Simpler Answers

Get the 'right people on the bus'.

Align corporate goals and objectives with individual employee's performance standards and development plans.

Ensure the organization is using it's compensation budget to reward the right employees and encourage the desired behaviors.

These are just some of the many truisms we hear, write, and repeat that attempt to describe what most organizations are striving for in their quest to increase performance, improve financial outcomes, and help sustain and grow the enterprise in the near and long term. Over time numerous technology solutions have been developed to help organizations achieve these and other lofty goals.  And over time, the list of specific features and capabilities of most of the generally available solutions on the market have expanded to encompass more workforce processes, include support for more discrete talent related transactions, and provide better and faster access to analytical data that surrounds and is generated by these processes.

In fact, if we organized a 'feature and function' scavenger hunt on the floor of the expo hall at the HR Technology Conference there is likely not any specific talent and workforce management capability that some vendor could not support. Dynamic 9-Box generation with variable axis?  Check.  Standard reports describing cost and quality per hire?  No problem.  Integration of the traditional applicant tracking system with the social web?  Everyone is doing that now.

No, the arms race for 'features' in some respects is pretty much over.  The result? Everyone won. Or soon will. No doubt about it, the set of solutions available across the spectrum of HR and talent management processes has never been wider, better, and more impressive.  If you can imagine it as an HR or talent pro, you can have it. Ignoring for the moment the very real, and troublesome nits about costs, complexity of integrations, maturity of the organization to actually adopt or at least adapt to the leading practices that many of the current solutions profess to support.

So in an environment where (almost) anything, and everything is possible, how can organizations and leaders ensure that they are making the best decisions around what technology solutions to invest in, and ultimately deploy? 

How about by taking a longer and harder look at more simple technology solutions?  What?  Simpler solutions?  Ones that don't necessarily have the ability to check 'Yes' on that 89 page performance management capability RFP you just issued?  Ones that don't always demo the best, that perhaps lack the flash and sizzle of some others?  Solutions that take a 'less is more', or perhaps more accurately a 'only the features that are truly needed are included' approach to development and deployment?

The fundamental questions that most businesses need to answer are, at their core, relatively simple.  Find the right people for the jobs.  Align their activities with big-picture goals. Give them a chance to develop and grow. Make sure managers and employees can engage in a positive and constructive dialog to not only improve individual performance, but to raise the level of achievement for the organization overall.  They are fundamental questions that usually have pretty simple answers. Sure, I know what you're saying - if the answers were truly that simple, why don't all organizations get it right?  Why are so many workplaces talent management practices lacking?  I think that is perhaps a discussion for another time, but I will say this - applying unnecessary technological complexity to these problems won't make them suddenly easier to solve. The best BI analytic dashboard, if supported by data from sketchy talent management processes, is ultimately worthless.

Yesterday at the HR Technology Conference I spent time with people from two of the solution providers that I admire most in the industry, Halogen Software in the more 'tradtional' talent management space, and Rypple, who are sort of in a unique (because they pretty much created it) position as a provider of recognition, coaching, and feedback tools. Talking with them again today I was reminded why I admire them so much - their solutions are defined as much by what features are not included as by what ones are included.  They both are focused on providing tools that support these fundamental business needs, while not trying to carpet-bomb the user (or really the buyer), with a litany of excess and largely unneeded features. Both help organizations answer simple questions with simple answers. 

When considering your business issues, and evaluating potential technology providers, the key questions of 'What features have you killed?' and 'What capabilities have you purposefully omitted?' might prove more valuable that the 89 pages of 'Yes, yes, yes' answers from that RFP.

HR Technology - Do You Care?

As a sports fan I spend more than my fair share of time watching the ESPN family of networks.  Over the years as the number of different ESPN channels has grown, the variety of programming has expanded.  The networks have experimented beyond traditional live event coverage and news/commentary shows to reality, investigative journalism, and even comedy.

One of my all time favorite 'non-traditional' ESPN shows is called 'Cheap Seats'.  The basic premise of the show is for two commentators to screen video of old, second-rate sporting events that in the early days of ESPN helped to fill airtime (dog shows, putt-putt, arm wrestling, etc.), and provide witty and at times insulting commentary over the event. It is a really amusing show. For the non-sports geeks out there, it is a kind of poor man's Mystery Science Theater 3000 about sports.

A recurring feature on 'Cheap Seats' is a segment called 'Do You Care?', where the hosts take turns rattling off a series of little known facts or trivia items about the showcase sporting event, prefaced with the phrase 'Do You Care?'. 'Do You Care that 4-time national Putt-Putt champion Dave Carson once served as a bat boy for the Kansas City Royals?', is a decent example of a 'Do You Care' question.

The joke is that no, you really don't care, and that the factoid, like the event or person it references, is so obscure and unimportant, that no one else really cares either. The very idea that an entire show was built around mocking these kind of events is the joke itself.

What do 'Cheap Seats' or the associated Lumberjack/Strongman/Cheerleading and other obscure or niche competitions featured/mocked on the show have to do with HR Technology?

It seems in many Human Resources organizations the technology function (if it has not been ceded to the IT organization) gets relegated to the late night, off hours, or counter-programmed against the Super Bowl status like many of the events that Cheap Seats so cleverly derides. High profile andHank Stram traditional functions like recruiting, training and development, and employee relations are the equivalent of ESPN's glamour properties like the NFL, Major League Baseball, and College Football.  The technology function, can often be the organizational equivalent of PBA Bowling (way more popular that you'd think, by the way), table tennis, or an NFL films documentary about the legend of Hank Stram.

Even in the nascent HR/social media/blogosphere the interest in technology topics certainly lags behind 'traditional' subject matter like recruiting, career management, and general leadership.  There are very few regular and steady HR blogs focusing primarily on technology topics. Heck, even this blog, 'Steve's HR Technology', is only occasionally about hard core technology subjects.  Perhaps a re-branding is in order. Of the half dozen or so posts I have written for the popular Fistful of Talent blog, the one piece that was the most 'tech' focused received the least amount of feedback and interest than any of the other posts on FOT that I've done.

I write this post as I make my way to the 13th Annual HR Technology Conference in Chicago, an event that is clearly all about the technologies that are available to support HR and workforce processes, from the mundane and adminisitrative, to the evolved and highly complex and analytical.  Dozens of experts.  Hundreds of vendors.  Thousands of attendees. Tens of thousands in bar tabs.  Huge event.  Great event.  Important event.

But, after the show is all over, after the groggy conference goers make their way home, the question for 'regular' HR remains - HR Technology- Do You Care?

Check out one of the best moments from the 'Cheap Seats' series below - email subscribers click through:

HR Technology Talk from the Godfather

Tonight on the HR Happy Hour Show we welcome the Godfather of HR Technology, the HR Technology Conference Co-Chair Bill Kutik to the show for the 'HR Technology Conference Preview'.

You can listen live starting at 8PM EDT from the show page, using the player embedded below, or by calling in to 646-378-1086.

The world of HR Technology changes by the day, new players enter, established players try to up their game with new offerings and capabilities, and a week doesn't seem to go past without another major announcement of buyouts and consolidation in the space.

I have to think all this HR Tech Vendor consolidation can't be good for selling booth space.

Bill will be on board tonight to talk about the big event, which has become one of the key, must-attend HR conferences of the year, to share his views of the market for HR Technology from his vantage point as the leading independent analyst of the space, and to offer up many other insights and pearls of wisdom gained from a long career in journalism.

I hope you can join us tonight for the debut of the great Bill Kutik on the HR Happy Hour show - talking all things HR Technology, and the big HR Technology Conference set for September 29 - October 1.

HR Florida - A Bold Attempt is Half of Success

The leaders and organizers of the HR Florida State Conference have welcomed and embraced the social media community in a proactive and meaningful manner.

The second annual blogger/social media panel (which was a trip, even if I got the shaft 'Family Feud'Mike V style), the presence and continued coverage of the team from Voice of HR, and the support and accomodation of two live HR Happy Hour shows from the conference location, are just some of the social media elements running through the conference.

Heck, in every concurrent session an announcement is made explaining that they are numerous bloggers in attendance, and the tweeting during the sessions in actively encouraged. 

I talked with Mike VanderVort , the organizer and the moderator of the blogger panel about the thought process undertaken by the HR Florida leadership team that has led to the social media component to be so strongly apparent and even emphasized at the event.  Mike shared with me that the leadership committee felt strongly that social media, social networking, and knowledge/skills necessary to leverage these tools in the modern workplace would transform the way people work, and how HR leaders will be in position to drive results in their companies.

Just like the traditional and expected impacts to HR professionals and the workplace from US Healthcare reform, the effects of a long term economic downturn, and the seemingly ever changing and increasingly complex labyrinth of workplace legislation; the leadership of HR Florida felt that the impact of social media and social networking was of enough importance that their membership and their conference attendees would be well served by the presentation of visible and relevant education and dialog about these new tools and strategies for their use inside organizations.

Welcoming the sometimes unpredictable world of bloggers/tweeters etc. into your event is not without some risk and definitely some uncertainty.  Occasionally a tweet may be negative or accusatory, a blogger might use some shall we say more 'colorful' language than what is typically heard at these kinds of events.  The 'message' is no longer in complete control of the conference organizers and the presenters.  Lack of control, rogue comments, potential exposure of negative aspects of the event, or the content.  

Heck, the exact same concerns that made up the first five audience questions to the blogger panel.

The truth is, neither HR Conferences nor HR professionals at organizations can 'control' the message any longer.  What is really cool about HR Florida, pretty much as traditional an event as I have ever seen, is that it has come to terms with this new reality, and in many cases, much, much sooner than the HR professional that are their customers.

The conference is to be commended for this vision. The event, just like the inside of organizations, can't be sure what will result from this experiment. But in the immortal words of the chocolate covered fortune cookie I had last night - 'A Bold Attempt is Half of Success'.

HR Florida and Doing the Right Thing

I am attending the HR Florida State Conference and Expo and participating on the second annual HR Florida blogger panel later today. Huge thanks to the HR Florida team for inviting me to attend and be a part of the show.

The first session I sat in on was called the 'ROI of Compassion' presented by Lisa Murfield.  Lisa shared the story of United Bulk Terminal, a small Louisiana employer that was faced with massive business disruption, personal hardship, and even devastating tragedy as a result of Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

Of United Bulk Terminal's approximately 150 employees, 83% lost their homes, and though damage, infrastructure problems, inability to get supplies to the facility, business operations were shut for over two months.

Using a concerted and coordinated program of support, outreach, and committed communication, United Bulk Terminal was able to successfully resume business operations while retaining over 50% of the 'pre-disaster' employees.  That may not sound like an impressive percentage, but considering the personal devastation, the forced evacuations, and the incredible trauma that the vast majority of the employees suffered, the 50% figure is really quite remarkable. 

How United Bulk Terminal demonstrated a truly committed and compassionate response to its family of employees makes for a fantastic case study in corporate response to massive natural disaster.  But for the vast majority of organizations, the kinds of employee trauma that the company will have to deal with are more common, mundane, and certainly predictable.

Death of a loved one.  Financial loss.  Issue with the health or the behavior of employee's children.  Even the loss of a pet.  

These are the kinds of tragedies that are impacting every workforce, in every city, each and every day. 

Having a plan for massive environmental disaster and large scale business disruption is certainly sound business strategy and planning.  

Having a plan to adequately and compassionately support an employee in their more personal and everyday tragedies might be more important and more impactful. Here is my offering in the creation and administration of these policies - Do The Right Thing.

Thanks to Lisa Murfield for an interesting and enlightening presentation.