Change round the corner

To begin with, I would like to apologize for the long duration where I could not send posts, I got a lot of emails from people asking about the reason, to share with you it was due to a change which was keeping me occupied. In my blog,I have talked about so many trends and changes that organization faces in today's environment.
Today I would be talking about a change of different kind, I am making a change in my career from HR Technology to HR consulting. While this change was something i had been planning (also looking forward to) for sometime now, it has happened now. This would be great news for the patrons of the blog as you can expect a lot more new and interesting insights into HR issues,ofcourse not to miss on how technology continues to influence HR as a function.

Would look forward to your continued patronage and ofcourse the silence is now broken, so you would see some posts in the coming days.
Stay tuned !!!
There is a lot changing in the blog apart from the content....

Cedar Crestone HR System Survey 2009-2010 Available Now

I have been a big fan of Cedar Crestone survey for its sheer ability to combine HR and Technology so well.
Last year results were amazing, those who missed it can have a look at the results here

This year the survey is back with a promise to extend the reach, and thereby the benefits for you. It is just the perfect example of what goes into the preparation of a well defined result (courtesy Lexy Martin, the undisputed Survey Queen, who over the years has juggled with numbers and data and given really meaningful results).

Some Facts about the current survey

Why Participate?
The survey results will help you justify new technologies, choose the best deployment option, decide which ones to do next, and provide invaluable metrics for benchmarking aspects such as expenditures and staffing. As a survey respondent, you will receive results in advance of our public release at the HR Technology conference on October 1, 2009.

Who Should Participate?
The survey collects responses from HR and IT management with knowledge of the HR technologies in use and planned, as well as those with an overview of key outsourcing and hosting decisions. CedarCrestone invites representatives from organizations in all industries with over 500 employees to participate.They also make it easy for multiple people in your organization to respond if no one person can answer all sections.

Continuing and New Research Areas For 2009
This year’s survey covers questions about the following:

* Adoption of talent management, business intelligence, service delivery, and workforce management applications as well as SOA and Web 2.0 innovations
* Deployment options and related expenditures (on premise, software-as-a-service, hosting, business process outsourcing, etc.)
* Comprehensive metrics such as employee/HR staff ratios, administrative costs per employee, links between technology adoption and financial performance, and many others

Please Participate in this Industry-leading Research
The estimated time to complete the survey is 30 minutes and this year’s survey is shorter than in the past. Data collection begins today and will be available through June 22, 2009. The survey instrument is available at www.CedarCrestone.com/hrssv65.

Enabling HR Transformation in current times through Effective Systems usage

In my last post I talked about how HR can transform the way it looks at the current economic environment from a Talent perspective. In this post, I would talk about how Talent transformation can be enabled by effective usage of systems, even in current times.

Let's analyze how the three panes contribute to Effective Talent Management,

1. People: People form the core of any talent management strategy. Traditionally, when an organization's performance is good, its employees know what to expect from HR and the company. They are not bound to cost cutting pressures and this allows companies to define strategies easily. However in uncertain times, the management consults the HR function to recommend and devise strategies that will help the company bring down costs. Sometimes while resorting to such measures, organizations have resorted to across the board retrenchments or cost cutting. This not only affects the morale of employees, it also leads to lowering of engagement level, thereby lowering productivity.
   
2. When times were good, organizations had all the resources to invest in keeping their processes in tune with the demands of business, however with pressures on resources, organizations are witnessing a shift from a process driven approach to a random approach, where everything that leads to " savings " is fine. Again this would well serve the cause in short term, but over long term is bound to cause more damage to organizations.
   
3. Last but not the least, Technology. HR and Technology have been synonymous with each other not so long back. CIO's used to pride themselves in introducing Talent automation driven projects, but that was then, now HR automation again faces the brunt of cost pressures, with the focus more on business critical projects.
   

   Having said this, I would like to look at the impact of looking at these three panes in isolation.
   

   1. The measures may serve short term means, but what about long term goals? How do organizations retain their brand image? What do they do with Talent strategy, we all know its difficult to get talent in good times, why not make efforts now?
      
   2. Remember, technology is changing continuously at a pace faster than ever, if you don't invest in your employees, you would be left behind
      
   3. HR automation is the best answer to help organizations effectively manage the transition of their talent in these times.
      

Before I look at what organizations can do, let me give some examples of where an organization faces problems due to above factors in these times. You are the CHRO of the organization which is impacted with cost pressures, so what do you do? Do you reduce workforce? Do you redeploy them? Do you shut down a few projects? Do you ask your employees to go on compulsory leave? While as an organization, you would have done one or more of the following already, more often than not the choice is backed by information rather than data! This is what makes a difference, if you have perfect information on the talent utilization, you would be able to resort to more meaningful measures.

So now, how organizations can really invest in better utilization of their resources in current times.

• Automate Service Delivery – Studies have proved that automating service delivery (HR Transactions) can result in both cost savings as well as better utilization of HR workforce.
  
• Identify and Segment Talent – Better identification of what constitutes " critical talent " within your workforce and focus on that to bring the best result in current times. These employees would have a higher productivity and better utilization. To enable this, organizations must have a complete visibility of the talent profiles (skills, competencies) of their workforce and what their business requires.
  
• Engage the workforce – While most organizations have cut on their training costs, this is perhaps the best time to invest in the development of your employees. With an ambiguity surrounding the work environment, not only trainings can be reassuring to employees, it also means they are better prepared to face the challenges of tomorrow. Automating training, and providing web based learning could be best for organizations looking to engage the workforce.
  
• Develop Future leadership – Organizations should continue to invest in leadership development. This involves identification of the critical talent, enabling them to take on higher or challenging assignment and making the work environment conducive to their growth. This would mean investing in measures to ensure that critical talent is taken care of well.
  

Finally, we should ask one questions, do we see the current times as a challenge or opportunity? If its opportunity then HR technology can be your biggest friends in these times and investing in HR Automation could be the best thing to do !!