BlogERP: Jim Holincheck's HCM Software Blog

Random Thoughts, Upcoming Research, and Themes for Next Year

I was reading blog posts yesterday when it occurred to me how many recruiting-related blogs there are out there compared to other talent management areas.  There are a good number of learning-related blogs too, but where are the blogs on employee performance management, compensation management, and succession management?  It seems to me that there are a lot of good ideas out there that are not being shared as widely as they could be.  If you know of some good blogs on these areas, please feel free to comment or send me an e-mail.

The Magic Quadrant for E-Recruitment Software is in editing (still).  It is pretty long so it takes some time.  I have been getting some questions so I know it is in progress.  It should publish any day now.  I have also kicked off the update to the MarketScope for Employee Performance Management Software.  We have expanded the scope to include Compensation Management and Succession Management.  The initial contact list included 42 providers.  If you are a provider and did not get the initial e-mail, please let me know.

Once we complete the EPM MarketScope update, we will have a good set of vendor research across all of talent management.  We will continue to update this research in 2007, but we will also start to focus more on the user side. 

The two main themes I will be stressing in 2007 are Integrated Talent Management and Workforce Analytics.  I will be updating some of our 2005 research on these topics as well as publishing several case studies.  For Integrated Talent Management, I am interesting in companies that have a vision and strategy that cuts across all of the talent management domains.  These companies do not have to have had implemented technology across all of these areas, but should have started to implement technology in several talent management areas.  I am very interested in the business case/cost justification done for these initiatives as well as how these organizations have linked their integrated talent management initiatives into business priorities.

I published a case study on Workforce Analytics at Sun Microsystems a few weeks ago.  I want to do similar case studies next year that focus on workforce analytics help organizations make decisions about human capital management that lead to specific business outcomes.

If you know of companies that would be good candidates for these types of case studies, please contact me.

Update on Ongoing Research

I know I have not been posting as much as I should.  I am way behind on link posts (which means my inbox is pretty full of things I need to read -- one more thing to add to the to do list).  I will catch up hopefully next week.

I have been working feverishly on four projects.  The Magic Quadrant for E-Recruitment Software is nearly complete.  The vendor analysis is done and the positions on the MQ have been identified.  The next step is to write the rest of the note, primarily market trend-related information.  So, it is in pretty good shape.  For those vendors going to ERE next week, do not worry, fact checking is more than a week away.

We are also doing an update to the MarketScope for Retail Time and Labor Applications.  I am fortunate that another analyst Gale Daikoku is taking the lead on this.  However, there are many briefings and customer reference calls going on.  In addition, I am putting the finishing touches on a case study on workforce analytics.  It has gone through peer review at Gartner and I need to incorporate some feedback from the customer.  So, that is about done.  Finally, we just kicked off a big effort to look at Microsoft in business applications.

When the E-Recruitment project is completed, I will be turning my attention to Employee Performance Management software to update that MarketScope.

OFB: Blowing Up Recruiting and Beyond

This is another "Observations from the Blogosphere" post.  Lou Adler has some great posts on ERE (ERE is a great resource in general for those wanting to keep up on what is happening in recruitment).  The post from today, called "Boom! Why We Should Blow Up the Recruiting Department and Start From Scratch", was certainly provocative.  In many ways, I think he is right, but like many in recruitment, he thinks recruitment is the center of the talent universe.  It is important, but it is only one piece of the puzzle.  Here are Lou's ideas (and he is soliciting more) and my comments:

1. Have the recruiting department report to the CEO -- If you have read previous posts, you will know that I disagree with this notion.  Recruiting permanent hires is only one part, albeit an important part, of a talent management strategy.  Talent management is important enough to report to the CEO, not recruiting alone.
2. Make hiring managers responsible for hiring top people, not recruiters -- No argument here.  Hiring managers should be accountable.
3. Disenfranchise your managers -- Lou makes the point that hiring managers should only get the right to vote on candidate competency when they can prove that they are accurate and unbiased.  Again, no argument here.  However, I would point out that it does make sense to invest in training and development for managers so that they can be accurate and unbiased.
4. Don't post your internal job descriptions -- Yep.  No doubt about that one.
5. Change the compensation structure for corporate recruiters -- It is not all about compensation, but there should be alignment between compensation and the desired results.
6. Don't hire agency recruiters for corporate recruiting positions -- I am not the expert on this one, but Lou's logic makes sense here.
7. Throw away your applicant tracking system and start over -- OK.  I am doing a lot of work right now evaluating e-recruitment solutions.  There is a lot of angst out there in the recruiting community about the state of technology today.  I am not saying it is perfect.  However, I do not think we need to throw out the baby with the bathwater.  Lou's advice is sound on re-engineering processes, but that does not mean that the systems are not up to the task of the re-engineered processes.  They very well may be.  Also, as I have posted previously, all jobs are not created equal.  Changing your process based on what the technology can support is not a bad thing for certain jobs.  Create differentiating processes for differentiating jobs (key talent).  Also, remember for the most part vendors listen to customers.  The solutions work the way they to do largely from input from customers.  If you want something different, you need to speak up to the vendors.
8. Don't listen to anyone who is a PhD unless it's in chemical engineering -- I do not follow this point that well, but I will trust Lou on this.
9. Everybody can't hire the top 10%, so stop taking the advice of the so-called experts, especially us ERE columnists -- I have to categorically disagree with this one, of course ;).  Seriously, Lou has a point.  If everyone does the same thing, there is no differentiation.  Dare to be different.
10. Stop using behavioral interviewing and competency models -- I would amend this advice a little bit.  Make sure you are using behavioral interviewing and competency models where they make sense.  For key talent, if applied appropriately, they can be useful tools.  However, if the only tool you have is a hammer, everything starts to look like a nail.

I applaud Lou for trying to get people to think outside the box.  Here are some more ideas for blowing up recruitment (and talent management)

1. Put a line executive in charge that reports to the CEO -- If you want to get credibility in the business get someone who has credibility in charge.
2. Align your strategy and initiatives with the business -- We all talk the talk in HR, but we rarely walk the walk.  HR professionals (and recruiting professionals too) are good at sharing best practices and wanting to do what other companies do.  Only do it if you can tie it to something that is important to business success.  That is the only yardstick that should matter.
3. Learn from others in the business -- Talent management has many characteristics in common with customer relationship management and supply chain management.  How often have you tapped resources in your own organization to get a different perspective on talent management problems?  Maybe you should.

OFB: Next Generation HR Systems

This is another in a series of "Observation from the Blogosphere" posts.  Dr. John Sullivan and Master Burnett posted "Paradigm Paralysis in HR Technology, Part 2" today.  I had commented on Part 1 in a post last week.  I was a little bit disappointed.  There was some good advice, but I had hoped for more vision on the future of HR technology.  Dr. Sullivan and Master Burnett offered 12 points of guidance to help change the mindset from efficiency to effectiveness.  Below is my take:

1. Technology by itself is not the answer -- No argument here.  As it was drilled into me early on in my consulting career, it is the combination of people, process, technology aligned with strategy that matters.  Sometimes we do focus too much on the technology and not enough on the other pieces.
2. Start with an understanding of what decisions/actions you need to enable, and what data is needed and in what form to accomplish that -  This is an interesting point of guidance.  From an efficiency (administration) perspective, there is more and more parity of functionality (especially in recruitment solutions -- which was the focus of the posting).  This is good advice.
3. Impact of speed is dramatic -- In this post, the authors discuss how speed is impacting all areas of business and how slow time to hire can impact the organization.  No argument here on that.  However, this is where a holistic view of talent management makes a difference.  The fastest way to fill a resource a need is to allocate an existing resource in the organization (zero time to hire).  The second fastest way to fill a resource need, typically, is to bring in a contingent worker.  I think the authors meant to focus on this after these other avenues had been pursued, but I think it is still worth pointing out.
4. Labor markets have changed -- Workforce demographics clearly point to the market shifting from employer-driven to employee-driven (another reason why talent management is so important)
5. Candidate visibility has changed -- No argument on this one at all.  Candidate information is available in all kinds of places.  Candidate relationship management appears to be poised to be the next big automation area in recruitment.
6. Major solution-providers are strapped -- Yes and no.  Certainly solution providers do not have limitless resources.  They have to prioritize.  It is always easier to automate data capture and improve flexibility by adding more tables to the systems.  However, if customers want something different from the long list of questionably valuable incremental enhancements to existing functionality, they need to speak up.  The vendors have to balance investment to address customer concerns with innovation.
7. Current staff is a barrier -- Unfortunately, this is true in many organizations.  Current staff can be a barrier to change.
8. Start small and build later -- Starting small and showing value can be a smart strategy.
9. Select technology to enable your process, not technology that dictates process -- We are going to differ a little on this one.  I think you have to do some of both.  I think if you are hiring administrative assistants (no offense to administrative assistants -- mine is of great help to me), one can use a relatively standard process that is dictated by the technology.  However, for key talent in the organization, the system needs to be flexible enough to allow the organization to perform the process exactly how they want to do it.  Key talent provides competitive advantage to the business.
10. Stop forcing candidates to experience your administration -- I agree with the focus on the candidate experience and using it more as a sales and marketing tool than a data capture tool, but customers also have to walk before they run.  Candidates do get value from functionality like job agents and application status notifications.  Is it perfect yet?  No, but it is better than sending in a paper resume and never getting a call back.
11. Bind your vendors through implementation -- I agree with the sentiment.  The hard part is in the details.  The expression of "it takes two to tango" applies here.  The vendor certainly needs to be accountable for its role in implementation success.  However, projects can be derailed just as easily by customers (e.g., scope creep, inadequate resources, delays in decision-making, etc.) as by the vendors.  All parties need to have accountability for success.
12. Hire a pro -- A good systems architect can be helpful, but ... First, if you are a larger organization, you probably already have some of these.  Before looking outside, look inside.  Second, building a custom system can sound attractive, but maintaining the systems as requirements/best practices change can be difficult and expensive.  It takes a strong, ongoing commitment.  There are few companies that have the wherewithal.  In most cases, packaged application as the foundation with custom add-ons makes more sense.

These are good points of guidance, but there is little advice on the direction packaged systems need to grow to help recruitment, and more broadly HR, move from its focus on administration to business partner.  I will tackle that in a post tomorrow.

Update on Gartner's Use of Assessments in Hiring Analysts

In my previous post, I indicated that I would provide updates on Gartner's initiative to use assessments for hiring analysts.  Last Friday, I participated in an exercise to measure intellectual as well as behavioral characteristics of existing analysts.  The next step will be to take that data and correlate it with analyst performance data to better understand what knowledge, skills, abilities, and other characteristics (often called KSAOCs) matter for performance.  Based on that analysis, an assessment instrument will be created.

I would characterize the exercise I participated in last week as one part SAT Test/IQ Test and two parts eHarmony Compatibility Profile (from what I know based on the TV commercials -- my wife will be happy to know that I do not have any personal knowledge).  In the first part, we had to answer 100 questions in 20 minutes.  These questions ranged from mathematical word problems to analogies to antonyms/synonyms to pattern finding in a sequence of numbers.  Needless to say, it was challenging (to complete the test, you had 10 seconds  in which to answer each question).  I wish I could say I completed the whole test in the time alloted, but I did not.  I do not know if we will get our scores back (I would like to see them).  The behavioral parts are a little harder to describe.  Frankly, there were a lot of questions (close to 250) and, though there was no time limit, they were not particularly memorable.

I hope at the end of the exercise we find out how well current analysts compare to the ideal profile generated by the analysis.  In addition, it will be interesting to see if the profile really will be a good predictor of whom will make a good analyst.  As the initiative progresses, I will continue to post what I can.

What are Clients Asking About -- Week Ending August 4, 2006

Last week, there were four major themes from client inquiry were:

• Talent Management Applications (including inquiries on Recruitment, Performance Management, and Talent Management Applications Suites)
• Workforce Management Applications (Time and Attendance, and Expense Management)
• HRMS
• Specific Vendors (SAP, Oracle, Kronos)

Talent Management application inquiries were the leader this week with the rest split evenly among the other themes.

In terms of the breakout of inquiries, we had the following:

• End User Inquiries-- 71%
• Vendor Inquiries-- 5%
• Vendor Briefings -- 19%
• Investor -- 5%

Putting Your Money Where Your Mouth Is

Most HR professionals are familiar with the use of assessments as a recruiting tool.  There has been some debate about the applicability of these tools beyond "commodity" workers.  At Gartner, we started using assessments for hiring salespeople within the past year (it has been very successful). 

I received the notification today that we will use assessments for hiring analysts.  We are starting the process of developing profiles (i.e., predictive models) for analysts.  I think this will be a fascinating test case for the use of assessments for a knowledge-worker type of job.  I will have to be somewhat stingy about the details I post here on our progress.  This is competitive advantage stuff for us so I cannot give it all away.  However, I will tell what I can as the initiative progresses.

Content is King: User Interfaces Must Evolve

I have seen a lot of product demos lately and it occurs to me that we have not seen a lot of progress in interfaces to help users be more effective.  I am not talking about "Web 2.0" (though there are certainly concepts from consumer applications that could/should be utilized in business applications).  I am talking about helping people in different roles be more effective in doing their jobs.  Here are some examples:

Create a Requisition

This is a pretty common activity in recruitment.  Systems provide all kinds of flexibility in terms of what data to capture on a requisition, how it is presented to a hiring manager, and who needs to approve the requisition.  This is all good.  However, systems do not tell us how to create a good requisition.  For example, what should the salary range be for the job?  Sure the system could default the range from job data, but should that be the end of the story? 

I do not think so.  Why shouldn't a manager see not only the salary range defined for the job, but also the budget for the position, the market rate for that job (because may be the range or budget might be too high or too low), the reasons people have left the job previously (maybe compensation was an issue), etc.?  All of the information may be available in reports or through analytics tools, but it is not provided at the point of need for the hiring manager.  Why not?

Posting a Job

This is another common task in recruitment.  When a recruiter posts a job for an approved requisition, they usually see a list of posting options.  In more advanced cases, they may even see how much the posting will cost with each board.  In the most advanced case, the system will even suggest the best places to post the job.  However, let's look at the posting itself.  In many cases, the internal description of a job is very different from what should be posted externally.  An external job posting is an advertisement.  It is meant to attract desired candidates. 

Systems allow you to enter a different job description, even use previous descriptions from prior postings.  However, they do not really help a recruiter write a good job description.  Wouldn't it be great if the system provided recruiters with coaching on how to write a good job description?  Once a recruiter became proficient, they may not want or need the coaching (so they should be able to hide it or remove it).  In this example one could make the argument that if we train recruiters to write good job descriptions, we would be all set.  That may be true, but I would argue point of need coaching is almost always better than training that may be forgotten in six months.

There are just examples (and there are many others outside of recruiting).  Certainly, human capital management systems need to capture data flexibly and efficiently.  However, there is huge difference between capturing data efficiently and helping people do their jobs effectively.  That is why content will be king and UIs must evolve.

A Research Update

I continue to press forward on the research for the upcoming Magic Quadrant for E-Recruitment Software.  Almost all of the vendor briefings are complete (one left to go).  We will start setting up customer reference calls tomorrow (hopefully).  As I digest all of the information from the vendors, it has become startingly clear that there is a lot of parity in functionality.  This is not new news (I have written about it previously).  However, it has made me think a lot about how to evaluate relative capabilities.  Even though there is parity in the basics, there is still some room to differentiate the products.  I am not going to give the details here (you will see it in the research when it is published), but I am hopeful that focusing primarily on the differentiators will provide value in making decisions.  If all goes well, the research will be published end of August/beginning of September.

In other news, I have two case studies on workforce analytics (or diagnostics, if you prefer).  I did the customer interview for the first one today and I am excited about it.  This case study will discuss using workforce analytics to understand and optimize the ROI from a mentoring program.  I think it will be very revealing in how to think about making fact-based decisions on programs that are typically thought of in terms of soft benefits.

I have recruiting on the brain

For the past two weeks, I have done briefings with vendors for the upcoming Magic Quadrant for E-Recruitment software.  The good news is that products are getting deeper functionally and more flexible.  I have written previously about some of the innovations going on around the edges of e-recruitment.  However, what has struck me is that there is still so much to do to really gain value from these solutions.

Recruiters -- Today's systems help automate a varierty of processes and activities.  That is a good thing.  It also helps the organization how it is doing managing its candidate pipeline.  That is also good.  However, they do little to help recruiters be better recruiters.  This article has some great suggestions on things to do to help recruiters become better recruiters.  Let's see how technology can help:

• Collecting feedback from candidates and hiring managers about their experience -- E-Recruitment systems can distribute questionnaires triggered by events in the system.  How many organizations are doing this and measuring the results?
• Be sure all recruiters have had training in communicating and negotiating with hiring managers -- Certainly training can help.  However, wouldn't it be nice if coaching were available in the system to guide recruiters in how to build a useful job descriptions.  Yes, "A" level recruiters can do this.  However, let's try to help the "B" and "C" level recruiters out there.
• Recruiters need to deeply understand the talent market and be able to show the facts and figures to hiring managers about what the local market is like -- E-Recruitment solutions can produce reports and metrics about the hiring process.  However, this information is rarely married to external data about how other organizations are doing trying to recruit for similar positions.  Since many of the vendors provide a Software-as-a-Service offering, they could aggregate this type of data across their customers.

I am not going through all of the things listed in the post, but I think you get the idea.  We need to move the technology discussion beyond recruiter efficiency to recruiter effectiveness.

Candidates -- It is not easy being a candidate.  What companies should I target?  What job boards should I post my resume on?  How many different places do I need to go to find out the status of my job search?  I cannot believe that no vendor has come along and tried to really look at the job search experience from the candidate perspective.  Emurse has an interesting offering for helping candidates manage their resume and post it to job boards.  That is a start.  However, it would be nice if, in addition to posting the resume, it could extract status information from the job board and corporate web sites to let me know how my search has progressed.  I could also see it extend beyond just resumes.  Why not allow someone to create a microsite (think MySpace combined with the "Brand Called You")? 

Think of it as self-directed career management.  Many organizations have moved towards self-directed career paths.  The reality today is that a career path for most people will span multiple organizations.  Why shouldn't individuals have tools to manage their careers that are independent of their current employer? Ok.  I am done.  If anyone decides to commercialize this train of thought, at least give me some credit when the IPO happens.