PODCAST - #HRHappyHour 278 - The ACA in 2017: What HR and Benefits Leaders Need to Know

HR Happy Hour 278 - The ACA in 2017: What HR and Benefits Leaders Need to Know

Host: Steve Boese

Guests: Shan Fowler, Benefitfocus, Chris Condeluci, CC Law & Policy

Listen HERE

This week on the HR Happy Hour Show, recorded live at Benefitfocus One Place 2017 Conference, Steve Boese is joined by Shan Fowler of  Benefitfocus and Chris Condeluci of CC Law & Policy to talk repeal, replace, reconciliation, and all things ACA in 2017.

Any HR and Benefits leader who is following the news surrounding the potential repeal and replacement of the ACA is no doubt facing questions and concerns about what is really happening in Washington, what these potential changes mean for employers, and how best to keep informed and prepared for the future of the ACA and whatever may come next.

Chris and Shan talked about what is most likely to happen with the current legislation under consideration, a timeline of what seems likely to occur in the next several weeks, and what might happen in the balance of 2017.

You can listen to the show on the show page HERE, or using the widget player below (Email and RSS subscribers click through)

This is an important, fast-moving, complex, and fascinating topic, and one that all HR and Benefits leaders need to have top of mind as events unfold. Listen to the show to learn more about what is happening, and how you can stay ready for what might be coming soon.

And Steve gives a solid 'Schoolhouse Rock' reset along the way.Thanks to Shan and Chris as well as everyone on the Benefitfocus team for hosting this special episode of the HR Happy Hour Show.

Learn more at www.benefitfocus.com.

Remember to subscribe to the HR Happy Hour Show on iTunes, Stitcher Radio, or wherever you get your podcasts. Just search for 'HR Happy Hour' to subscribe and never miss a show.

HRE Column: HCM Trends and How HR Can Take Advantage of Them

Once again, I offer my semi-frequent reminder and pointer for blog readers that I also write a monthly column at Human Resource Executive Online called Inside HR Tech that can be found here.

This month, I take a look at the recently released Deloitte 2017 Global Human Capital Trends Report, which was also the subject of a recent HR Happy Hour Podcast we did with Josh Bersin.  This annual report, now in its 5th year, has emerged as one of the HR and HR Technology industry's 'must-reads', so for the benefit of HR Executive readers that may not (yet) have listened to the podcast, I tried to capture the content and the spirit of the conversation I had with Josh in the HRE column.

So in this month's HR Executive column I examine a a few of the themes or trends that were identified in the Global Human Capital trends Report, and how these trends will help inform and shape the design, development, and deployment of HR and workplace technologies in 2017, and beyond.  This was a fun podcast with Josh, and a fun exercise for me, and I hope you get some ideas and insights from this review as you plan out your year and make your workforce, workplace and HR technology decisions in 2017. 

From the HRE piece:

Recently, Deloitte released its annual Global Human Capital Trends Report, which, in just its fifth year of publication, has become essential annual reading for HR, business and HR-technology leaders. The report combines findings from a comprehensive survey of more than 11,000 respondents, interviews with multiple HR and business leaders, case studies from many leading organizations, and insights from Deloitte's human capital management analysts and consultants. The result is an insightful report that sheds light on trends, challenges, and opportunities for HR and business leaders who are all tasked with driving business results through their people.

I had one of the report's principal authors, Josh Bersin of Bersin by Deloitte, as a guest on my HR Happy Hour Podcast on the day the report launched to discuss some of the key findings. For the benefit of readers who have not (yet) had a chance to listen to that interview, I thought I would share some of it here.

Rethinking the Organization

Building the "organization of the future" was cited by 88 percent of Deloitte's survey respondents as being an important or very important challenge. What is driving this imperative for many HR and business leaders? Primarily, it’s the need for the organization to become more agile, to be able to adapt more quickly to changing market and competitive conditions, and to increasingly embrace new and more flexible forms and sources of talent. The catalyst for at least some of this need is the increased volume and importance of more flexible labor/talent arrangements, i.e. contractors, consultants and other “gig” workers. As these sources of flexible and contingent labor have continued to evolve, HR-technology solutions such as Upwork, Wonolo and Toptal have become increasingly important sources of talent that HR and business leaders are relying upon to execute their rapidly changing workforce needs.

But it is not just the increased reliance on contingents that's driving the need to rethink the organization. The way work gets done in organizations today -- increasingly, via short-term, purpose-built and cross-functional teams, and not in formal, functionally defined hierarchies -- is also forcing HR leaders to reconsider how the organization should be designed. The need for increased agility in the assembling and disassembling of these teams requires HR and talent leaders to have better insights into individuals’ skills, as well as any overall organizational skill deficiencies. The need for robust talent-management, workforce-management, learning and development, and organizational collaboration technologies to support these rapid shifts in organizational dynamics places primary importance on a close connection between business, people and IT strategy in order to ensure that the organization can react as the market demands.

The Employee Experience

On the podcast, Bersin told me "the employee-engagement market is over." On first blush, you might think that was an odd thing to say, given that employee-engagement levels remain persistently low, and most HR and business leaders have bought into the notion that increasing these engagement scores would be a good thing for retention, morale and productivity.

Read the rest at HR Executive online...

If you liked the piece you can sign up over at HRE to get the Inside HR Tech Column emailed to you each month. There is no cost to subscribe, in fact, I may even come over and re-seen you lawn, take the car for a wash, or help you plant your spring flowers. I especially like alstroemelias.

Have a great day!

HRE Column: What is Driving Innovation in Workplace Technology

Once again, I offer my semi-frequent reminder and pointer for blog readers that I also write a monthly column at Human Resource Executive Online called Inside HR Tech that can be found here.

This month, I take a look at the emerging consumer and personal technology trends that are driving and shaping next generation HR and workplace technologies.  While some of these themes or trends are just extensions and evolutions of ideas and concepts we have been talking about for a while, (mobile, real-time, personalized), it still can take time, even years, for these consumer tech trends to manifest in HR technologies.

I like to think that we are entering (or maybe have already entered), an amazing era of innovation and transformation in HR and workplace tech, much of it being driven by evolving and demanding user expectations, and the changing of the what we think about when we think about HR tech.

In this month's HR Executive column I examine a a few of the themes or trends that I am seeing in HR, HR Tech, and the workplace, and how these trends will help inform and shape the design, development, and deployment of HR and workplace technologies in 2017, and beyond.  This was a fun exercise for me, and I hope you get some ideas and insights from this review as you plan out your year and make your HR technology decisions. 

From the HRE piece:

I've been working on a couple of new talks that I will be giving this year centered around one key idea that has been talked about for some time in HR-tech circles but is now -- finally -- becoming more prevalent in the design, deployment and impact of HR-technology solutions.

The idea is a simple one. Namely, that the traditional way HR and other workplace technologies have been designed -- by programmers, then marketed and sold to CIOs or IT managers, and finally deployed and configured primarily for the needs of the power users in the payroll and HR departments -- is no longer that useful.

The continuing series of tech-driven advances in our personal and consumer lives -- such as e-commerce sites that learn our preferences and make personal product recommendations; smartphones and the emergence of app stores that let us design our own preferred toolsets; "intelligent," crowd-sourced platforms that help us beat traffic jams; and ubiquitous and constant Internet connections -- have combined to create heightened expectations of workplace technologies that look, feel and function like the best consumer technologies we have come to love.

Most importantly, the next generation of the workforce has never known a time when these personalized, highly adaptable, intelligent and easy-to-use types of technologies did not exist.

Indeed, before walking into your organization for their first day of work, these new employees might have dressed in clothes that were personally selected for them and shipped directly to their houses by StitchFix; have prepared to meet their colleagues by perusing their LinkedIn, Twitter or GitHub profiles; learned about your industry and their new job functions by watching YouTube videos and reading Quora threads; and traveled to the office by summoning a car to their house via Uber or Lyft, or dodging the traffic using Waze. And they did all this on their smartphones. It is no surprise, then, that these new workers are expecting the same kinds of capabilities, flexibility and ease of use from the technology they will use at work.

Both HR-technology providers and HR leaders are being spurred on to adapt to these new challenges by creating and deploying modern HR technologies that incorporate these kinds of consumer elements and expectations of personalization, beautiful design and ease of use into the next generation of HR tech tools. The evolution of HR and workplace technologies has begun, and the most effective organizations will look to modernize their workplace tools to meet this new, demanding and tech-savvy employee.

Let's highlight five current manifestations of how modern HR technologies are adapting to meet these these new requirements, and share some thoughts on how HR leaders can better assess, select and deploy HR-technology solutions to meet these demands.

Mobile

The Internet traffic and measurement firm StatCounter recently released a report showing worldwide Internet usage from mobile and tablet devices has surpassed internet usage from traditional PCs and laptops, with 51 percent of all Internet usage via mobile. This is a trend that is showing no signs of abating anytime soon. When broken down generationally, it reveals that younger generations prefer mobile over desktops and laptops even more prominently. Three or four years ago, it was common for organizations and HR-technology-solution providers to have a "mobile strategy." Now it seems almost behind the times to explicitly discuss "mobile" tools as something distinct from traditional workplace applications.

Connected

I thought about calling this example "Social" to represent how the growth of social networks in the last decade and their popularity with the younger demographic has influenced almost every type of HR and workplace technology, but I think "connected" is a better term to describe how social will continue to influence HR and workplace technology moving forward. "Social" feels a little superficial to me, and besides, I don't think it adequately represents the importance of community and younger workers feeling like they are a part of something larger that is considerably important to them. They want to be connected at work similar to the ways they are connected in their personal lives -- not chasing "likes" on their latest selfie, but coming together with their peers, sharing their knowledge and ideas, helping and supporting each other, and finally "belonging" to something important.

A great example of this new trend is in the learning-technology realm, where newer systems provide the capability for all end users to share their expertise and upload their own video tutorials, and for other users to build upon this content with comments, addendum and upvotes, indicating that the content was particularly helpful and useful. Communities end up self-forming around subjects and content that are important for the organization, and people feel more connected and supported by their colleagues as well.

Read the rest at HR Executive online...

If you liked the piece you can sign up over at HRE to get the Inside HR Tech Column emailed to you each month. There is no cost to subscribe, in fact, I may even come over and clean out your gutters, take your dog for a walk, or help you plan your summer vacation.

Have a great week!

PODCAST - #HRHappyHour 274 - The Evolving Role of the Recruiter

HR Happy Hour 274 - The Evolving Role of the Recruiter

Host: Steve Boese

Guest: Dan Finnigan, CEO & President, Jobvite

Listen to the show HERE

This week on the HR Happy Hour Show, host Steve Boese is joined by guest Dan Finnigan, CEO and President of Jobvite, a leading provider of Recruitment technology to talk about how tech, automation, and marketing are evolving the role of the recruiter and presenting both opportunities and challenges for the modern recruiter.

Dan shared some perspective of how recruiting technology has grown and evolved as well, and how these changes in technology, capability, and the increased availability of recruiting data are impacting recruiting today and in the future. Marketing and marketing software played a key role in these evolutions, and Dan shared some interesting perspective on the marketing/recruitment relationship.

We also talked about some Rochester, NY delicacies, the current slate of Oscar contenders, and more.

You can listen to the show on the show page HERE or using the widget player below, (Email and RSS subscribers click through)

This was a fun show, thanks to Dan for joining us. And many thanks to show sponsor Virgin Pulse - www.virginpulse.com.

Remember to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Stitcher Radio, or your favorite podcast app - just search for 'HR Happy Hour' to subscribe and never miss a show.

PODCAST - #HRHappyHour 273 - HR Tech 3.0 and More of What HR Leaders Need to Know

HR Happy Hour 273 - HR Tech 3.0 and More of What HR Leaders Need to Know

Host: Steve Boese

Guest: Randy Cooper, Co-CEO, PeopleStrategy

Listen HERE

This week on the show, host Steve Boese is joined by Randy Cooper, Co-CEO of PeopleStrategy to talk about some of the big themes and trends in HR and HR Tech as we begin 2017. First we had HCM 1.0, marked by 'big' systems that helped organizations manage all kinds of back office functions, then HCM 2.0, the beginning of the internet era, where we see the first HR and Recruiting processes migrate to the web.

Think the first ATS tools, Benefits outsourcing, the emergence of SaaS for Talent Management, etc. And now in 2017 we are at the start of HCM or HR Tech 3.0, where (hopefully) the best elements of both HCM 1.0 and 2.0 are coalescing and combining to create a set of greater capabilities, service delivery options, and advanced capabilities that back in the 1.0 days, we only dreamed about.

Does HCM 1.0 and 2.0 add up to HCM 3.0? Should HR leaders chase the next shiny object? Where can HR leaders turn to get better educated on the HR Tech landscape?

You can listen to the show on the show page HERE, or using the widget player below (email or RSS subscribers click through)

Listen to the show to hear a lively and interesting discussion about the current set of HR technologies, the challenges and opportunities they present, and what HR leaders need to know as they plan their organization's HR Tech strategies moving forward.

This was a fun and interesting show, thanks Randy for joining us.

And of course, thanks to our show sponsor Virgin Pulse - learn more at www.virginpulse.com.

Finally, subscribe to the HR Happy Hour Show on iTunes, Stitcher Radio, or your favorite podcast app.