch an integrated career management / talent acquisition system that captures information on employees’ skills and suggests new job opportunities. Organizations can also analyze their HR technology systems to improve managers’ ability to respond to employees. These systems should not only provide basic system of record information, but also give managers talent insights that help them manage people more effectively. Further, organizations could improve the quality and breadth of succession management conversations, so managers have a qualitative (in addition to a quantitative)

July 2016 • Workforce Solutions Review • www.ihrim.org

understanding of employees that enables them to change their management approach appropriately. Another area for many organizations to evolve is their organizational culture, specifically to increase the focus on leadership and learning. This means not just providing formal learning opportunities, but also creating an environment in which leader growth and learning are encouraged informally. Specifically, this means: • Integrating leadership development with all other talent management activities (e.g., integrating leadership competencies into talent acquisition, connecting leadership development to succession management); and, • Creating an environment in which learning (even if it can mean failing) is widely encouraged, which can be enabled by senior leader role modeling / reinforcing desired behaviors, adjustments to incentive systems to encourage learning, and encouraging managers to create and reward informal learning opportunities Finally, the vast majority of organizations need to focus on their D&I efforts. Our analysis reveals that senior leaders should align D&I goals with overall business objectives and some elements of their compensation should be connected to achievement of D&I goals. Further, there should be a very concerted effort to integrate D&I into the talent activities that employees experience frequently, such as learning, career management, and performance management in particular. Integration points should also be strengthened for succession management and talent acquisition.

Final Thoughts

The good news is that 88 percent of organizations surveyed are likely to have a basic level of talent management excellence (e.g., they are at Level 2 or higher in our maturity model). The trick is in moving up to higher levels of talent management maturity. The first step for any organization is to understand its current level of maturity. After that, the organization should focus on strengthening foundational talent management practices, developing a businessaligned talent strategy, and investing in critical differentiating talent management practices. These efforts should help organizations to attract and retain talent more effectively, and to deliver stronger business and talent outcomes.

2016 Mid-Year Source Buyers Guide The 2016 Mid-Year Source 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

Core HRMS

Paid Advertising

Employment Systems & Services

Ceridian StarGarden Corporation

e-Recruiting/Application Tracking Ceridian

Analytics Ceridian Dashboards Ceridian

Call Center Technologies Cloud Computing Ceridian Enterprise Information Resources Inc. SaaS Ceridian

Business Intelligence

Compensation Management

Deferred Compensation DECUSOFT Executive Compensation DECUSOFT Incentive Compensation DECUSOFT Enterprise Information Resources Inc.

HR Service Delivery

Self Service

Ceridian Ceridian Ceridian

Onboarding Payroll Software

Payroll Services

Payroll Outsourcing Ceridian Tax Ceridian

Performance Management

Ceridian Enterprise Information Resources Inc.

Rewards/Recognition

Crystal Plus.com

Self Service

Employee Self-Service (ESS)/Manager Self-Service(MSS) Ceridian

Workforce Management

Forecasting & Scheduling Workforce Software

www.ihrim.org • Workforce Solutions Review • July 2016

2016 Mid-Year Source Buyers Guide

Alphabetical Company Listing* *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/ IHRIM

July 2016 • Workforce Solutions Review • www.ihrim.org

Crystal Plus.com

18475 E. Valley Blvd. City of Industry, CA 91744 Michelle Smith 888-779-8803 888-669-0838 service@crystalplus.com www.crystalplus.com CrystalPlus.com is a leading supplier / manufacturer of crystal awards and corporate gifts. We offer free engraving and no setup charges on all of our crystal awards and gift products. We have in house professional graphic designers, engravers and customer service specialists to serve our customers making ordering crystal awards and gifts easier than ever. At Factory direct prices and with huge inventory selection at our California warehouse, you can’t find any better prices and faster turnaround for the same premium quality of custom engraved corporate awards, sports trophy and personalized gifts. See our ad on page 37.

DECUSOFT

70 Hilltop Rd Ste 1003 Ramsey, NJ 07446 Karie Johnson 201-258-1414 201-785-0774 karie.johnson@decusoft.com www.decusoft.com You have an HCM software suite but you are managing compensation outside the system. Now what? You need COMPOSE, a specialized compensation management software solution that handles any level of variable compensation complexity, reduces your total cost of compensation administration and integrates with existing HR Solutions. Not so suite, but oh so right. See our ad on Inside Front Cover.

2016 Mid-Year Source Buyers Guide

Alphabetical Company Listing* *Systems and applications referred to in this section are trademarked, registered, or in progress. These names should not be used generically.

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 22.

Optimum Solutions, Inc.

210 25th Ave. N. Ste. 700 Nashville, TN 37203 Scott Henderson 615-329-2313 615-329-4448 info@optimum-solutions.com www.optimum-solutions.com Optimum Solutions provides Payroll, HR, and Time and Attendance software delivered on-premise or in the cloud. All applications are developed and supported internally giving your company the individual attention it deserves while providing you with a complete, one database HRIS system. Optimum Payroll currently processes over 12 million paychecks annually.

StarGarden Corporation

Telliris

4 Armstrong Rd. Shelton, CT 06484 Sales Department 203-924-7000 203-944-1618 sales@telliris.com www.telliris.com Mobile Enable your Time & Attendance with Telliris. It’s integrated and ready to use with many packages (Ceridian, Focus, HBS, Identatronics, Infinisource, InfoTronics, Insperity, Kaba Workforce Solutions, Kronos, Renova, ScheduleSoft, Sense Software, SumTotal Systems, Time Link, UniFocus, and Workforce Software). Apps include Absence, Accruals, Crew Clock, Employee Messaging, ESS, Scheduling, Time Clock, Time Sheet, and Time-off Request. It’s ideal for organizations with dispersed, remote or mobile employees. Please contact Telliris or your Time & Attendance vendor for details.

300-3665 Kingsway Vancouver, Canada V5R5W2 Marnie Larson 800-809-2880 604-451-0578 info@stargarden.com www.stargarden.com StarGarden is a fully integrated web-based Human Resources, Payroll and Work Planning solution designed to meet the needs of structured, position-based organizations with complex pay and benefit issues. StarGarden maintains substantial detailed information about your organization, its structure, compensation and benefits plans, accruals/balances, employees, and payroll. www. stargarden.com or call 800-809-2880.

www.ihrim.org • Workforce Solutions Review • July 2016

Executive Interview A WSR interview with Lenny Mendonca, director emeritus of McKinsey & Company, senior fellow at the Presidio Institute, and co-founder and Chair of FUSE Corps. WSR: Thank you for making time for us, Lenny. You are actively involved in building a next generation of leadership talent to address “big, hairy” multi-disciplinary challenges facing the State of California and the country. Can you share how the idea of building “cross-sector athletes” (leaders with experience across business, nonprofits, philanthropy and government) came about? Mendonca: The genesis of FUSE Corps (http:// www.fusecorps.org) came out of my time at McKinsey, while I was helping build our public sector practice and working with mayors, governors, and their teams. When I asked where they most needed help, they would often say, “If you know anyone leaving McKinsey who’s interested in government, we would love to have them help us get things done.” At the same time, McKinsey colleagues and others were saying, “If you hear of an opportunity where I could work – not just as a cog in a wheel in the public sector, but on something really important – I would love to do that.” Somehow, these threads weren’t coming together, so we went to the White House and laid out the idea of starting something like a White House Fellows Program, except for mayors and governors. They said, “We love the idea, but don’t do it as a government agency or it will come with constraints and be seen as political. Plus, as soon as this administration leaves, the next one will dump it. Go create a nonprofit instead.” And, that’s what we did. Alongside huge social needs and complex leadership challenges, there’s a thirst for highimpact opportunities. Many in the current generation don’t feel they are getting real challenge from their day jobs. While they may not necessarily want to spend a whole career in civil service, they do want purposeful work and the opportunity to make a difference. WSR: What’s been the return on human capital investment for employers? Mendonca: This year is our fourth year of operation and we chose 16 fellows from among

July 2016 • Workforce Solutions Review • www.ihrim.org

800 applicants. Nancy Hogan, our COO – who was previously President Obama’s appointments person – said we probably could have hired 200 from the pool. Part of what has made the fellowships so successful is that they provide the public sector access to different types of talent, and a means to supplement civil service hiring. The program enables new onramps to civil service careers, though that’s not necessarily the aim of the yearlong projects. FUSE Fellows get an opportunity to enter the public sector without being political appointees or spending their whole career there. The government agencies get more flexible staffing options. And, more than half of our fellows have decided to stay on in public service in some way or other. WSR: You have been actively involved in issues facing California. What do you see as some of the most significant problems facing the state right now, and how do we get across them? Mendonca: There are numerous efforts underway in California to take seemingly intractable issues, and in Governor Brown’s words, push them to a level of “subsidiarity” where they can be more easily attacked and solved. Progress is being made on issues like local control funding formulas with K-12 education and regional community college/workforce partnerships to ensure we have the workforce with the skills for the jobs of the future. Other areas of focus include helping people to earn a living wage in those parts of the state that have not benefited from the Silicon Valley tech boom, realignment of the criminal justice system, and efforts to break the recidivism problem. One of the most pressing problems in the Bay Area is addressing the issue of how much housing costs versus other places around the country. Having spent much of the last five years flying back and forth to Washington D.C., I would constantly hear issues like these described as intractable political problems. On one level, you can say that; but, looked at another way, it’s possible to break them down and get real movement against them. Maybe it’s the

frontier attitude or “The California Dream,” but people here tend to have a very different view of problems; they see them as innovation opportunities. I would much rather be in that mindset. WSR: I understand that you grew up in a small town in the central valley of California. How did that experience inform your work “purpose” and social activism? Mendonca: I grew up on a dairy farm in Turlock, CA. My parents were second-generation farmers, running the place after my grandfather. It was a demanding job, often 80 hours a week with no days off, but they always found time to engage in making the community a better place. My father was fire chief in the volunteer fire department and was deeply involved in veterans work. My mother was very involved in the church and a number of educational issues. That was just what you did. The family took service seriously. I opted to not be a dairy farmer! WSR: Assuming the country successfully navigates the current political morass, what makes you most hopeful for the future? Mendonca: Oh, we’ll get through it; we always do. We have an amazingly resilient federalist democratic republic. At a minimum, the challenges described above cross agencies and require collaboration across public and private sectors, and often require engagement with philanthropy, too. There is a lot of noise and a general attitude in the political sphere, especially during election years, that everything is fundamentally broken in government, and nothing can ever be fixed. Having just spent a day with current FUSE Fellows, I left with the exact opposite feeling. One can’t help but come away inspired – seeing what talented people can accomplish if the conditions are right. If you define a challenge and align around the problem you are trying to solve, then someone can make a significant difference in a relatively short period of time. It’s a really

exciting time for innovating and creating new flows of opportunity and talent to work on some of these vexing public problems. WSR: Project out 10 years from now. What do you hope to see? What would you like to see happening in the U.S.? Mendonca: If you look back in history, most of Europe and much of Japan was decimated coming out of World War II. The U.S. had to bring management capacity to rebuild those places, but at the time almost nothing existed to professionally develop managers. The Ford and Carnegie Foundations, and the Committee for Economic Development explored the challenge, and decided to take what had been somewhat ineffective trade schools (business schools of the day), and turn them into leadership factories to develop leaders who could take on the massive management challenges the world faced at the time. Over the next couple decades, these schools built up enormous capacity, and the country then put tremendous resources into business schools over the next 50 years. What I’d like to see is another wave of leadership focused on addressing the problems we’ve been talking about. We have an enormous need. We face a looming demographic retirement wave that will require a thoughtful solution in the next decade. I’m confident that we will address it, but it will take a burst of energy and new human capital approaches. What I’m really excited and hopeful about is that the early stages are underway with what we are doing at FUSE Corps and leadership programs at The Presidio Institute, along with a number of other groups. We are going to need coordinated action to address challenges that cut across the public, social and private sectors. That’s the thing I would most like to see happen. WSR: That’s a worthy call to action. Thanks again for spending time with us today, and for spearheading innovative approaches to pressing human capital challenges.

About Lenny Mondonca Director emeritus from the Washington D.C. and San Francisco offices of McKinsey & Company, Lenny Mendonca is also a senior fellow at the Presidio Institute and an advisor to several entrepreneurs. He founded McKinsey’s U.S. state and local public sector practice. Over the course of his career, he has helped dozens of government, corporate, and nonprofit clients solve their most difficult management challenges. He is co-founder and chair of FUSE Corps. Board positions include The Committee for Economic Development, Common Cause, the Bay Area Science and Innovation Consortium, The Campaign for Business & Educational Excellence, The Educational Results Partnership, and The College Futures Foundation. www.ihrim.org • Workforce Solutions Review • July 2016

Onboarding Planning Ted Bauer, thecontextofthings.com

Manager: Take Accountability for Onboarding We know this: Companies spend a ton of money on hiring and recruiting. What then, do we do for new employees upon actual employment? Ah, yes, onboarding. We seem to spend less time thinking about this phase of the employee life cycle than any of the others – with the possible exception of career development. Many managers, stressed and pressed in a variety of different contexts, will claim that they want employees who can “hit the ground running” – ostensibly making the onboarding period less critical. In fact, the notion of an employee “hitting the ground running” has actually been called “a farce” by performance management consultant Dick Grote. One of the biggest challenges with onboarding is that at many companies, it’s inherently transactional. It’s often all about managers filling out forms so technology gets provisioned, finding the new person a workspace (assuming they work onsite), and setting up some initial “get to know you” meetings…maybe lunch with the boss. Granted, some transactional elements are unavoidable. But, how do we begin to think about onboarding along fundamentally different lines? These are an employee’s first few days with a company. It’s a major life change for them (and for you, his or her manager). The stories and mission/purpose you impart now, before internal politics and pessimism take hold, could be truly transformative. All too often, we don’t think of onboarding in this way. That is, if we even think about it at all. Look at this, courtesy of Harvard Business Review: The majority of companies think of their onboarding process as non-existent or only “somewhat successful.” Can’t we do better? Isn’t it time?

July 2016 • Workforce Solutions Review • www.ihrim.org

Fix Your Onboarding Program: Your First Steps Start with three basic assumptions (which apply not just to executives, but to all employee onboards): 1. The only truly sustainable competitive advantage is your culture. 2. Poor fit with the culture is the number one cause of new hire failure, far and away. 3. Effective onboarding is the way you reduce the risk of bad hires and assimilate people into your culture. Number one is the hardest for people to understand – especially old-school, Type-A, target-focused managers. “Culture” isn’t on a balance sheet, so you can’t sit in meetings and discuss it. Most people assume their greatest competitive advantage is: • Their products, • Their services, • Their business plan, • Their margins, • Their key performance indicators (KPIs), and • Their data. Almost everyone who rises up in a company tends to list those things ahead of things like: • People, • Ideas, • Staff, and • Training. There lies the essence of the problem. We overinflate the importance of financial metrics; and we under-inflate the importance of the human beings who work hard to deliver those metrics. We need to shift that thinking if we want to be successful in retaining the next generation of new hires.

Avoid “The Busy Trap.”

Too many managers – especially middle managers – are all about the busy trap. You know them…running around telling everyone how

much is on their plate. I get all the psychological reasons for that – it’s a drug, essentially – but you absolutely cannot do this on a week when you have a new hire. This is what people always seem to forget; when someone starts a new job, they are often nervous, scared, etc. It’s almost like switching schools as a kid. They need to understand how they fit into the bigger picture. They need to understand what the company does and what it prioritizes. They need more than the new employee orientation “dog and pony show” to truly feel included in the company. You need to help them to understand the company at an organic level. It starts with you, their manager. Have you had the experience of starting a new job, and on day two, your manager barely pays attention to you? How many of you have relocated…uprooted your life for a job, and then the boss treats you like you’re a temp? Don’t do it. You’re better than that.

Here Are Some Things You Can Do to Onboard Better 1. Discuss actual job goals in the first two to three days. What would success look like in this job? What would failure look like? How will success actually be measured? 2. Ask one simple question: “What do you look like when you’re at your best?” Open with that. Let the new hire run down what makes him or her feel good, how they like to work, how they like to meet, how often they like feedback, what types of projects they most enjoy, where and what they want to learn, etc. Make notes on these ideas. Bring them up. Use them in ongoing oneon-one meetings. 3. Explain how the company makes money. Companies continue to exist because they make (or raise) money. It’s amazing how many onboarding processes don’t involve a discussion of, “Hey, here’s how our company makes money.” It doesn’t need to be led by the CFO or anything, but let’s set a rule: you can’t manage others if you can’t explain how the company you work for makes money. In the first 20 hours of employment, any new hire should have a good to very good understanding of how the company generates revenue.

4. Share explicit and implicit cultural values. What is really valued around here, in addition to what’s in the mission statement? 5. Explain “who does what” in your department and elsewhere in the company. Practice describing your job to a 5th grader. Be able to describe key roles in simple, succinct terms. It will help navigate his or her tasks and others’ work streams. 6. How does your job relate back to the bigger purpose of the department and company? Obviously, we are doing the job, in part, for a paycheck (at least the vast majority of us). I get that. But, knowing how my work relates to the bigger work connects personal, job, and organizational purpose. 7. Clarify expectations for the first 30, 60, and 90 days. What should the employee realistically achieve in the first month? What are some of the relationship, as well as task functions. Consider using a “passport” system for onboarding. Basically, there are “stamps” to acquire: meet someone from another department, go to a senior leadership meeting, attend a happy hour, volunteer with the company, finish a slide deck, etc. This gets to the core problem, which is when managers fail to… 8. Treat onboarding as the dynamic process it is. Personal relationships evolve. Shouldn’t onboarding be a dynamic process, as opposed to a static event?

About the Author Ted Bauer is a freelance writer, editor, blogger, and content strategist based in Fort Worth, TX (but originally from New York City). He holds a bachelor’s degree in sociology and psychology from Georgetown and a master’s in organizational development from the University of Minnesota. He’s worked for several Fortune 500 companies, including Disney and McKesson. He was also a Teach for America corps member (Houston 2003). He can be reached at http:// thecontextofthings.com/.

In summary, as a manager, you are accountable for tailoring the onboarding experience for each of your employees. To do so, you need to: • Understand who this unique employee is; • Explain why the employee is valuable to the organization; • Discuss how the two of you will interact (feedback, processes, etc.); and; • Define what success (for the onboarding process and long-term performance) looks like. Treat new hires like they are a valuable part of the team, and they will surprise you with their contributions. They may even exceed your expectations.

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Predictive Analytics Greta Roberts, Talent Analytics, Corp.

Predictive Analytics is Essential to Your Candidate Pre-Screening Process – Here’s Why! Corporate recruiters have a very important and difficult job. They predict who will be a top performer in certain roles and protect against non-performers getting inside the business ecosystem. We rely on their ability to make constant snap judgments to move a candidate into the interview process or not. A single decision in either direction can cost or make a company millions of dollars. Dr. John Sullivan, an internationally known HR expert, estimates that recruiters in larger organizations might carry an open requisition load of 15 to 60 open requisitions at a time (http://bit. ly/24mBv0f). According to CareerBuilder (http:// cb.com/1qYcmtU) and Inc. Magazine (http:// bit.ly/1PcanNh), every open position receives between 75 and 250 applications respectively. A 2012 study by the Ladders, titled “Keeping an Eye on Recruiter Behavior,” shows that corporate recruiters spend an average of six seconds on every résumé – only six seconds! In that time, they make a decision about whether the candidate can: 1) perform well in the role, 2) last long enough in the role to make a positive impact on the business, and 3) be in a role the candidate will find satisfying for a long time (http://bit.ly/1ND1VGE). (Go to this URL for the PDF download of the full study: http://bit. ly/1NWSA7y). Let’s estimate 35 open positions with an average of 100 applications per open position. At any given time, each recruiter is screening approximately 3,500 candidates. During the six seconds when they are screening the candidate’s résumé they need to: 1) keep the “requirements” clear for each of these roles, 2) make sure their decision is unbiased, 3) try to remember if characteristics they are reading on the résumé were some they remember from other candidates that worked out – or didn’t, and more.

July 2016 • Workforce Solutions Review • www.ihrim.org

“Get Me More Candidates Like Her.” Sometimes a hiring manager will comment: “She was a great hire. Get me more candidates like her.” It’s so frustrating not to know what made the prior candidate successful. You can guess. Was it their experience, where they went to school, their references? How do you know, for sure, so you can consistently replicate success and avoid failure?

Today’s Candidate Pre-Screening Process is… I’m sure by now you get the point; today’s candidate screening process is a losing battle. It’s not scalable. It’s not repeatable. The process can’t learn from past successes and mistakes. In six seconds or less, current recruiters aren’t giving candidates a fair chance. They’re juggling 3,500 other things. Naysayers of using artificial intelligence or predictive analytics in the candidate screening process talk about how they don’t want to be treated as a number, or how they are afraid of being misunderstood. The misunderstanding actually occurs when recruiters aren’t “seeing” you as a person when they review your résumé in six seconds. There is nothing personal about today’s typical candidate screening process.

Candidate Pre-screening – One of HR’s Best “Predictive Analytics Projects” Candidate screening is a process better handled by algorithms that can effortlessly, accurately, respectfully, and predictively screen thousands or millions of candidates per day (or hour) for business success. All a predictive algorithm cares about is predicting success.

Algorithms are fair. They are reliable. They learn from their mistakes and can tell you what it was about top-performing candidates that made them the best – so the algorithms can find more. Algorithms give the same amount of time and energy to each candidate. They are unbiased. They don’t get tired after screening three thousand (or three million) candidates.

Looking for a great first predictive project in HR? Candidate pre-screening is a wonderful choice. Easy and elegant – and it releases your corporate recruiters to interview, schedule, check references, and make better decisions – those that are ultimately better suited for a human.

Algorithms Do Different Things than Humans. They Don’t Replace Humans. Predictive screening algorithms are developed to screen-in candidates with a high probability of successfully performing, i.e., make their sales revenue, answer a large number of call center calls, have a high customer service rating, remain in the role at least 12 or 18 months, or accurately balance their bank teller drawers. They also screenout candidates with a low probability of performing successfully. Once candidates with a high probability of success are identified, the corporate recruiter begins their normal interview process. No more six-second scans of a résumé.

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Machine Learning Helps the Predictive Model to “Get Smarter.” To complete the predictive process, we recommend that every three months the predictive model’s recommendations should be compared with how the new hires are actually performing in their job 3, 6, 12, 18 months later; i.e., your data scientists or vendor should regularly ask for actual performance data and report on it. If someone was predicted to last at least 12 months in their role, you will want to know if the new hire left prior to 12 months or if they are still employed. Only use a model if it performs better than your current hiring and selection processes.

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Greta Roberts is the CEO and co-founder of Talent Analytics, Corp. She is the program chair of Predictive Analytics World for Workforce and a faculty member of the International Institute for Analytics. Follow her on twitter @gretaroberts.

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Wi-Fi: Costs vs. Benefit Patricia R. Hume, iPass, Inc.

Does Free Wi-Fi Make Good Business Sense? Thanks to advances in mobile technology, workforce productivity has increased by a staggering 84 percent per hour in the last 40 years. As a business leader, that statistic blows my mind. I am getting 84 percent more out of my team on an hourly basis than I would have gotten in the 1970s. How is that much progress even humanly possible within my lifetime? The short answer is through the power of technology; technology that connects people better and faster. First, it was email, then the mobile phone, and now a whole host of business software solutions that help people connect to the information they need the most. The interesting thing is this surge in productivity doesn’t show any sign of ending in the near future. Those business software solutions are only connecting at faster speeds, to more powerful devices. And the Internet of Things (IoT) is its own massive business opportunity, promising greater productivity gains in the workplace as machines connect to machines. Productivity gains are not just linked to new mobile technologies, but also to the fact that more and more people are working outside of the traditional office. In advanced economies like the United States, the percentage of the workforce that is mobile is nearing three quarters of the total workforce. As employees move from place to place, they also move your company data. For instance, more than 70 percent of enterprise data is already on some form of mobile device. That’s where Wi-Fi comes in. As business leaders, we need to keep those more than one billion mobile professionals connected to the best internet connection possible to ensure that they can perform the host of business tasks that are crucial to improving company ROI, from downloading large presentations, to sharing files, transferring video content and accessing cloud-based applications and Unified Communications tools. All of these tasks require a significant amount of data. All of these tasks

July 2016 • Workforce Solutions Review • www.ihrim.org

require Wi-Fi. But not all Wi-Fi is created equal. Free Wi-Fi has a major business cost associated with it. Most free Wi-Fi introduces numerous inconveniences such as pop-ups, spam, session time-outs and slow speeds from congested networks – just think of the free Wi-Fi experience at your local coffee shop. These inconveniences cut directly into productive time. If I want my team connecting while mobile, which I certainly do, I wouldn’t trust them connecting on free Wi-Fi. Contrary to popular opinion, free Wi-Fi is not available everywhere we need it to be. As an executive, I want my team to be able to connect wherever they are. Keeping my team always on, which includes outside of the office, is how I improve productivity. In any company with mobile workers, you simply can’t afford to have your team spending time and effort locating usable, free Wi-Fi, especially when they need to conduct a mobile business meeting that requires a good connection. If that employee can’t connect, I lose productive time. And, in any enterprise with mobile workers, when employees can’t connect, they can’t work, and they don’t contribute. Similarly, in the numerous locations where free Wi-Fi is limited or non-existent, you lose even more productive hours. For instance, in an airplane: if your employees rely solely on free Wi-Fi, they won’t be able to access inflight Wi-Fi, which always requires payment. The productive time you lose when your team is in the air could be significant, especially if they are road warriors in sales, consulting, government contracting, etc. Airplanes aren’t the only place where your employees lose productive time if you make them rely on free Wi-Fi. Mobile teams log significant hours in airports and hotels, many of which offer free Wi-Fi. But, airports, specifically, tend to offer free Wi-Fi only for a 30-minute

maximum. As for hotels, most chains now offer free Wi-Fi. But, most operate on a two-tier “freemium” model. In other words, you have to pay for a good connection. The free WiFi they do dole out is notorious for its low quality, meaning that your mobile employees will likely be unable to access cloud-based apps, download video content, or make calls over Wi-Fi. Free Wi-Fi doesn’t just kill productivity when you can’t connect; it kills productivity when you make a bad connection. Free Wi-Fi, even the seemingly innocent free Wi-Fi at your hotel, comes with numerous security risks and privacy erosions. These range from infamous man-in-the-middle attacks to identity spoofing and tracking by ISPs and other entities. That’s because free Wi-Fi networks don’t require authorization to access. The openness of free Wi-Fi networks leaves your employees vulnerable to data and identity theft, prying eyes, and software virus and malware infection. The easiest way for hackers to gain access to a corporate network is by stealing one of your user’s corporate credentials from their mobile device when they’re connected to free Wi-Fi. The popularity of bring-yourown-device (BYOD) policies compounds that threat. In the past, corporate-issued desktops were the norm, and IT controlled software and antivirus applications on those computers, as well as established firewalls for the network. But, BYOD has fundamentally changed the security perimeter, placing unknown operating software, applications, and possibly even virus infections right onto your corporate networks. This isn’t idle speculation, either. An estimated 37.3 million users worldwide, including 4.5 million Americans, have already fallen victim to phishing (or pharming) attempts, meaning their payment details have been stolen from hacked computers, smartphones, or browsers. Just watch the six o’clock news and you’ll see that statistic is only the tip of the iceberg – numerous reports indicate digital identity fraud is an

increasingly common problem, as hackers and cyber criminals become ever more adept at stealing data. The damage from those hacks cost companies around US$400 billion each year, according to British insurance company Lloyd’s. Lloyd’s can only quantify the monetary loss. The loss of productivity and intellectual property is even more alarming. And, speaking of spend, if you rely on free Wi-Fi, you have no idea where that spend is going. Connectivity costs are the hardest to track down, because they appear one minute as roaming charges, another as “day passes,” and another as ad hoc expenses for “freemium” Wi-Fi. I don’t know about you, but I’d rather not have my employees jumping through complicated hoops to file expense reports. And, I’d rather have my finance team guiding the company to profitability and not scrambling to track down connectivity costs, because we thought our employees could just rely on free Wi-Fi. It’s clear to me that free Wi-Fi doesn’t make a ton of business sense. So what do you do, given the fact that your mobile employees are already choosing free Wi-Fi? It starts with education. Not all Wi-Fi is bad. In general, Wi-Fi is faster, cheaper, and more reliable than cellular. The data corroborates this fact. The overcrowding of cellular networks has already led to major data offload to Wi-Fi, which now carries more than half of all mobile data. That number is expected to jump to 60 percent, according to Cisco, over the next few years. To make Wi-Fi work for your business, you need to create a mobility strategy with a global Wi-Fi subscription plan at its heart. Global Wi-Fi allows you to stay connected wherever, whenever. For reference, think of the typical unlimited plan: unlimited data, unlimited devices, and unlimited time. Cellular covers you pretty thoroughly where you are land bound in the U.S., but you need global Wi-Fi as a complement for “everywhere” coverage, predictable costs, and better quality of service.

About the Author Patricia R. Hume is the chief commercial officer of iPass, Inc. A dynamic and energetic executive with 35 years of technology experience, she has led several large sales, marketing, and business development operations. Most recently, she was president of Trapit, Inc. from 2013 to 2015. In addition, she was chief revenue officer at Convio, acquired by Blackbaud, senior vice president of Global Indirect Channels at SAP AG, group vice president of Avaya’s SMB Division, and CEO/president of VerticalNet Markets. She also held numerous senior management positions during her 17-year service with IBM and Lotus until 1999.

www.ihrim.org • Workforce Solutions Review • July 2016

Executive Interview A WSR Executive Interview with Jill Beckman, vice president, Human Resources at Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Kansas City. WSR: We appreciate that you would take time to bring your experience to our readers. Please tell us about your background in HR. Jill Beckman: I have been in Human Resources for 33 years. I’ve been an HR leader since 1986. I have 21 years of health care and around 11 years of banking experience, and now I’m in the insurance business. For my current role, I moved to Kansas City. So I’m now in not only a new industry, but in a new market. WSR: What do you see as the role of HR in an organization? Jill Beckman: I feel that our primary responsibility is to support leadership and ensure that we have the proper organizational design, that we are looking at the culture and engagement of our employees, and that we’re aligning all of our talent strategies, total rewards, workforce planning, etc., with business results. One of the biggest challenges is figuring out how to balance the day-to-day operations, which is where most HR people focus, with looking ahead and preparing for the future. WSR: Do you think that’s what most HR professionals miss, that strategic view, or are there other things that HR professionals should be focusing on now and for the future? Jill Beckman: Well, I think some are really focused on day-to-day operations, and it’s easy to just get inundated with requests so that you are reacting to the problems. I always say that you have to have two paths; you have to have the dayto-day operations that you’re taking care of, and then you also have to have a plan to take you forward. Part of that is just knowing that you need to keep the car running, but you have to look to the future; that takes experience. Of course you also need the support from leadership to help get you to that future focus. Some HR professionals don’t have the experience and they miss that futuristic part. I also think sometimes HR professionals want to do the strategic, fun stuff, but then they forget about the day-to-day. So it’s a balance.

July 2016 • Workforce Solutions Review • www.ihrim.org

WSR: Yes, that’s very true. How has technology enabled your success in human resources? Jill Beckman: In all of my roles, I started with subpar HR technology platforms. I’ve had multiple databases where people tried to band-aid solutions, and that doesn’t make HR organizations very effective. I have also transformed and actually had full integrated technology solutions, and in that environment an HR organization can operate with less, but different people. The skillset of the HR staff increases when you have the right technology solution, because you develop analytics, partner with the business, and perform more strategically and proactively. If you have the right technology you can have less talent because you are just operationally effective. Also managers have information at their fingertips and managing their talent improves. I believe technology is a great and fundamental requirement for an HR organization. WSR: What do you see as the most influential technology change that has advanced the people side of organization? Jill Beckman: At my last organization we had an integrated technology solution; we were very efficient. We started to share workforce analytics with the organization such as retention and performance analytics that we used to help drive some change and education with our managers. We actually tested the effectiveness of our technology. As part of our talent assessment process, we asked managers to indicate if they thought an employee was a flight risk. The talent technology solution actually had a methodology that tracked certain statistics on employees and determined employee flight risk. We analyzed this every quarter, and the first year the technology solution predicted turnover way better than our managers. We used this as an opportunity to use real data and help teach and highlight to managers how to be in touch with their employees. So for me, if your organization can get that full HR technology platform and you are engag-

ing your managers, you can then use data to help improve your talent management. WSR: Do you think, as some have said, that HR technology takes the human part out of human resources? Jill Beckman: I don’t think so. I think technology is just a key requirement to run a good organization. It actually allows the HR professional to do more proactive market research, analytics, and partner with the business and you aren’t doing tracking and other tasks that technology can do for you. I don’t think HR technology takes the human out of HR; I think it actually creates more opportunity for the human. WSR: As an HR leader what keeps you up at night? Jill Beckman: Volume of work with the lack of resources has always been a challenge, along with manager training and promotion and balancing the immediate operational needs with trying to drive the business strategy. I have multiple things to keep me up at night, the item depends on the day. You can’t get it all done today, so you have to prioritize. WSR: HR has struggled for years to get a seat at the table. What do you think HR practitioners should do now, and do you think getting a seat at the table is important? Jill Beckman: I do think a seat at the table is important, very important. I think that often leadership doesn’t know what they don’t know about the people side of the business. They may know their direct reports, but as far as how to align the talent strategies, that is a weak link. There is a lot of money associated with our labor, and we need to make sure it’s aligned with the business. There’s the old saying that you have to have the right people in the right seat at the right time for the right price. I think it’s critical in this changing world that we are looking at the right people, at the right time. Skillsets have changed,

needs have changed, and tenure longevity is important, but that’s not the only reason you keep somebody in a role. We need to know what those skillsets are and make sure people are capable of moving through the organization and transforming as the business is transforming. HR should be at the table and to get there we have to listen, ask questions, and build relationships. In my few different business opportunities I’ve gone in, listened, gone slow, and assessed the company. Then you put a human capital plan together and engage the senior leadership. You have to come to where they are since each company has a different culture and a different starting point; it’s not something that you can just take off the shelf. You have to create a plan that fits with where the company is and where the company wants to go. Then you start having some little wins and building relationships, and then you get invited to the table a little bit more. The other thing I might add on is that you also have to have an HR team that can deliver. As you are developing that human capital management plan, you are also building the infrastructure with the HR team and technology so that we’ll deliver on the plan. With the right people and technology you have to be able to support the business strategies. WSR: Any closing comments from you related to the future of HR or the future of HR technology? Jill Beckman: Human Resources can add a huge amount of value to the company. It’s a wonderful profession, but people need to realize they need to know the multiple components of human resources, and they need to take time and understand it’s more than just recruiting, it’s more than just firing, and it’s more than just paying. There is a lot of complications with the legal requirements we’re all under, the different lines of business, and people need to understand business as they get into human resources. There is a lot of opportunity in the talent space, but HR professionals need to be patient, listen, and build relationships.

About Jill Beckman Jill Beckman is vice president, Human Resources at Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Kansas City. Previously, she was division director - People Services at INTRUST Bank and SVP, Human Resources at Via Christi Health System and Wichita Network. She is a graduate of The University of Kansas and has served many years as a strategic and collaborative human resources leader who enjoys developing people, partnering with business leaders, and leading change. She can be reached at Jill.Beckman@BlueKC.com.

www.ihrim.org • Workforce Solutions Review • July 2016

The Back Story Dr. Katherine Jones, Mercer

Business of HR:

Ramping Up the HR Production Engine – The HRIS We hardly ever think of HR as a “business,” do we? Yet, within the larger organization, it can be considered just that: it has its own dedicated personnel, its mission, its procedures and processes for accomplishing that mission, criteria for excellence, and metrics for its success. And, like all modern businesses, it can capitalize on technology for efficiency and economy. The technology world behind the business of HR has changed ─ and HR is changing with it. Recent research conducted at Mercer looked at trends in the HR Information Systems (HRIS) environments to find both recent new software acquisitions and plans for future replacement purchases. Human Resources Information Systems technology supports what is referred to as “Core HR” – that is, the software application that manages the employee statement of record. A HRIS may address only employment compliance issues; however, many have expanded their HRIS systems to manage talent as well (for example, supporting applications for hiring, performance

Figure 1. Impact Trends on HRIS. Source: Mercer, 2016.

July 2016 • Workforce Solutions Review • www.ihrim.org

management, and training). Recently, technology has evolved significantly in all areas of employee management, prompting HR professionals’ interest in acquiring new applications. In fact, despite the enormity of the task, Mercer’s recent Global Talent Trends research showed that over half (63 percent) of worldwide participants surveyed are planning new investments in HR technology.1 Out of the 500 participants in the HRIS study, 34 percent of respondents indicated that they intend to purchase a new HRIS system within the next three years.2 Forty-five percent had implemented a new HRIS system within the last five years; of those, the majority had deployed that system in the cloud, utilizing the increasingly popular Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) delivery model. The cloud changes things; this model has implications for the business of HR in terms of support and maintenance, implementation time, total cost of ownership, and the ability to more easily integrate innovation (see Figure 1).

Drivers for Change Swapping out an HRIS isn’t trivial. In fact, it is darned difficult. No companies are exactly the same, and, therefore, their reasons for significantly changing their HR practices or technologies will vary. In most cases, there is not one driving force, but several. The topfive reasons for the move from our surveyed population were requirements for: 1. A single system of record for all HR data; 2. Reliable, consistent reporting for compliance and legal obligations; 3. An integrated HR data system to perform workforce analytics; 4. Standardizing HR data across multiple geographies and/or business units; and 5. Moving away from a legacy system that was not meeting organizational needs. Significantly, the predominant driver was the desire for a single system of record for all data globally. Often companies add new applications that are not integrated or have multiple HRIS systems in place – a common occurrence after corporate mergers or acquisitions. The proliferation of disparate systems across the organization creates data islands with employee information existing in different places, making accurate reporting and analysis elusive. When this happens, the consistency and reliability sought by so many of our respondents is nearly impossible. Aging applications proved another driver; outdated software makes the business of HR

very difficult to manage. On-premise or legacy systems, often inflexible and usually heavily customized, no longer meet the needs of today’s HR professionals. With high ongoing maintenance costs and, often, few updated features, these systems are prime targets for replacement. At a time when an improved user experience is viewed as critical, the unintuitive interfaces in these older systems further sped up their replacement.

Change: Beyond Technology The plan that includes a technology change may also prompt review of the larger HR business model within the organization. The three top areas for simultaneous change in this global population were developing and executing strategic change management (27 percent), redesigning the end-to-end HR process (27 percent), and implementing a new organizational grade structure (22 percent). More specifically, implementing or expanding an HR Service Center model was the most prevalent concomitant strategy initiative, followed by the use or expansion of HR Business Partners across the organization, and creating or expanding HR Centers of Expertise. These were the foremost three strategic initiatives affiliated with the plan to introduce a new HRIS. (See Figure 2). Whatever the primary driver for deploying a new HRIS, clarity of purpose is a requirement, recognizing that any technical strategy should mirror the organization’s business and human capital strategies. You are likely to live with your new investment for some time (history tells us 7

Figure 2. HR Business Model Changes with HRIS Initiatives. Source: Mercer, 2016.

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to 10 years is the lifespan of a HRIS), and you need to ensure that your strategy will support not just your short-term, but your long-term requirements as well. In conclusion, here are 10 strategic considerations to evaluate:

screeching halt without technology. Likewise, the business that is HR is facilitated by good technology. However, it is the “human” in human resources that determines the processes that manage the workforce. Technology, in and of itself, is never the answer.

1. Are all stakeholders clear on the strategic HR vision? 2. I s your HR technology strategy aligned with talent strategies that deliver business outcomes? 3. Are you prepared to align your HR processes with the chosen software to drive simplification and standardization? 4. Are you looking across the product roadmap of potential solution providers and determining how the options map to your HR strategy? What other systems will your HRIS need to integrate with? 5. C an you live with the constraints (that is, no customization) of adopting cloud technology? 6. Will your chosen solution meet the requirements of the HR function at the task level? 7. H ow will the system enhance the employee experience, e.g., do you know the provider’s mobile access capability – a core requirement for today’s workforce? 8. D o you have clear visibility on the ongoing costs to support the solution, e.g., SaaS requires frequent updates to take full advantage of technology? What will this mean for your team? 9. I n today’s hacker-prone world, what security issues might you need to address? 10. What is the quantifiable return on investment (ROI) for the project (soft/hard dollars, employee/business impact)? Today’s corporations would likely come to a

July 2016 • Workforce Solutions Review • www.ihrim.org

Endnotes Mercer, Future Proofing HR: Bridging the Gap Between Employers and Employees, 2016. 1

Mercer, in partnership with Human Capital Media, the research arm of Workforce magazine, conducted a global survey of close to 500 HR executives in 19 countries on the state of their current or planned HRIS transformation. The 2016 Human Resources Information System Survey asked executives about their opinions on the current state of their company’s HRIS system. The free report, The Journey to Digital HR: What Research Tells Us about Implementing a New HRIS, is available at www.mercer.com. 2

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.

CONTACTS: Program: Jessica Levin jlevin@ihrim.org Sponsorship: sales@ihrim.org

PROGRAM TUESDAY SEPTEMBER 20, 2016 8:00 AM Breakfast 8:45 AM Mick Collins Welcome Remarks 9:00 AM David Swanson, Executive VP of HR, SAP Keynote Presentation: HR Analytics – From the Back Room to the Board Room 9:30 AM RJ Milnor, Head of Global Talent Analytics, Chevron HR Analytics Transformation at Chevron: We often hear that HR should use data and analytics to help support business performance. But how do you build a sustainable organization to do this? Learn how the Chevron overcame common barriers to analytics success, built organizational capability across the enterprise, and created a centralized Center of Expertise to drive efficiency and effectiveness. 10:20 AM Break 10:50 AM Bill Gilmyers, Director of Workforce Planning & Analytics; Brande Gentry, Senior Consultant, Workforce Planning, Kaiser Permanente Using Data to Open the Door: It is the familiar question of “which comes first, the chicken or the egg?”; Do we provide data in response to questions asked or do we use data to elicit questions and start a conversation. At Kaiser Permanente, the answer is both. In this case study, Bill and Brande will illustrate how they have used data and data visualization to educate and engage stakeholders around the impacts of internal mobility and its relationship to other key workforce metrics. They will show how data opened doors and initiated projects more effectively than more traditional approaches. 11:40 AM Nery Castillo-McIntyre, SanDisk; Jason Noriega, Chevron Open-Sourced Workforce Analytics: When creating predictive models, data scientists are often faced with 3 common tasks; they have to filter down a large list of variables to the most important ones, visualize the impact of those variables in order to effectively communicate results to drive action, and make predictions as accurately as possible. Jason and Nery will explain 3 algorithms they have found useful for those common tasks, and show examples of how they were applied. 12:30 PM Lunch 1:00 PM Mick Collins Problem-Solving Session #1: Audience members are encouraged to share their WFA/WFP challenges, and obtain feedback from the group. 1:30 PM Cole Nussbaumer-Knafflic Storytelling With Data: Stories resonate and stick with your audience in ways that data alone does not. Why wouldn’t you leverage the power of story when communicating with data? Join this engaging session, during which Cole Nussbaumer Knaflic discusses the untapped potential of combining the magic of story with best practices in data visualization for communicating effectively with data. An effective data story can mean the difference between success and failure when it comes to communicating the findings of your study, presenting to your board, or simply getting your point across to your audience. 2:20 PM Break & Book Signing

3:00 PM Dr. Kevin Carlson, Virginia Tech The Evolution of Workforce Analytics: Five Myths, Five Challenges, and Five Opportunities: In this thought-provoking session, Dr. Kevin Carlson will prompt audience discussion around 15 topics, drawn from common myths (statements that many perceive to be true, but may be false in part), challenges (information that limits our analytics efforts), and opportunities (what can we do today to drive greater value from our workforce analytics efforts). 4:00 PM TBD Breakout #1: Advancing the Science: Small Group Discussion of Models & Algorithms 4:00 PM TBD Breakout #2: Building the Function: Small Group Discussion on How to Build a CoE 5:00 PM Mick Collins

Closing Remarks

5:15 PM Adjourn

WEDNESDAY SEPTEMBER 21, 2016 8:00 AM Breakfast 8:45 AM Mick Collins Welcome Remarks 9:00 AM Kevin Carlson/Mick Collins Data Heroes Challenge 10:30 AM Break 11:00 AM Kristin Starodub, Deloitte Case Study 12:00 PM Lunch 1:00 PM Chase Rowbotham, Genentech Essential Steps, and Common Mistakes, in Creating the Structure and Agenda for People Analytics: In this session, Chase will discuss the right way to build a People Analytics function and share several examples of analytics investigations his team is conducting – ranging from Bay Area housing costs and commute time to measuring diversity - why those topics were selected, and for what purpose the results will be used. 1:50 PM Kelly Wenzel, OptForce Case Study 2:40 PM Mick Collins Problem-Solving Session #2: Audience members are encouraged to share their WFA/WFP challenges, and obtain feedback from the group. Also, their takeaways from the event 3:20 PM Mick Collins Closing Remarks 3:30 PM Adjourn

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