Ultimate Team Rankings - HR Style

Every year ESPN ranks the franchises in the four major United States professional sports leagues, (NFL, MLB, NBA, and NHL) according to how much the franchises Gives back to the fans in exchange for all the time, money and emotion the fans invest in them.'

You can see the results  here - ESPN Ultimate Team Rankings, (the Los Angeles Angels of MLB led the rankings).

To me what is most interesting about these rankings is the criteria that are used: 

Bang For The Buck : Wins during the past three years (regular season plus postseason) per revenues directly from fans, adjusted for league schedules.

Fan Relations :  Openness and consideration toward fans by players, coaches and management.

Ownership : Honesty and loyalty to core players and local community.

Affordability : Price of tickets, parking and concessions.

Stadium Experience : Quality of arena and game-day promotions as well as friendliness of environment.

Players : Effort on the field and likability off it.

Coaching : Strength of on-field leadership.

Title Track : Championships already won or expected in the lifetime of current fans

What if you, as a Human Resources professional, applied those same criteria to your organization? Instead 'fans' think about the categories as they relate to your employees and candidates.

Bang For The Buck : Pretty simple, revenues per employee. A standard HR metric, but are you consistently measuring it?  And not just in total, but also in the context of initiatives like downsizing, merging, or expanding. In your recruiting efforts are you carefully evaluating the cost and return of your ATS, job board advertsing, specialty advertising, etc.  If have dived in to the world of 'social recruiting' do you have any idea how it is paying off?

Fan Relations : Openness and consideration toward fans employees by executives and management.

Are you truly an 'open' organization?  Your executives may claim they have an open door to employees but do the employees truly believe that is the case? What steps have you taken to demonstrate open communication and consideration towards employees, particularly if your organization has gone through reductions in force, or will be doing so soon?

Ownership : Honesty and loyalty to core players employees and local community.

Do the company owners make it a priority to give back to the community?  Do you have some kind of company sponsored volunteer day, giving employees time off in exchange for volunteer activities?  Does ownership do more than just claim to be community minded?

Affordability : Price of tickets, parking and concessions total compensation awarded to employees.

Let's spin this one to your overall compensation package.  I know these last two years have been brutal for comp budgets, but even still your organization's compensation package needs to be competitive to continue to engage and retain the best of your employees.  Even in a recession, these employees could jump.  If as in the case of many organizations, and the cash element of your total compensation is still under downward pressure, are you enhancing or emphasizing other elements of the total package that are of benefit to the staff?

Stadium Experience : Quality of arena facilities and game work day promotions conditions as well as friendliness of environment.

Take a honest look around your offices and facilities. Are they the best you can make them? When employees drive up to the facility what is the first thing they see?  Make sure the grounds are kept up, the parking lots well-lighted and please don't allow the clan of smokers to huddle around the main entrance.

Inside, start with the simple, low-cost elements.  Are the bathrooms and kitchen or break areas super-clean? Make sure folks have easy access to a refrigerator and freezer, and keep the coffee high quality and as low cost to the staff as possible.

Players : Effort on the field and likability off it.

I will spin this one a bit, more toward the employment brand and the image that the company has in the local, national, or global community.  What are your employees saying about the company both in internal communications and forums, and externally on blogs and social networks. How about candidates and their experience and view of your organization?  All these elements play into the idea of 'likability', which is not usually thought about as an organizational feature.

Coaching : Strength of on-field leadership.

This certainly is a awkward one for HR, the frank assessment of the organization's leadership, but certainly a necessary component for a high functioning organization.  HR can take the lead in identifying gaps in leadership capabilities and implement strategies to address these issues. Doing right by employees often means ensuring company leadership is truly able to carry out the company's strategic objectives. Succession planning programs also play strongly into HR's ability to support and improve the ongoing leadership capabilities of the organization.

Title Track : Championships already won or expected in the lifetime of current fans employees

Are you a market leader in your industry/region/niche?  Have you been recognized as a 'great place to work' or a 'Top Employer' by any national or local organizations?  What do the employees think about the short and long term prospects for success?  Are the companies best days behind you, (like the Cleveland Browns, or New York Knicks).  This is critical in sports, as we often see many excellent and experienced players that have their pick of teams to play for choosing the ones that are perceived to be championship contenders.  Simply stated, the best want to play with the best, and position themselves for success. Do you have the kind of environment that attracts the best talent available? And if not, what can you do in HR to try and reverse the tide and get back on top?

FYI - The team that came out on the bottom of the ESPN Ultimate Team Rankings was the Los Angeles  Clippers of the NBA.  Sort of amusing that the best and worst team in the ratings play in the same city.  Perhaps the HR department of the Clippers can try and initiate some executive exchange or cross-organizational meetings to try and learn a few things from the Angels.

So what do you think? Is your organization is more like the top teams in the survey like the Angels, Pittsburgh Steelers or Detroit Red Wings?  Or sometimes do you feel more like the Clippers, Detroit Lions, or Cincinnati Bengals? The kind of teams the general public associates with losing, scandal, and inept management.

If you liked this article (and you must have if you have hung this long), be sure to check out the August 28, 2009 HR Happy Hour Show - 'Sports and HR'. We will be taking sports, HR, and where the two worlds collide.

T-Pain for President

In early June, the President of Florida State University (FSU), T.K. Wetherell,  unexpectedly announced his intention to step down from his post. The FSU Board of Trustees sprung into action, by convening a blue ribbon Presidential Search Planning Committee.

Great, a committee was needed to 'plan' the search.  I wonder what kind of august body FSU will need to actually conduct the search and hire a new President?

But I digress.

After all the planning and searching and committee meetings and open forums on campus I wonder if the next President will look a lot like this guy:

FSU outgoing President T.K. Wetherell

or this guy, (who is in charge of the search)?

Jim Smith - FSU Board of Trustees Chairman

Meanwhile, some FSU students have seized the opportunity to put forward their preferred candidate, the Rapper T-Pain.  They have set up a T-Pain for President Facebook Group where they lay out some key platform positions, among them are:From T-Pain for President Facebook group

• Widespread collaboration among the faculty of different departments: Guest spots on each other's papers and projects. (Sounds like a good idea)
• Annual Ice Cream Social to take place On A Boat (All right, way to go!)
• Replacing the water in all campus fountains and water fountains with Cham-Pain (a little unorthodox, but I can support it)

Ok, so I know that T-Pain is not going to become the next President of FSU.  But the students behind this campaign for T-Pain are customers of FSU. Their time, money, and in many cases continued support as alumni are largely what keep institutions like FSU going. They should have some input into the process.

I look at the T-Pain campaign as more a statement of 'please don't install another gray-haired white dude'.

What do you think?  Do students or customers have a right to have input to executive searches?

Take us out of here T-Pain:

Guest Post - Head in the Cloud? The move to On-demand

NOTE : This Guest Post is from Denis Tournesac, Executive Vice-President OnDemand at NorthgateArinso, a global provider of HR software and service.

In the article, Denis examines the impact of the economic climate on HR’s technology.Denis Tournesac

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The global economic downturn has brought about interesting times for the HR team. We only need to open a newspaper to see stories of job cuts, recruitment freezes and absent bonuses. Employees are worried about the future and the fate of their company, which doesn’t lead to a happy working environment. All this leaves HR dealing with staff cuts, while managing the needs of those people left behind.

When CEOs are looking to cut overheads, justifying the HR team’s time and resources is more important than ever. Reporting is crucial and technology can have an important role to play in helping the HR team operate as efficiently as possible.

However, at a time when budgets are stretched, how can HR choose between the myriad of technology delivery models on offer? The average HR manager wants a global view of HR, as well as in-depth local knowledge and expertise that’s not bogged down in admin. But is it possible to have your cake and eat it too?

Sign of the times

The recession brings with it fewer opportunities for extensive capital expenditure. The initial layout for a big software project can be huge and updating existing systems is seen as a ‘non-urgent’ task that can wait until more secure financial times.

As a result, now is a good time for managers to be looking at alternative models of software delivery, including software delivered ‘on demand’, which can be well suited to recessionary times.

Monthly bills rather than a large initial payout are an attractive proposition for the finance team. OnDemand HR applications are rapidly maturing with multi-tenant systems that leverage scale and the increased acceptance of standardized approaches to HR processes. This combination, in conjunction with faster employee adoption thanks to improved user interfaces, mean that HR managers should be taking a serious look at the OnDemand delivery model to support administrative and value-adding HR processes.

Going on demand

OnDemand technology is nothing new. It comes under several different names – cloud computing, utility computing, software as a service – but all have the same basic attributes. Thanks to companies like salesforce.com, it has already proved it can work for applications like CRM and marketing. However, there’s no reason why HR shouldn’t enjoy the same benefits.

Users are much more demanding of workplace technology than they were a few years ago. As a result, it’s no longer acceptable to go into work the next day and use non-integrated technology and information that is locked away in non-connected systems. Most HR professionals aren’t IT experts, and don’t expect to be bogged down in complex procedures. A good OnDemand system has got to have a good user interface to be successful.

We also expect applications to ‘just work’ – it should be clear how to access information, and how to save and store details. An intuitive system rather than one that requires detailed training is no longer a nice to have, it’s crucial to the success of any IT system used by non-IT people.

Weighing it up

However, it’s important to remember that when it comes to HR support, one size certainly doesn’t fit all. The benefits of an OnDemand system are clear, but a business considering an investment should be careful to look at all available HR service delivery models, and weigh up the right choice for them. Technology has evolved to such a state that OnDemand solutions can seamlessly co-exist with systems which have been in place for years, creating a promising hybrid environment.

A factor to consider when implementing IT to support HR is what it’s actually going to be used for. It’s often assumed that IT will support the processes and admin that so often weigh the HR team down. Traditionally, the biggest benefits for HR have been felt when admin like absence requests, tax forms and employee information have been automated.

This is still the case, but HR directors also need to look at how integrated systems can support the more strategic part of HR. As we’ve already said, talent management is very important to the business during recession, and there’s no reason why this can’t be supported with the right IT platform.

A good example of managing talent adequately can be found in succession planning. Over the next five years, the post-war ‘baby boomer’ generation will retire, and unless companies are prepared, they’ll take with them a huge amount of knowledge and experience. The ‘knowledge crunch’ when baby boomers retire could well hit businesses just as they’re recovering from the recession, and managers need to be preparing whoever will take the place of these managers.

Having it all?

Just because the economy is in a bad way doesn’t mean investment in new solutions to improve efficiency should stop. In fact, it’s more important than ever for reporting to be transparent, in order to improve talent management and competence management processes.

Ultimately, the Company only talks in numbers, and if they can see the direct financial results of the work HR is putting in, the team can justify its role a lot more easily.

The HR director looking to do this should carefully weigh up all the options available. OnDemand technology can help manage costs, and is more easily scalable than some other delivery models. However, different models suit different companies, and OnPremise software has moved a long way from the expensive dinosaur it once was, to become an integral part of hybrid landscapes. What is important is that when the right system is up and running, it helps prove HR’s value to the rest of the business at a time when the team is needed more than ever.

Tomoye Community Software in the Class

For the current edition of the HR Technology class we were fortunate enough to use the Tomoye Ecco Community platform as a basis for many class activities, and all class discussions.

The Tomoye Community platform is a basis for sharing and collaborating on content (documents, images, video), asking and answering questions, and finding and accessing organization expertise. Content can can be organized by main topic, then further identified and described with user-defined tags. Users can comment on or ask a question about any piece of content in the Community.

In class, we took advantage of these capabilities in several ways:

Organization

The Course content was organized into Topics, one per week, and all readings, assignments, discussion questions were placed in the Week's Topic, as well as being tagged as a 'reading', 'project', etc. This way students could easily see all content in a chronological manner, or by type (by doing an easy tag search, or using the tag cloud).  This made content more accessible and consumable for students, and did not necessarily 'force' them to access content in only one prescribed manner.

Content

All class assigned readings were uploaded to the community as 'Documnents', but beyond simply loading a file, I was able to introduce the reading, set some context, and even offer some of my observations on the content. Sometimes I asked a specific question or two, and other times simply asked the students to share their comments and observations about the reading.  Here again the ability to post comments or ask questions directly tied to the content item was very valuable, and a great feature for the class.

I also used the Documents feature to load images, usually diagrams or charts taken from presentation material from the 'in-person' version of the class.  This worked well, as the ability to set context and describe the material in the image was key to ensure better student understanding.

Discussions

Each week there was at least one 'required' class discussion topic that I entered as a 'Question' in that

week's topic.

Students were asked to provide their views on the question, and to comment and discuss their answers with each other.  Here the class utilized one of the powerful features of Tomoye, the ability to mark an answer as 'Helpful'. This is a simple, yet effective mechanism for bubbling good content to the top, and for building the reputation of community members.  In a short class, community ratings and recommended members have fairly limited utility, as really more time needs to pass and more discussions created for this feature to be really powerful.

Overall Thoughts

First, the Tomoye Community was vastly superior to the course management system that is available through my school in the areas of content management, discussions, and organization and locating information. While all these are possible in a traditional CMS, the features of Tomoye like tagging, commenting, asking questions, and rating are a major improvement and enhancement.  The visibility in comments and discussions to all student contributions is also far superior in Tomoye to the 'classic' threaded forum style in the CMS.

Certainly Tomoye, or any other community not designed for course management can't completely replace functions like online grading, online live quizzing, and perhaps even private exchanges between and individual student and the instructor. 

But going forward I see huge potential for using a platform like Tomoye not just for an individual course as I did this quarter, but as an overall community platform for the entire program. I can envision a community that is set up for all enrolled students, faculty, staff, and even alumni.  There could be separate content areas or topics for each individual course containing overview material, sample course content, reviews from students, faculty bios, and areas where prospective, current, and past students could ask questions and have discussions. Additionally, topics can be created for overview information, coming events, and perhaps job opportunities posted by alumni or friends of the program.  What I am thinking about is sort of a hybrid between traditional 'alumni' networks and an active student network.

To close, we had a great experience using Tomoye in class, and many thanks to the great folks at Tomoye, especially Eric Sauve and Kathleen Brault, I am truly appreciative of the fantastic support in this initiative.

HR Tech Chat - Integrated Talent Management

The monthly HR Tech Twitter Chat is set for tonight, Wednesday August 5th at 9:00 PM EDT.

A quick review of how these Twitter 'theme' chats work:

At 9:00 Bryon Abramowitz of Knowledge Infusion or myself will officially start the chat with a quick welcome message. Folks who are participating are asked to Tweet out their name and role so that we can all get better acquainted. 

An example would be 'Hi, I am Steve Boese, HR Technology Instructor at RIT in New York - #HR_Tech'

We will then get the discussion going around this month's topic - Integrated Talent Management.

Some questions that could be explored:

1. What's driving organizations to pursue these projects?

2. Are they succeeding?  Why or why not?

3. What vendors and solutions seem to offer the most interesting and compelling solutions right now?

4. Where is the market heading?

5. What should HR practitioners be thinking about in the planning and execution of these projects?

These are just a few ideas, in reality the conversation will go where the group takes it and that is most of the fun of the chats.

Some Tips for Chat participants:

• You participate by Tweeting with the hashtag '#HR_Tech' included in your update (usually at the end of the Tweet)
• Follow the flow of the conversation by tracking all Tweets with '#HR_Tech' using one of the following
  • Tweetchat - http://tweetchat.com/room/HR_Tech, you will need to sign in using your Twitter credentials, but this gives a nice overlay to the chat and will automatically append the hashtag to your updates
  • Tweetgrid - www.tweetgrid.com. Allows you to not only monitor the chat, but also your 'normal' Twitter stream and/or other search terms.  Takes a few minutes to setup but it is pretty neat.
  • Tweetdeck - If you are already using Tweetdeck just set up a new search column for the #HR_Tech hashtag. 
  • Twubs - I have not used this site yet, but I have heard many folks say it is pretty nice for following a 'theme' chat in Twitter. http://twubs.com/hr_tech.

These chats can be really interesting and informative, but honestly they would be greatly enhanced if we get some more 'non-Tech' HR folks interested and participating.  So if you are an HR pro and have some questions or comments about Talent Management technology, or quite honestly any HR Technology, it is a great opportunity to corner at least a dozen HR Technology professionals at one time.

Hope to see your #HR_Tech Tweets tonight!