Best of 2015: What HR will be talking about most in 2015, (and what we need to stop talking about)

NOTE: As 2015 winds down, so will 'regular' posts on the blog. For the next two weeks, I will be posting what I thought were the most interesting pieces I published in 2015. These were not necessarily the most popular or most shared, just the ones I think were most representative of the year in HR, HR Tech, workplaces, and basketball. Hope you enjoy looking back on the year and as always, thanks for reading in 2015.

First up, from January 2015, What HR will be talking about most in 2015, (and what we need to stop talking about).

What HR will be talking about most in 2015, (and what we need to stop talking about)

My completely unscientific, biased, personal, and guaranteed to be 100% accurate take on what HR, work, and workplace technology topics we will be spending endless cycles dissecting and analyzing in 2015, followed by a short list of topics that we have, have, have to stop it already with lamenting.

These 'hot' topics were complied from a scientific review of all the stuff I saved, tweeted, bookmarked, or emailed to myself over the holiday break, because since I read everything, that is the only research that is really needed. Also, and as an aside, I still email myself stuff all the time and every time I do that I feel like a noob. Oh well, here goes...Mark Rothko, Rust and Blue, 1953

What HR will be talking about most in 2015:

Predictive Analytics - Amazingly in three short years we have moved from talking about Big Data, to talking about analytics, and in 2015 we have arrived at even better analytics - the 'predictive' kinds. This is despite having (mostly) not all that much to show for all the focus on Big Data and regular analytics. But in 2015, expect to see HR tech companies espouse the power of their solutions ability to use data to 'predict' which employees will quit, which ones will perform well, which ones most likely to steal your Chobani from the break room fridge. 

Retention - 2015 is going a be a fantastic year for some folks in the talent game as churn (and therefore recruiting) activity ramps up even more. More organizations are growing than are shrinking, more talented employees are ready to move, the 'quit' rate is climbing, and the best, most in-demand talent is completely in charge. Keeping your best, most difficult to replace people happy is going to be job #1 for HR in 2015. 

Branding/Marketing/Attraction - In other words the hard job of 'selling' the company and its opportunities to talent that has the power. In 2015 this conversation is going to have to start expanding beyond just the external candidate facing aspect, and become much more of a complete, strategic priority. Marketers always remind us that it is much less expensive to keep, renew, and occasionally upsell existing customers than it is to try and find brand new customers. The same type of logic I think applies to people in the organization as well. It is easier, cheaper, and probably a better long-term play to keep working, investing, developing, and yes marketing to the existing employees than to always be on the hunt for external talent.

What HR needs to stop talking about in 2015:

'Social' HR - If you are someone, in 2015, who is still trying to get more HR folks engaged on social media I beg you to let that go. Twitter has been a thing, and a popular, well-known thing, for YEARS. If someone has not been able on their own to figure out if there is some value there for them by now THEY NEVER WILL. Lots of folks, possibly even me too, had some fun, got to travel to events, and got to pretend we were somehow cool or smart because we had a bunch of followers. That was fun. In 2010. In 2015 it is kind of sad. Please let this one go.

Candidate Experience - I think treating candidates respectfully, professionally, and communicating the status of any of their applications in a timely manner is important, and basic. Everyone should do this. I think spending any more time on 'experience' beyond ensuring those elements are in place is likely a less than optimal use of any organization's time and resources. If you have ALL your other internal talent management challenges in order, then sure, focus more effort on candidate experience. Then again, if you did have all of your other talent management challenges in order it is pretty likely you provide a perfectly satisfactory candidate experience as well.

Employee Engagement - Only 30% of employees are 'engaged'. That has become an immutable truth of work and workplaces. It is right alongside 'Average annual salary increases will be 3% this year' as the most expected headline of the year in HR. And so maybe it is time to just accept it. Lots of people are not 'engaged' and probably will never be no matter what. Quit worrying about it. Worry about if they show up, they get their jobs done, they don't leak the company intranet to the North Koreans, and they don't microwave leftover fish in the lunch room. We (collectively) have spent ages of time, effort, and energy trying to 'fix' engagement and we have (so far) failed. Maybe it's time to take a year off.

Ok, I am out. What say you? Am I close on this? Off the mark? 

Have a great week and a fantastic 2015!

What to do when your best employee stops being coachable

Interesting tale on coaching, power dynamics, and the implications of chasing 'top' talent above all from the world of sports (Shock!), that is going down at one of the world's most famous and influential soccer clubs, Real Madrid. 

If you don't follow world soccer, all you really need to know is that Real Madrid consistently ranks amongst Europe's (and the world's) best club teams. They regularly compete for Spanish league and European Champion's League (a competition open to only the top club teams from across Europe), and their roster is filled with top-level talent, most of whom feature for their national sides in the World Cup and other national contests.  Simply put, Real Madrid is an elite club filled with elite players, none of whom more talented and famous than Cristiano Ronaldo, one world soccer's most talented players.

Ronaldo has won the Ballon D'Or (award for the top soccer player in the world) three times, and has served as the captain of his Portuguese national team since 2008. In short, Ronaldo is the epitome of 'top talent' - he is a soccer player sure, but his level of success and prestige could be in any field really, for the point I am (finally) about to get to.

Turns out that Ronaldo, as one of the best players in the world, is not all that keen on being 'coached', even when the coaching seems directly related to a recent performance issue.  From a piece posted recently on the Irish Independent on Ronaldo's reaction to a suggestion for potential performance improvement from Real Madrid's manager Rafa Benitez:

A request from Real Madrid manager Rafa Benitez  for Cristiano Ronaldo to undergo studies to improve his free-kick technique has worsened the fragile relationship between the pair according to reports in Spain. The Portuguese star is hailed as one of the finest dead ball specialists in the world, but his struggled to find the net as regularly in recent times. Ronaldo's strike against Malmo last week during the 7-0 Champions League rout of the Swedish side was his first goal from a free-kick in seven months.

According to José Félix Díaz of (Spanish paper), El Chiringuito, Ronaldo's opinion of the under pressure Spaniard (Benitez) plummeted after attempting to improve his free-kick precision by asking the Portuguese superstar to undergo a biometric study.

The reporter claims the Madrid star left the room when this was suggested.

A lot to unpack here, but let's try to tease out the important points in concise fashion:

1. Ronaldo is the best player on a very successful team

2. Ronaldo has (or late) been struggling in one specific performance area - scoring goals from direct free kicks, something at which he in the past has been very proficient

3. His manager, (essentially his boss for the rest of us), suggests some advanced work and analysis to get at the root of the issue, and (ideally) to generate some changes in Ronaldo's technique and preparation in hopes of improving his performance on free kicks

4. (Allegedly), upon hearing these suggestions from his manager, Ronaldo storms out of the room, declaring the meeting is over

Essentially, Ronaldo has ceased being coachable. His past success, stature, and position of value over replacement, (if you get rid of Ronaldo you are almost certainly not replacing him with anyone nearly as talented), have left him, at least in his view, immune to coaching or any other attempts at manager-led performance improvement. Ronaldo is Rafa Benitez' and Real Madrid's problem now, but you might one day have a similar problem with a top performer on your team. Let's admit it, after a while most of us once we hit a level of good performance are not all that excited to be told how we should be better. So what can you or any manager do when faced with this situation? 

I can think of a couple of things, and also one important 'look in the mirror' type question as well.

1. Play the 'example' card - By not taking direction and coaching from Benitez, Ronaldo is also sending a message to the rest of the team that it is ok around here to not be receptive to coaching. While that may not matter to a player as talented as Ronaldo, there are not many, (really hardly any), other players of his caliber around. You can try to appeal to the star's sense of example or legacy here. You can appeal to the star's ego a little bit too by playing the 'Just try this so you can show the younger/newer/less talented than you guys what THEY need to do to get better. 

2. Be patient with failure before the 'try it this way' speech - I heard a really interesting interview with the actor Alec Baldwin recently on whether or not actor's (many of them possessing giant egos like our pal Ronaldo seems to), appreciate taking direction on their performances from movie and TV directors. Baldwin's take was that he did appreciate direction, but he liked it to come naturally or more organically. He liked the ability to try a scene three or four times for the director before the director interjects with a coaching nudge, a 'how about we try it this way?' approach to getting to the director's desired outcome. The idea is that talented people can take coaching, but they sometimes need more time and space to accept the coaching than the average performer.

3. Ask yourself if you are 'managing' because you are the 'manager' - Big talents, big stars like Ronaldo are at times a threat to those ostensibly 'above' them in the organizational hierarchy. Ronaldo knows that Real Madrid can't easily replace his talent, but could fairly easily replace his manager Benitez with a similarly qualified manager if the need were to arise. Benitez knows this too. And often in sports, as is probably the case  in corporate life as well, a manager will feel threatened by this power imbalance, and 'invent' coaching interventions for the star talent just to attempt to assert his/her 'official' authority in the relationship. This is the 'I am the coach, and he/she needs to listen to me no matter what' kind of thinking. But if you are the manager/boss, you need to really careful if you push this too far. Talent (still) runs the world. And you will only start to seem petty and paranoid if you continually are coaching talent that has mostly figured everything out on their own.

Most managers never have someone as great as Ronaldo to 'manage'. The interesting question in all this I think is what it really suggests about what the best managers are all about.

Is it coaxing that last 1% of performance out of a 99th percentile talent like Ronaldo?

Or is it helping raise the game of the vast majority of the 60th - 70th players on the team and bringing a few of them up into the 'top' performer category?

Think about it.

Have a great weekend!

CHART OF THE DAY: The Technology Adoption Curve

Super piece on the BlackRock Blog from a few days ago titled The Topic We Should All Be Paying Attention To (in 3 charts), that is the source of today's Chart of the Day.

BlackRock is a major player in the financial/investment banking space, so the main point of their post was that instead of the seemingly endless hand-wringing amongst many financial markets observers in the US in the last 6 months or so regarding the potential .25% increase in the Fed Funds rate, folks should be thinking about the US economy much more holistically. 

BlackRock's piece did have 3 charts to back up this point, and all are excellent, but I picked the one below, on the historical technology adoption curve for a selection of consumer technologies in the US over the last 100 years or so. I love this chart, have used a similar one in the past in some presentations I have done, and will happily steal this one in the future.

Here is the chart, then as I am compelled, some FREE commentary from me after the data:

As we can see from the data, in the last 15 years or so the technology adoption curves for some more recent tech innovations have become much, much steeper, almost vertical. It took the telephone maybe 50 years from its introduction to become almost universally adopted; more modern inventions like cell phones and PCs have taken maybe half as much time to reach similar adoption levels.

Technologies are becoming widely, almost completely adopted much faster than in the fairly recent past. And while that is noteworthy in itself, the nature of and how many of these technologies are being utilized for 'work' purposes is perhaps even more important. 

Many of the older technologies like radio, television, and microwaves were mostly about personal, in-home usage, and primarily oriented around improving the quality of leisure time. But in the last 20 years or so technologies like cell phones, the internet, and tablets, while still all offering a 'leisure' set of capabilities, have also become essential work and productivity tools and platforms for most everyone.

So not only are modern technologies becoming adopted more rapidly, they also are more likely to begin as or at least evolve into tools for work, commerce, and productivity. We never really (unless you worked directly in the industry), gained much income or market share or anything from watching more TV or listening to the radio in your car. In fact, these technologies often took you away from 'work'. And that is not necessarily a bad thing.

But now whether it is your iPhone, wifi everywhere, your 'work' Twitter account you use to share job openings at your company - today's technologies are as much about getting stuff done as they are about avoiding the things we ought to be doing.

No judgment from me on that. Just an observation. I love technology. It is letting me 'work' on this post at the same time as I am watching a bunch of oversized men play a kid's game in an arena 1000 miles from here.

Have a great Wednesday!

PODCAST: #HRHappyHour 227 - Measurement and Drivers of Org Culture

HR Happy Hour 227 - Measurement and the Emotional Drivers of Workforce Culture

Recorded Monday, December 14, 2015

Hosts: Steve Boese, Trish McFarlane

Guest: Anthony Abbatiello, Principal, Human Capital Practice, Deloitte

LISTEN HERE

This week on the show, Steve and Trish were joined by Anthony Abbatiello from Deloitte to talk about Workforce Culture and how it is measured and driven - and how culture is intrinsically and inherently tied together with organizational strategy.

Anthony is a Principal in the Deloitte Human Capital practice, based out of the New York office. Anthony focuses on advising global clients on building high performance businesses that drive growth and optimization through Human Resources and Talent Management.   He is the responsible for the Leadership, Culture and Engagement practice.

In this episode of HR Happy Hour, we cover some compelling aspects of workforce culture, like:

• Misalignment of corporate culture with business objectives
• How people make decisions 
• How to harness the learnings of marketers when examining human behavior
• Putting emotion into culture analytics
• Implementing an effective culture
• How to take analytics and measurement and use it to enact real cultural change

Additionally we talked about Deloitte's CulturePath, a set of technologies and methodologies designed to help HR and organizational leaders better understand the drivers of culture and how to better align culture with organizational strategy. CulturePath helps organizations pinpoint their existing cultural strengths and gaps, and then continuously cultivate that's right for them. You can learn more about CulturePath at www.deloitte.com/culturepath.

Steve and Trish also talked some NBA basketball, how Trish is now very tight with the NBA's Orlando Magic, and how Steve talked Anthony into rescheduling a family vacation so he could speak at the HR Technology Conference in 2014.

You can listen to the show on the show page HERE, or using the widger player below, (email and RSS subscribers will need to click through).

This was a really fun and interesting show - thanks to Anthony for joining us to talk culture, strategy, and organizational success.

As a reminder, you can find the HR Happy Hour Show on iTunes and all the major podcast apps for iOS and Android. Just search for 'HR Happy Hour' and add the show to your playlists and you will never miss a show.

Can enterprise software sell itself?

You are forgiven if you missed last week's most interesting IPO on the American markets - the debut as a public company of the Australian technology provider Atlassian, makers of popular enterprise tools like Jira, HipChat, and Confluence. For folks who might not be familiar with Atlassian, they have a kind of unique and really successful story.  And the uniqueness as a new tech IPO comes from a couple of distinctive elements in the Atlassian journey.

First, Atlassian is profitable and cash flow positive for something like the last 10 years. Lots of early stage tech companies never reach profitability prior to an IPO exit. Second, this success and profitability has enabled Atlassian to avoid taking (or needing to take), any external or VC funding in its history. Again, just about unheard of for any tech company, let alone a successful enterprise tech company. And finally, and what I really want to talk about in the blog, Atlassian has also eschewed another really common and almost necessary strategy for growing enterprise technology companies, namely the hiring and deployment of a large, expensive direct sales force.

What does this lack of a direct sales force mean for Atlassian, and indirectly, its customers? 

First some context from Atlassian's recent IPO filings:

Unlike traditional enterprise software vendors, who rely on direct sales methodologies and face long sales cycles, complex customer requirements and substantial upfront sales costs, we utilize a viral marketing model to target new customers. Through this word-of-mouth marketing, we have been able to build our brand with relatively low sales and marketing costs.

"We do not have a direct salesforce and our sales model does not include traditional, quota-carrying sales personnel. Although we believe our business model can continue to scale without a large enterprise salesforce, our viral marketing model may not continue to be as successful as we anticipate and the absence of a direct sales function may impede our future growth."

Atlassian spends about 21% of revenue ($68M on revenue of about $320M in their last full fiscal year) on sales and marketing. Does that seem like it is high? Well not for enterprise technology companies that you could include (broadly), in Atlassian's peer group. Salesforce spent around 51% of revenue on sales and marketing expenses in their last full fiscal year. Workday spent about 36% of revenue on sales and marketing in their last fiscal year.  And at the revenue levels these companies have reached, these kinds of differences are substantial.

One final thought about sales and marketing expense for software companies - it is the type of expense that drives the least amount of benefit to existing customers. Every dollar your vendor spends chasing the next customer is a dollar that is not spent on making the product you have purchased and are using any better. Keep that in mind when you review the annual financial statements of the companies that supply your technology.

So back to Atlassian and the question raised in the title of this post: Can enterprise and HR software sell itself? 

I think it only can if a few critical elements are in place. First, the technology has to be relatively inexpensive. Million dollar purchases, heck, even purchases of as little as a $10,000 often require (usually) skeptical customer executives to sign off. And very often these execs won't sign off unless they can speak directly across a table from some high-ranking sales exec from the vendor. It can be pretty tough to sign off on a really large purchase without that person-to-person interaction.

Next, the technology has to be relatively simple and fast for the customer to implement and begin using. When there is no direct sales/account management people on the vendor side, then that first point of contact for issues, bugs, problems, etc. simply does not exist, and the customer is left to deal with standard customer support to resolve issues. And that often is not good enough for many demanding clients.

Finally, the technology solution needs to be pretty widely adopted, and have generated a decent base of customers and fans. There needs to be a fairly substantial amount of publicly available information and comments from existing customers. When there is not a direct sales team to rely upon for information about the product, prospective customers have to be able to obtain satisfactory answers to their questions by other means.

Atlassian has built a profitable and growing enterprise technology business largely on the basis of great technology that is easy to adopt and deploy and has generated tens of thousands of customers and fans. There is really no reason why this kind of model could not work in the HR technology market as well.

In fact, it might be pretty cool if it did one day.

Have a great week!