Twinkies or technology skills: Shelf-life is shorter than you think

All of us, or at least most of us that care about the future of some of America's most beloved snack foods, have been following the sad story of Hostess - the venerable maker of all things wonderful, (Twinkies, Ding Dongs, and my favorite, those orange nuclear-looking cupcakes), that after failing to come to terms with striking workers, appears to be in its death spiral.  If indeed Hostess has to liquidate, it seems likely that some of their most popular and iconic brands like the Twinkie might survive, with a number of potential rival baking companies seemingly eager to purchase (at a fire-sale price), the brand name and recipe for the cake.It might still be good

While a plausible scenario, the Twinkie's future is still uncertain, and in the week or so run-up from the initial announcement of Hostess' intention to pursue liquidation, and the last, failed attempt at a labor settlement, consumers across the country essentially bought out all remaining supplies of Twinkies and other favorite Hostess snacks. The idea being to stock up while you still could, and if you acted quickly and scored a few extra Twinkies boxes, that combination of your stockpile with the Twinkie's legendary decades-long shelf-life, you'd be set to get your Twinkie fix for a really, really long time.

But it turns out, despite the urban legend that the preservative and artificial ingredient-heavy Twinkie being able to last forever, (or near enough), the true shelf-life of a Twinkie is no more than about 25 days, and typically were pulled from store shelves after about 10 days. So bottom-line, Twinkies last for less time than you think, (please let's hope they come back, I finished my stash two days ago).

I thought about the little Twinkie paradox while reading this piece, 'What's the Shelf-life of a Techie? Just 15 years, from the Times of India site.  In the piece, high-ranking technology leaders from the India operations of several well-known global tech firms,  (SAP, Microsoft, Texas Instruments), paint a pretty stark and probably realistic picture of the increasingly rapid deterioration of technology skills and expertise, as the pace of newer, hotter, and more in-demand technologies come to market. There are about half a dozen choice quotes in the piece, but this is the one that really stood out the most:

Mukund Mohan, CEO of Microsoft's startup accelerator programme in India, says the shelf life of certain kinds of developers has shrunk to less than a year. "My daughter developed an app for iPhone 4. Today, she is redeveloping the app to make it smarter for iPhone 5.

Five years ago, developers were talking Symbian (the Nokia operating system). Today, it's not very relevant. You have to look at Android or iOS or may be even Windows 8 to stay relevant."

A pretty telling quote and a bit frightening as well. The iPhone4 is maybe a year old, the iPhone5 less than that, and about to be rendered, 'out of date' in maybe 6 more months. It used to be that hardware, software, and the technical skills needed to make it all work advanced more evenly, regularly, and more importantly, the big firms that make these technologies, and their customers that use them, had much longer time horizons in mind when developing and deploying technology.

In the (recent) past a large, enterprise deployment of an ERP or an accounting system at a big firm could reasonably be expected to be in place more or less unchanged, for a decade, maybe even longer. Lots of IT pros and managers have made long and successful careers essentially by developing a deep understanding of a single technology.

While that was commonplace, and if you chose the 'right' technology, a pretty shrewd approach to career management, if these IT executives are accurate in their assessments, specializing in one technology at the expense of, exposure to, and continual learning about the 'next' technology that will be in demand is the only way to at least have a chance of remaining relevant, (and employable), past a time horizon, like the shelf-life of the Twinkie, is a lot shorter than you think.

Have a great Tuesday!

The Just in Time Workforce

Just-in-time or JIT is a concept from manufacturing, more specifically from the discipline of supply chain management that is designed to reduce a manufacturer's costs and increase efficiency by improving the flow of supplies and goods, reducing the amount of in-process inventory that is purchased and stored, and more effectively aligns production, (and production workers), with customer demand.Juicy

Essentially, JIT can be simplified as a process where component parts inventories are kept extremely low, production is raised or lowered to match ebbs and flows of customer demand, and the overall manufacturing process becomes more agile and less costly.  JIT has been around for a long time in the manufacturing world, but now, and as highlighted by a recent piece in the New York Times titled 'A Part-Time Life, As Hours Shrink and Shift, many of these concepts are bleeding into retail and service industries as well.

In the NYT piece, we learn how in more and more Part-time dominated workplaces like retail and fast or fast-casual dining, organizations and front-line managers are using JIT concepts, (enabled by more sophisticated workforce scheduling technologies), to better match and adapt the part-time worker's schedules to ever-shifting customer demand and conditions. Take a look at an example of near JIT scheduling from the NYT piece:

At the Jamba Juice shop at 53rd Street and Lexington Avenue in Manhattan, along with the juice oranges and whirring blenders is another tool vital to the business: the Weather Channel.

The shop’s managers frequently look at the channel’s Web site and plug the temperature and rain forecast into the software they use to schedule employees.

“Weather has a big effect on our business,” said Nicole Rosser, Jamba’s New York district manager.

If the mercury is going to hit 95 the next day, for instance, the software will suggest scheduling more employees based on the historic increase in store traffic in hot weather. At the 53rd Street store, Ms. Rosser said, that can mean seven employees on the busy 11-to-2 shift, rather than the typical four or five.

That sounds really cool, and pretty smart as well, no?  You could even argue that incorporating an external condition like the weather into financial, operational, and workforce planning is a perfect example of the latest buzzword 'Big Data'. Either way, for the managers and owners of the Jamba Juice it is a smart application of data, technology,and understanding of their customers to more efficiently meet demand, (and increase profits).

But unlike manufacturing components that sit on a shelf in a warehouse waiting to be uses, the JIT levers in this example are actual people, the part-time workers of the Jamba Juice that, again unlike spare axles or tires, have lots of other things to balance around their work making smoothies.  Other jobs, school, family obligations, child care - it could be anything, but in a world where their work schedules become less and less predictable, (more JIT), their challenges and stress levels naturally ratchet higher. 

Most of these folks, I would bet, are not just sitting at home checking the Weather Channel like their managers are, waiting to see if a 90-degree day might mean they'll get called in to work.

The point of this?

I suppose that in a world where data, technology, and the increasingly powerful combinations that are forming from the two that enable us to get better and better at utilizing resources of all kinds, that the actual Human resources get the same treatment as the other components of production.

Have a great week all!

Software is Eating Human Resources

It is pretty apt timing that this piece, 'Software Is Eating Marketing', was posted on the Inc. blog just one day after the conclusion of the HR Technology Conference, the three-day annual gathering of HR Technology solution providers, HR leaders and practitioners, and the collection of press, analysts, investors interested in the space. You'll like it

As myself and others have more frequently posited, (here on this blog most recently just about a week ago), the function, practice, and skills needed in Human Resources in the future will look, feel, and act more like traditional marketing ones, and less like traditional HR.

And, as the recently concluded HR Technology Conference continues to reinforce, the future of HR will be powerfully influenced and in some ways driven by technology - not just the traditional kinds of HR Technology that are necessary and routine, but by a continually evolving and advancing set of new technological innovations that promise to ensure that the most savvy HR professionals of tomorrow will have as a key competency a familiarity, comfort, and deep understanding of technology.

The Inc. piece, about the influence of technology and software on marketing, could have just as easily be written about technology and Human Resources. Take a look at a few paragraphs from the 'Software is Eating Marketing' piece, with 'Human Resources' substituted for 'Marketing' as in the original piece, and tell me it doesn't read just as tellingly:

Within the $1 trillion Human Resources industry, the impact of software eating Human Resources has now reached the board room.  With the explosion of digital Human Resources, it is clear that technology is radically transforming the Human Resources function and the role of the Human Resources professional. 

The repercussions of social, mobile, video, Big Data, CRM, cloud and other disruptive forces are impacting all aspects of business, but particularly Human Resources. As a result, Human Resources leaders and agencies now carry the burden of understanding technology’s impact on their business, the entire customer experience, and leading innovation within their enterprises, not simply following a course set by their IT department. 

In much the way Apple disrupted the music and phone industries with smart industrial design and clever software that shielded users from complexity, technologists are building sophisticated systems with interfaces that are as simple for Human Resources and designers to manipulate as their iPhones. 

If you think the last few years were disruptive, imagine how much the Human Resources industry will be transformed in the next three years!

Even with the sort of excessive repetition, those sentiments from the original piece about the growing role and increasing importance of technology on marketing make just as much sense and reflect one of the most significant industry trends for Human Resources as well.

It's a simple logical progression really. If HR = The New Marketing, and Marketing is being consumed by technology, then one could plausibly argue technology is eating Human Resources.

And just as the smart marketing professional knows that he or she needs to embrace these changes, so to does the smart HR and Talent pro.

But you already know that right, I mean you're reading this, which I'd gather indicates you are one of the small, (but growing), ranks of HR pros that get the fundamental changes and incredible opportunities that a real understanding and appreciation of technology and software present to both your organization, and to your professional development.

It is a great time to be in the HR Tech space, I think.

Innovation as a choice

I'm just back from Taleo World 2012, (ok, I admit to being a little biased, but it was a tremendous event), and wanted to share a short bit of wisdom from one of the concurrent sessions I attended, given by WellPoint, one of the largest health benefits companies in the United States. With over 37,000 employees operating in a highly-regulated industry and with the added complexity of operating via numerous subsidiary companies, WellPoint is a classic example of the kind of large corporate environment many of us work in or have been a part of at some point in our careers.Taleo World 2012

And what are some of the things that come to mind when thinking about working in really large, complex organizations?  

We generally think of these corporate giants as lacking agility, with dense and difficult to traverse organization structures, a lack of drive and urgency, and at times the tendency to get consumed by process, entrenched ways of thinking, and lots of 'Not invented here' syndrome that taken together can slow or even halt innovative ideas of transformational projects even before they begin.

While it is certainly true that as organizations get larger and more complex in structure additional rules, policies, and sometimes bureaucracies have to emerge to simply manage the processes associated with organizing that many people, across that many locations, and operating under numerous and evolving external forces and requirements, the smartest of these large organizations are not letting size, complexity and inertia impede their ability to adapt, improve, and innovate.

And while their are reams of books, articles, seminars, and big thinkers all focused on the subject of innovation, still for large organizations, fostering innovation can be really, really hard - maybe even impossible. But during WellPoint's presentation about their purposeful and aggressive approach to reinventing their Talent Management processes, they offered one of the clearest and simplest ways to get past those legacy or inherent barriers to innovation.

Simply put, they decided to be innovative. 

The specific mantra their Talent Management team adopted was 'We can sit and wait, or we can choose to innovate.'

Sure it's basic. Sure it even sounds a little naive. And yes, no one can really effect significant change by simply making a choice, but the choice itself is the start. 

The choice to innovate becomes a conscious one that can support all the difficult decisions that have to be made in order to effect change at large organizations like WellPoint. The choice allows you, even empowers you to think about the big picture and the real reasons and benefits for the hard work you are doing. 

The choice enables you to start to let go of the organizational baggage that often has to be dragged along with you on every new project.

In another Taleo World presentation, Bertrand Dussert mentioned a fantastic quote from Roger Enrico -

"Beware the tyranny of making small changes to small things."

WellPoint's 'choice' and the Enrico quote both remind us of the importance of thinking big, not allowing the past to be a barrier to progress, and that often a simple change in mindset can be the beginning of a fantastic journey, even in the largest and most seemingly resistant to change environments.

Thanks to everyone at Taleo World for what was a superb and inspiring event.

Have a Great Weekend!

The Lewis Turning Point

I was reading a few pieces over the weekend on the increasing industrial 'robotization' happening in of all places, China. I think for lots of us, our familiarity with Chinese manufacturing processes comes mainly from the recent series of well-publicized articles about Foxconn and their massive manufacturing complexes staffed with what seems like armies of low-to-medium skilled and cheap, (at least relatively cheap) labor.

We know, or we think we know, the Chinese manufacturing advantage, particularly for high-tech manufacturing. While more nimble and adaptive supply chains are certiainly a large part of the story, there is no doubt that the seemingly endless supply of inexpensive human labor has driven significant advantage for the Chinese firms in the last few decades.

But as this piece (and others) point out, demographic trends and economic factors in China are impacting this traditional labor supply and cost advantage, (simply put, China is running shorter of the right kind of laborers, and the current ones are generally demanding higher wages). As the below chart from Credit Suisse illustrates, the supply of the typical Chinese manufacturing worker is decreasing dramatically:

 

What's the big deal? Well perhaps for your organization, unless you are in a high-tech manufacturing company, maybe this situation in China, and the reactions taken by high-tech firms, (more robots, flight to even cheaper labor cost countries, etc.), might not be relevant at all. But one of the pieces on the labor market in China referred to an economic principle called The Lewis Turning Point, that I had never heard of, but I think might have relevance to any number of the so-called 'hard-to-fill' jobs that many talent professionals continue to wrestle with.

The Lewis Turning Point essentially says this - once a developing economy runs out of affordable and accessible labor, wages will naturally increase, and subsequent technological development and increased efficiency is necessary for investors to continue to realize capital accumulation and ongoing profits.

The Lewis Turning Point suggests that once easy labor runs out, that firms have to do more to continue to be successful - automate, increase wages, diversify, chase more inexpensive labor in new locations - or some combination thereof.

Obviously such a broad-based economic theory can't account for or offer specific remedies for the practical 'can't find anyone for this job' conundrums your organization might be dealing with today, but the 'turning point' does reinforce what perhaps deep down you know is true but don't want to admit publicly. Namely, if you truly have a hard, seemingly impossible to fill position in your organization, in order to make any progress it is quite likely you need to start thinking differently. 

Just like how the massive industrial behemoths in China have realized that their labor supply is contracting and increased robotization is their path forward, once you hit the turning point it is either adapt or die, or at least slowly but surely begin to wither.