HRE Column: What HR Pros Want to Know About HR Tech

Welcome back from the long, holiday weekend! (At least for the US readers out there).

I'm just easing back into the groove after a BBQ-heavy weekend, so I will take the opportunity this morning, (this is also code for 'I really, really was offline all weekend and did not write anything new'), to share a bit from my latest Inside HR Tech column that runs each month at Human Resource Executive Online, (and remind blog readers that you can subscribe over at HRE to get the monthly Inside HR Tech column delivered fresh to your email inbox).

Here is an excerpt from the piece, "What HR Tech Pros Want to Know":

Recently, I had the opportunity to co-present, along with Trish McFarlane,  VP of HR practice and Principal Analyst at Brandon Hall Group, a session titled "What Did That HR Tech Salesperson Say? Demystifying HR Technology Selection and Implementation" at the 2014 SHRM Annual Conference and Exposition in Orlando. Despite the session being scheduled on the last day (and last possible time slot) of the event, we had a sizable and highly engaged audience. I think the combination of SHRM's tendency not to offer much content in the way of HR technology and the increasing importance of the subject to HR professionals everywhere contributed to the great turnout for our "conference ender."

In fact, there were so many great questions asked both during and after the session (Trish and I were both amazed by how many attendees approached us at the end wanting to continue the conversation), I have to think other HR professionals and leaders not able to attend the session might also have some of the very same questions.

So with that in mind, I'd like to share at least a few of the more common and pressing questions we were asked.

What are the best sources of information about HR technology solutions to help me when I'm conducting market and vendor research?

Trish shared some great information from her research about which sources of information HR professionals rely upon when researching HR-technology solutions. The most common sources used by HR professionals are external consultants (55 percent), talking with other HR colleagues (45 percent), and conducting online Internet searches (40 percent). While these are all valid and potentially valuable sources of information, HR pros should also be sure to take advantage of a plethora of additional -- and often freely available -- sources of HR technology information that exist in LinkedIn groups, (such as the HR Technology Conference group), in independent-analyst company reports and vendor profiles, as well as on social media. You'd be surprised how many responses you will get if you post a question about a particular HR-tech solution in a large and active LinkedIn group.

Of course, events such as the HR Technology^® Conference offer a great opportunity to compare and contrast many vendors in a short time period... 

You can catch the rest of the piece over at HRE Online see what other HR Tech questions the HR pros were asking and sign up for the monthly 'Inside HR Tech' column there as well.

Have a great week!

SLIDES: What Did That HR Tech Salesperson Say? #SHRM14 Presentation

Earlier today Trish McFarlane and I presented "What did that HR Tech salesperson say? Demystifying HR Technology Selection and implementation" at the SHRM Annual Conference in Orlando, Florida.

Despite it being one of the very last and final sessions of the marathon event, (we jokingly referred to the session as the 'Closing-Closing Keynote'), we had a super-engaged audience of HR professionals that had lots and lots of questions about the HR technology research, evaluation, selection, and implementation processes. Trish and I were kind of blown away by the number of questions, really. And even though it was the final session of the Conference, numerous attendees stayed past the 'official' ending time to share with us their challenges and concerns about HR tech solutions.

Embedded below, (Email and RSS subscribers will need to click through), are the slides that Trish and I presented, (although with the number and type of questions we had from the attendees, we probably needed to devote more time to Q and A), at the session. Have a look to see the basic of what we talked about, and what had so many HR pros wanting to dig in to the important issues facing them and their organizations.

What Did the HR Tech Salesperson Say? SHRM Annual 2014 Presentation from Steve Boese and Trish McFarlane

In fact, we had so many questions and conversations after the session ended, that we promised attendees we would continue the conversation on the HR Happy Hour Show - so look for a show to be scheduled soon in which we will continue to try and 'demystify' the HR Tech selection process, and help HR pros arrive at better decisions for their organizations.

Many thanks to SHRM for having us at the event, and for allowing us to 'close' the show!

Which tech advice is good advice? #SHRM14

Been spending a little time working on the final bits of the presentation titled "What Did the HR Tech Salesperson Say? Demystifying HR Technology Selection and Implementation", that Trish McFarlane and I will be giving later this week at the SHRM Annual Conference, and by way of preview (and since it is interesting to me) I wanted to riff on one section of the presentation, where we plan to discuss ways for 'normal' HR pros to conduct HR technology research.

With blogs, social networks, LinkedIn, podcasts, about 1,345 Twitter chats, etc. there is no shortage of advice, opinion, and information out there about anything and that of course includes HR technology solutions. 

But which sources of advice are good advice, or at least, relatively better than some of the competing alternatives? I think you can break down and then compare sources of advice on HR Technology solutions on a simple 2x2 grid with the X Axis being "Informed" and the Y Axis being "Biased" (or at least the potential exists for bias based on history, contracts, or other less obvious drivers of biased opinion.)

Here's my take on the "Who can you trust/who knows what they are talking about" chart:

What do you think? Too harsh on some of the vendor-driven content? Not giving the Online Pundits their due? Does your Mom know a lot more about HR Technology than I calculated?

Look, the exact placement of any of these sources of information on the plot of 'Informed/Biased' is subject to debate, interpretation, and certainly exceptions exist for any of them.

But the larger, and more important point I think, and one we will make during the presentation, is that any source that you as an HR pro uses as an input into your research/decision process needs to be evaluated and scrutinized carefully.

Lots of 'experts' really are not that expert - they either never have actually bought and implemented HR solutions in organizations themselves, or haven't done so for a really long time. Some consultants purport to be vendor solution agnostic, but might only have a chance at scoring some billable work from you if you select a specific vendor's technology. And lots of people with blogs and Twitter accounts have no idea what they are talking about, (possibly me too).

So in the SHRM session, we will try to take some of the mystery out of what can often be a one-sided, vendor has all the power kind of dynamic, and give you the HR pro some tips, tricks, and secret code to help you better understand the process, and hopefully that will lead to better outcomes.

And, we will have a bunch of HR Happy Hour shirts to give away at the session as well!