HR and New Technology - follow up

A quick follow up to the HR and New Technology post from earlier this week.  A point I should have made originally, in fact. Here it is:

If HR does not start learning, trying, embracing some of these new Technologies (Twitter, Yammer, YouTube, Facebook all the usual suspects), they will take root in the organization anyway, HR won't know what the heck happened, and jump back into classic 'regulate, monitor, make a policy so we don't get sued' mode.

Months ago I 'claimed' the Yammer domain for my organization.  I invited two or three HR colleagues (who are pretty tech savvy) and tried to get some interest and momentum in the tool.  But nothing happened.  Could not get the HR folks to see the value (or even attempt to see the value) in a tool that allows micorblogging, threaded discussion, image and file sharing, groups formation etc.  In a 'perfect' world, HR would lead the drive to adopt these types of tools in the wider organization.

Today, out of nowhere, I noticed a flurry of activity on our Yammer network.  It appears like one class of students have decided to sign up for Yammer and create a group to facilitate collaboration and information sharing. This could have just as easily been a faculty or administrative department, the specifics don't really matter.  What matters is that the organization did it on its own.

And what happens if this group discovers Yammer to be a great tool and spreads the word to the wider organization?  Maybe they'll get some kind of recognition or be recognized as 'innovators'.

Exactly he kind of PR that most HR departments really need.  That's ok, keep processing the forms, keep folks paperwork up to date, and try not to get noticed.

Rant off.

Wikis for your Class (or team)

I am almost midway through a new HR Technology class and the 'Wiki as intranet' project is just starting to get going, I thought it would be a good time to review some of my key findings and observations on the wiki-based class project and some overall observations about Wiki use in the classroom.Flickr - cogdogblog

Honestly, these observations on wiki adoption also apply to any internal organizations as well, I have rolled out wikis for my faculty group and another internal workgroup and have seen many of these same types of issue.

Overview

I am on my third different wiki platform, (SocialText, PbWiki, Confluence), and while they all have their unique strength and weaknesses, the observations below are valid for all three, and I suspect any other platform you could use.  There are two main areas to consider for your class, adoption and administration.

Adoption

1. If Wikis are new to your program, chances are 90% of the students will have never 'used' a Wiki, beyond reading entries on Wikipedia. You will have to devote class time to 'teaching' wiki.

2. You should make wiki use 'required'.  Mandate use of wiki for specific projects, activities, discussions, etc.

3. Even though Wikis are touted as simple, no-training-required tools, doing more that adding simple text will initially require demonstration and review for most non-technical students.

4. Wikis that make as simple as possible the steps for embedding video, slide shows, Flickr images, chat, and polls (love Zoho Polls for this), will be most effective in the classroom.  Too much 'code' to accomplish these tasks will hurt your adoption plans.

5. For the best chances of adoption of the Wiki as the primary class communication platform, put everything on the Wiki. Syllabus, course overview, assignments, presentations, and any 'sign-ups' should all be Wiki pages. Encourage the class to post questions and comments everywhere.

Administration

1. Get yourself trained!  As the instructor or wiki evangelist, you need to be sure you understand, can demonstrate, and clearly articulate the use, benefits, and nuts and bolts of the tool. Students in particular will get quickly frustrated when they encounter technical issues that you can't quickly help them resolve.

2. Old habits are still hard to break, you may need to 'cross-post' for a time in both the Wiki and the old course management system. Certain items like the gradebook still have to reside in the CMS. Try not to make the students have to bounce back and forth between the two platforms too often.

3. While all students are used to group projects, probably none of them will quickly warm up to the concept of 'real-time' editing and  commenting on other's content that is the foundation of wiki. You may need to 'push' to get them more actively collaborating in that fashion.

4. Keep the wiki alive even after the class ends. There's lots of good information there. Figure out a way to keep it accessible for students in the future.

I am absolutely convinced that Wikis are a much more effective tool for almost all class activities, with the added bonus of giving the students exposure and experience to a technology they will see in the workplace.  I have had several students comment at the end of class that the wiki experience was the most beneficial aspect of the class, and that they had plans to implement wiki technologies in their organizations.

If you have used wikis in your class, post a comment and let me know your thoughts.

An opportunity for HR in 2009

Ok, you are probably sick of reading blogs, analyst opinions, and watching Webinars that all keep saying the same thing: in 2009 there are opportunities for HR Technologists to make substantial impact deploying systems or platforms to improve collaboration, networking, and information sharing. 

Take a look at this quote from the Collaborative Thinking blog by Mike Gotta:

An opportunity for HR in 2009

Generational shifts: GenY and aging workforce trends create opportunities for HR groups to take on a much more strategic role. Employee, retiree and alumni social networks for instance have the potential to help organizations become more resilient and agile by allowing it to capitalize on its internal and extended relationships - often in ways not constrained by formal institutional structures

 How about this one from the Aberdeen Group's Kevin Martin:

While HR and IT can often butt heads regarding HR systems implementations, Aberdeen's research has uncovered that HR should collaborate with IT to advance Web 2.0 initiatives and achieve the above-referenced common organizational objective: organizational knowledge capture and transfer.

And if you come to the realization and conclusion that social networking and collaboration technologies are the right tools for your organization and want to champion their adoption and deployment but are faced with skeptical or less-informed management? How do you convince the 'old-guard' managers and influencers that social technologies are a valuable, soon to be essential tool, and not just a distraction from 'real work'? How about this answer from Knowledge Infusion:

 Don't try. Start at grassroots level with a ripe and receptive department or business unit. Once there is success and viral effect, the old school executives will take notice and support an enterprise approach.

You know, deep down you know, that jumping in to the Web 2.0 world is the right thing to do in 2009.  The start-up investment is extremely low, the learning curves are short, and there are loads of articles, blogs, case studies describing how numerous organizations have approached and have had success with these tools.

Don't wait for the jokers in IT to do this and grab all the glory a year from now!

Downturn dilemma

Stock market cratering, employees on edge with 401(k) values plummeting, layoff rumors buzzing, not a great time here in corporate America.  While I am not smart enough to predict how all this will shake out, I do know one thing, your organization may need to start postponing planned or needed technology projects in order to cut costs and ride out the storm.

What can you as an HR Technologist do in the interim?  Because in the current environment your employees are more nervous that ever, your need to help your company execute the strategy is more critical than before, and you may have had your project funding and/or resources yanked from under your nose.

In a strange way, the downturn may actuallly help you kick-start some experimentation and pilot projects using technologies that are simple to implement, do not require a significant investment, and don't 'trap' you into a long-term situation that you worry you won't be able to afford.

Some ideas:

1. Kick-start a Yammer trial with the HR department

2. Organize and seed a simple wiki to share internal infomation in your department (everyone's e-mail inbox is maxed out already) - check out PbWiki or Socialtext, both offer free versions totally acceptable for a trial deployment

3. Get a read on your Employment image in the Web 2.0 world.  Search for your company name followed by 'Jobs' or 'Careers' on Google, FlickR, YouTube, Facebook and other popular site where your target candidate pool congregates.  What are you seeing in the results?  Do you need to upload a simple 2 minute recruiting video to YouTube?  You probably already have something like this on your corporate website, it will take you 5 minutes to get it on YouTube and cost you nothing.

4. Get on Twitter. Use Twitter Search to see who and what is being talked about your brand, industry, region. Consider if an active presence on Twitter makes sense for your brand. Save the Twitter search(es) you need as RSS feeds in your feed reader.

And here is another point to consider, whether your focus is tying to build better community and collaboration among your employees, or to gain insight to the external community of customers, prospects, potential applicants, either way those folks are already out there in Web 2.0, talking about you, commenting, tagging, and influencing your organization. 

So, maybe you no longer have the funds for the ERP upgrade, or the new Applicant Tracking System, but there are lots of other HR Technology avenues to pursue in the meantime.

What else can you be doing to make sure when the downturn shifts back to an upturn you are smarter and more prepared that before?

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photo credit - FlickR Simon Willison
 

Yammer it up

Today we had a mini-crisis with our application that lets Student employees self-register for an Employee Self-service account to view their Payslips, sign up for direct deposit, and view other personal information online. The existence of the problem became known to me when I received an e-mail with the relevant details.

The specifics of the problem are not important, but it was sufficiently complicated that from report to resolution I received a total of 17 e-mails from four different people in less than one hour.

A total of six people were copied on the original e-mail, so in classic e-mail fashion as everyone who jumped into the issue kept checking 'Reply All' every time the web of the e-mail trap spread and spread.  And of course, each message itself got longer and longer and larger and larger as all prior messages were appended to the next message.

So in total we ended up with 102 distinct e-mail messages, with the entire content of the original message included in full on each and every message.  That must be some great e-mail that we now have 102 copies of it stored on our server.

And all this because across the organization, no other collaboration tools are widely used.  Sure one or two of my HR colleagues uses IM to contact me, occasionally we open an IM chat room.  I have started a wiki that only has been used my me and one other colleague (although I suspect he is starting to give up).  

I claimed my organization's domain on Yammer - which would have been the perfect tool for all this dialogue.  Almost all of the 102 emails were a sentence or two. And other folks who may have been of assistance may have seen the exchange, impossible in e-mail if they were not included from the start. So far only three others in an company of 3,000 have signed up. And two of the three are the HR folks who just IM me anyway.

So many tools are so far superior to e-mail for collaborative work and problem solving, why am I not able to get my organization to see that?

Any suggestions? Because I am not getting the message across.

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