The true goals of HR Big Data projects

Buried near the end of this fairly standard but still pretty interesting piece on how software giant SAP is deploying Human Capital workforce analytics solutions in their internal organization from their recently acquired SuccessFactors product suite is perhaps one of the most clear, coherent, and instructive observations about the goals (or what should be the goals), of any HR organization embarking on an analytics or (buzz work blog police look the other way) 'Big Data' project.

Here's the quote from SAP's Helen Poitevin:

We see this (the implementation of modern workforce analytics solutions) as a transformation for us first, moving from being specialists in extracting data from our systems, to being specialists in answering workforce related business questions.

I know that this seems like a kind of overly simple and somewhat of an obvious point of emphasis, but I think it is one that serves to remind those of us that like to talk, read, or prognosticate about how Big Data will have a truly transformative impact on HR professionals, workforce planning, and human capital management need to remain mindful that collecting more data, and even making the extraction and presentation of that data simpler and even more beautiful, is only the first step in the journey to realizing better business outcomes.

The goal of these analytics and Big Data projects, as the SAP article makes plain, is not just the ability to organize, describe, extract, and present workforce data (which in truth are necessary and important steps), but to leverage that data, to have the data lead to the asking of the right questions, to illuminate a path towards answering these questions, and to help the organization understand and relate the story that their human capital data wants to tell.

Again, the SAP piece makes it clear what their goals are, and what has to be the end-state for HR analytics and data projects:

(the analytics projects) represents a transformation for our business, by virtue of leveraging data-based insights and analysis about our workforce to make better, more sustainable decisions

Again, you probably already know this. Probably.

But it is a telling reminder just in case you've let your goals slip a little, or if you want to (or feel like you have to) claim victory with the initial successes in your analytics programs. 'Look we have reports!'

You're not really there, (and hardly anyone is yet), until the workforce data becomes an essential part of how your business makes decisions, and is not just a set of cool dashboards or a slick set of charts on an iPad app.

Have a great week all!

It's Friday - you can't possibly STILL be working, can you?

Here is a really quick take for a blustery Friday as I stare out the window awaiting the arrival of Winter Storm Nemo, (Yes, we are naming winter storms now. Silly. Next thing you know people will be naming their hangovers. 'Sorry I can't make it to the office today. I got hit by Hangover Bacardi this morning.')

I thought about the storm's impending arrival across the Northeast, and the havoc that these types of weather events play on work, school, travel, etc., and then it hit me - it's Friday, most of us shouldn't even be working at all.  In the future, and if one Danish academic has anything to say about it, once you've put in about 25 solid hours for the week, you should be able to pack it in, put your feet up, and drink cocoa and watch the snow.

How so?

Take a look at the reasoning behind Professor James Vaupel's assertion from a piece on the Science Nordic blog, (you have that one in your Google Reader, right?), titled - 'We should only work 25 hours a week, argues Professor'

When you’re 20, you would rather spend more time with your friends. When you’re 35, you want time with your kids. But then when you reach 70, you have far too much time on your hands.

This scenario probably sounds familiar to many people today. But there are good arguments for changing this. We should aim for more leisure time in our youth and instead work a bit more when we get older.

“We’re getting older and older here in Denmark. Kids who are ten years old today should be able to work until the age of 80. In return, they won’t need to work more than 25 hours per week when they become adults,” says Professor James W. Vaupel.

In socio-economic terms it makes a lot of sense. The important thing is that we all put in a certain amount of work – not at what point in our lives we do it. In the 20th century we had a redistribution of wealth. I believe that in this century, the great redistribution will be in terms of working hours." 

Interesting take for sure. Kind of makes sense in a way, I think. If indeed via a combination of longer life expectancies, advances in medical care and technology that will make us capable of being productive workers into our 70s and 80s, and even economic necessity - it seems almost certain most of us, and definitely our kids, will have longer working lives than our parents and grandparents did.

Professor Vaupel thinks there should be a kind of societal trade-off - in exchange for signing up for working until you are 82 (or you keel over), you get to put in 25 hours or so a week when you are in your 20s and 30s, in theory so you can enjoy your life more, spend time with friends, go surfing, raise your kids, etc.

Sort of a crazy, only a European would think that way kind of an idea, but one that does at least force us to think about what the impact of an aging workforce might be in the future.

What's your take - do we all, especially us Americans, work too much? 

Are we going to continue to work too much way into our Golden Years?

Are you going to send your Gen Y staff home for the day after you read this, making them PROMISE to take care of you in about 30 years?

Have a Great Weekend!

What's your culture really like? Ask the new guy from out of town

Company Culture, Employer Brand, Employer Value Proposition - there's been much written and spoken about these ideas and concepts in the last few years and for the most part a general acceptance has emerged that organizational leaders need to be very aware of internal culture, and its effects on morale, engagement, productivity and performance.

While most HR and Talent pros 'get' that culture is important, and some even taking more proactive steps to promote their unique culture (mostly it seems through enhanced 'cultural fit' recruiting practices), there also seems to be quite a bit less written about revealing or unraveling the existing company culture.Where are the donuts?

If you work in any type of organization today you certainly have your own opinion of 'What's it like to work here?', but I'd imagine most of us don't go around the office asking our colleagues for their opinion of 'What's it like to work here?'

Aside from the annual employee survey where these kinds of questions are raised and the answers to them aggregated and placed in colorful bar graphs and pie charts, (Is there anything better than a pie chart?. I think not.), we can pretty easily get tricked into remaining comfortable that our personal view of 'What's it like to work here' is kind of the universal view of the place.

But a more revealing (and hopefully honest) assessment of a culture or an environment might come from a different source than the aggregated and homogenized survey data, or from the long-held and personal views of organization veterans. It could be that the most refreshing look at the culture of a place comes from its newest members, and in particular, ones that by virtue of their past upbringing and history, would not have many deeply-held biases that might influence their opinion.

Case in point - the impressions on American culture from a new visitor, the NBA's Alexey Shved from Russia, in his rookie season playing for the Minnesota Timberwolves, and enjoying his first extended period living and working in the USA.  

Hey Alexey, what's it like in America?

"Well, everybody loves donuts here, and I eat them too. People mostly drink beer and not stronger drinks, exactly like in The Simpsons.”

Nice. American culture through the lens of a recent entrant, with his primary frame of reference being the Simpsons cartoon. 

It's kind of amusing but also serves as a bit of a reminder that culture and the perception of a culture is a highly personal thing. And it also reinforces the point that no matter how much or how hard we try to shape the culture, (or at least the perceptions of a culture), people are going to have their own take on your place, your people, your vibe - you get the idea.

Our pal Alexey's take about donuts and beer, while pretty funny, should also be a kind of wake-up call to those of us charged or interested in shaping, communicating, and propagating something as amorphous as 'culture'.

No matter how hard you try, how slick your marketing campaigns are, and how much 'fit' drives your hiring, firing, and rewards processes - there is probably a new guy from out of town who looks around and sees donuts and beer.

RADIO : You'll certainly be sick of hearing from me after this week

Through some combination of poor planning, forgetfulness, and narcissism, I am going to be guesting/hosting on THREE internet radio shows/podcasts in the next 36 hours or so. So for the benefit of the few family members of mine that might be interested in hearing from me THAT much, here are the details and dates and times of these shows:

1. SAP Radio's 'Coffee Break with Game Changers' - TODAY at 11:00AM EST.

The episode it titled 'Workforce Analytics: Real People, Real Numbers' and I will be in on a panel of industry experts on workforce analytics and technology, (I will be the person saying things like 'HR departments already have plenty of data' and 'The only metric you really need to know is Revenue per Employee')

The hashtag for the show is #SAPradio and it should be a fun and interesting conversation.

2. Drive Thru HR - TOMORROW, Feb. 7th at 1:00PM EST

I make my annual drop-in to Bryan and William's show.  I am sure they plan to ask me 'What's keeping me up at night?'  I have two potential answers - 'Nothing' and 'How far can Carmelo carry an aging Knicks team in the playfoffs this year?'  I'm leaning towards talking about the Knicks, so you have been warned.

The hashtag for Drive thru is #DTHR.

3. HR Happy Hour - 'Tech and the Job Hunt' - TOMORROW, Feb. 7th at 8:00PM EST

Yes, I am appearing on my own show/podcast as Trish McFarlane and I welcome our good friend Kevin Grossman in to talk about his new book the Tech Job Hunt Handbook, and to take a look at the world or work, of technology, and whatever else we feel like tacking. Kevin is a super person, and I think this will be a really fun and interesting show.

Listen to internet radio with Steve Boese on Blog Talk Radio

The call-in number for the HR Happy Hour is 646-378-1086, and you can join the fun on Twitter as well - hashtag #HRHappyHour.

That's the scoop on my exploding online radio career.

I hope to catch some of you on the backchannel in the next couple of days!

Your customers as characters

Most organizations exist to sell something - a physical product, or some type of service, or a combination of the two. They spend tremendous amounts of time, energy, and resources creating these product/service offerings, perfecting them as far as it is possible, offering them for sale, identifying the target consumers for these offerings, and finally investing varying amounts of additional time, energy, and resources attempting to convince these consumers to make a purchase.

Sometimes it goes really easily for the provider - the product is new, even revolutionary, or it solves a problem in such a new, elegant, and powerful way that the product seems to sell itself. Think the original iPod, or later, the iPad. Or the product has an embedded, loyal, and rabid fan base just waiting to get the latest or newest version of the product. Think a new installment in a successful movie or video game franchise like Star Wars or even Angry Birds.

But for most products or services on offer, the customer needs some convincing - they have time, flexibility, other competitors' options to consider - the 'sale' is certainly not assured, and the difference between winning and losing often comes down to which not (only) has the better product, but which one actually understands the customer's problem more deeply, and can speak more precisely and convincingly about how their solution can solve that specific problem.

I know that sounds really, really obvious and basic, but I think that all too often providers can lost sight of that simple truism - focused too much, and sometimes single-mindedly on the product or service itself, and not how that product or service would actually exist in the customer's environment. Adding one more feature to the product, tweaking some minor element of the service package, or poring endlessly on ad copy, website design, or the 'tone' of the company Twitter account. When the customer has lots of options and choices, these incremental additions or improvements probably do less to sway decision makers than the providers like to think. Once the 'essential' or expected capabilities or services are present, and in a mature market they usually are, the provider that can connect, almost on an emotional level with the customer has the best chance of winning.

How can providers get better at making that kind of connection, and focus more on solving a problem rather than delivering a product?

This piece, about home furnishing provider IKEA's strategic approach offers at least one suggestion:

Göran Carstedt, president of IKEA North America, summoned his top executives to a large meeting room to share his strategic plan. They arrived prepared for a flashy PowerPoint presentation complete with charts and graphs. Instead, Carstedt told them a story about a mother. He depicted a detailed scene of her and her husband getting two kids off to school in the morning. She gets up, makes coffee, wakes up the children, makes breakfast, and so on. Then he paused and moved to the heart of the matter: “Our strategic plan is to make that family’s life easier by providing them with convenient and affordable household items in an accessible location. Period.

Carstedt, in short, wanted IKEA to enter the scene, to populate it with IKEA-supplied usefulness that customers would appreciate having in their homes as they conducted their daily lives. He wanted his executives, in effect, to write IKEA into their customers’ story in a way that improved the story for the characters that populated it. Brilliant! As Carmen Nobel, senior editor at Harvard Business School Working Knowledge, notes, “IKEA has made very clear choices about who they will be and to whom they will matter, and why."

That, in a nutshell, sums up why people might be inclined to go with an IKEA table or dresser or bed, from among the literally hundreds of available options. Thinking more deeply about how their products interact and exist in the flow of their customer's lives allows IKEA to rise above a simple provider of easily substitutable products. Somehow, just by thinking of themselves as a fundamental an important element in a customer's home, they are freed to think more fully, and holistically about the products and how they will play a role in the customer's story.

A good lesson to take to heart I think, for providers of all kinds of products and services.

Happy Tuesday!