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    Entries in work (243)

    Tuesday
    Jan142014

    The downside of measuring everything

    KD had a great post on HR Capitalist about the (potential) link between pay and performance at Gawker media, as evidenced by the below chart that showed that one writer, Neetzan Zimmerman, (his traffic is in light green on the chart) on the staff of 15 or 16 was responsible for 99% of the site's overall traffic, (and revenue, or at least the opportunity to earn revenue).

    KD, rightly, concluded that this situation likely presented Gawker a huge and obvious 'Pay for Performance' situation, where if Gawker were truly taking the capitalist/meritocratist approach to business and talent management, they would have dropped about a third of the staff, allocated all that salary budget to Zimmerman, and told the remaining nine or so staff to shut up, (while showing them the traffic chart), if they didn't like being paid about 20% of what Zimmerman was getting.

    While we don't know what Gawker actually did, we do know that Zimmerman left to chase something else, so at least it seems on the surface a gigantic rise in salary or performance related comp was not on offer.

    But rather than talk about what Gawker should have done, (or do in the future with their comp/performance strategy), I'd rather think a little about a world where having the access to data and the analytical tools to actually do more data-informed performance becomes more and more prevalent.

    One of the most common reasons true pay for performance isn't done, or isn't done successfully, is that it just is really hard to accurately and fairly quantify and measure performance in the first place.  Unlike the staff of writers at Gawker, who can be reasonably and pretty fairly judged on their performance by web traffic to the site for their articles, which is both easy to measure and not subject to the whims of any manager's opinion or rating biases, most of the rest of us have jobs perhaps a little more complex, variable, and nuanced.

    The kinds of jobs that don't allow easy and clean measurement, and consequently don't facilitate easy comparison of workers within and across work groups. So we invent things like competency models, and core job functions, and 360s, and talent reviews and calibration in order to come up with some kind of repeatable, reasonable, and defensible method to rate and review folks. And after all that the difference between the annual salary increases for the 'best' performers and the average performers might be a percent or two. 

    But going forward driven by the amazing technological advances that are on the horizon we will live in a new world of increased connectivity, improved capability to capture data about the effectiveness of previously untraceable things from a new and improved set of wearable devices, company-issued apps or smartphones that will both broadcast and track our every move, and the nascent internet of things that will provide data on our interactions with machines, (and how fast and effectively we respond to their needs). 

    Yep, in the (near enough) future almost all kinds of jobs and the relative performance of the people doing those jobs will be measurable. We will be able to measure everyone. Everything that they do. All the time.

    Man that will be great.

    <You had better get back to work now. Trust me.>

    Monday
    Jan062014

    Welcome back

    Happy 2014!

    It's good to be back as it were, after a couple of weeks of running old posts, not writing much of anything new, and more or less laying low and attempting to keep warm. I did learn at least one new phrase over the holidays, 'Polar Vortex', although it is assuredly one I could have done without.

    Prior to the holidays kicking off, as I was scrolling back through the 2013 blog archives to find what I thought were some of the better and most representative posts to re-publish it during the last two weeks it struck me (finally) as to what this blog is really about, or perhaps said better, what topics and subjects about which I am actually interested in learning, sharing, and offering opinions on.  For me, 2013 was mostly about three main subject areas:

    1. Advances in robot technology and the increasing automation of the workplace and of other technologies (like self-driving cars, Google Glass, etc.).

    2. Macro economic, demographic, and societal trends that impact our organizations and our professional lives. Things like the aging of the workforce and the true or possibly not true skills gap that gets bandied about from time to time.

    3. How data is changing work, the practice of HR and management, and even our personal lives as well. In that vein, my single favorite post from 2013 was the one about the trucking company that is combining operational data from the trucks themselves with ‘softer’ HR data to make managerial interventions.

    There are some other things mixed in there for sure, like sports and HR and the occasional rant/take on the (tiresome) ‘Company culture is more important that anything’ meme that will never seem to go away. And I will (naturally) use this blog to help promote those things that do keep the lights on, like the HR Technology Conference, HRevolution, the HR Happy Hour Show, and other miscellaneous things I will be doing in 2014. But for the most part the blog will remain about what I think are the most interesting and most important ideas and topics that affect the way we work and the way we interact with technology to do that work.

    Since this blog, or most anyone's personal blog for that matter, is just an outlet and a hobby more or less, it naturally is going to reflect my interests, Whether or not anyone else finds them interesting is another matter. My sense from a cursory scan of site traffic over the years suggests that there are at least a few of you out there, but your numbers certainly aren't growing too much!

    But regardless of traffic or comments or social shares, I personally still find writing on the blog to be fun, challenging, and beneficial. And I do want to thank everyone that has visited in the past and that will stop by in 2014.

    As always, I welcome comments, ideas, suggestions, etc. I will note, and this is is mainly for the PR types that might see this, I am really not that interested in running guest posts from people I have never met, publishing your client’s infographics about anything, or writing about anything that is ‘under embargo’.

    Ok, that is it  - have a fantastic, successful, and fun 2014 everyone!

    Monday
    Dec302013

    REPRISE: Human Resources when there are fewer humans around

    Note: The blog is taking some well-deserved rest for the next two weeks (that is code for I am pretty much out of decent ideas, and I doubt most folks are spending their holidays reading blogs anyway), and will be re-running some of best, or at least most interesting posts from 2013. Maybe you missed these the first time around or maybe you didn't really miss them, but either way they are presented for your consideration. Thanks to everyone who stopped by in 2013!


    The below post is another take, one a little more 'HR-centric' of the topic I talked about the most in 2013 - the continual and increasing encroachment and pressure that technology and automation is having on the workplace - rendering more and more of us if not obsolete, at least significantly less relevant. The piece originally ran in May 2013.
    ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

    Human Resources when there are fewer humans around 

    The below chart (or a version of it) has been making the rounds plenty in the last year or so as the American economy rebounds and seemingly continues to strengthen coming out of the financial crisis and ensuing recession of the late aughts.

    It shows how despite corporate profits, expressed as a percentage of GDP, continuing to set records, that those record profits have not (taken in aggregate), translated into lots of new jobs, as the labor participation rate shows.

    Source - FRED 

    As the chart pretty clearly shows, aggregate corporate profits (the red line), after plunging to a low at about the middle of the recession, late 2008, have rebounded considerably, and now are at all-time record levels as a percentage of GDP.

    The employment rate however, after taking an equally dramatic fall throughout the entire recession, finally stabilized at a far lower level than pre-recession, and despite, (or some might argue what has been the primary driver of), rising corporate profits is showing no signs of regaining its former levels of around 62%.

    Profits are up, way up even, yet corporations are achieving these profits with far fewer workers than before, (and paying them less, generally. We could also factor in wage growth or lack thereof to make that point at well).

    There are lots of reasons for this - technological progress, increased automation, continuing reliance on relatively cheaper foreign labor, diminishing influence of labor unions, the aging of the workforce, etc. but the bottom line seems to be an ever-growing bottom line with fewer and fewer actual people needed to make that happen.

    No doubt if you are one of the workers in the 'right' kind of job, you are probably doing pretty well or are on the way to doing pretty well. But if you are one of the people that might be in a field that has simply figured out to continue to drive profits without as many people, then things could be looking kind of grim.

    Where does all this leave you as an HR/Talent pro?

    A lot depend on the company/industry you are in. But in aggregate, certainly, when there are fewer and fewer 'humans' in the workforce, then corporations will figure out they need fewer and fewer Human Resources people to help look after them all. I have talked with a few HR leaders lately that are seeing both the size of their labor forces hold steady and their HR/EE ratios holding an extremely high levels.

    Advice?

    Make sure you are spending a decent chunk of your time and energy on things that are truly additive - technology that will help employees generate new ideas and innovations, marketing and recruiting strategies that will let you land more than your share of the best talent at the expense of your competitors, and even in an 'addition-by-subtraction' way, elimination of silly rules, policies, or processes that in any way get in the way of employee performance.

    And you could spend some time figuring out what kinds of planning, services, training, development, and team building activities that 'resources' like our pal Baxter needs and you might ride this out a little longer.

    Have a great week!

    Thursday
    Dec262013

    REPRISE: If Yahoo doesn't kill remote working, then Big Data will

    Note: The blog is taking some well-deserved rest for the next two weeks (that is code for I am pretty much out of decent ideas, and I doubt most folks are spending their holidays reading blogs anyway), and will be re-running some of best, or at least most interesting posts from 2013. Maybe you missed these the first time around or maybe you didn't really miss them, but either way they are presented for your consideration. Thanks to everyone who stopped by in 2013!

    The below post hits on a couple of topics that were beaten to death in the HR blogosphere in 2013 - the talent management decisions at Yahoo! and what technology and Big Data will mean for work and workplaces. The piece originally ran in March 2013.

    ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

    If Yahoo doesn't kill remote working, then Big Data will

    A little bit lost in the continuing fallout from the decisions by Yahoo to end remote working arrangements for their staff, and Best Buy's move to end ROWE (Results Only Work Environment), at its corporate headquarters was this much more interesting, (and potentially more important), report in the Wall Street Journal, 'Tracking Sensors Invade the Workplace', that hints at a data-powered future workplace where 'being physically together' is not just mandated, but is tracked, recorded, and interpreted by algorithms and leveraged by management.

    How exactly does Big Data, (which usually sounds kind of benign, or at least non-threatening), play a role in the future of telework?  Take a look at this excerpt from the WSJ piece:

    As Big Data becomes a fixture of office life, companies are turning to tracking devices to gather real-time information on how teams of employees work and interact. Sensors, worn on lanyards or placed on office furniture, record how often staffers get up from their desks, consult other teams and hold meetings.

    Businesses say the data offer otherwise hard-to-glean insights about how workers do their jobs, and are using the information to make changes large and small, ranging from the timing of coffee breaks to how work groups are composed, to spur collaboration and productivity.

    "Surveys measure a point in time—what's happening right now with my emotions. [Sensors] measure actual behavior in an objective way,"

    The next step in figuring out how people work, communicate, and interact in the workplace and with their colleagues involves wearing an always-on tracking device, (bathroom breaks optional), and harnessing all the data the device collects about who a worker talks to and for how long, how often they get up, when they hit the coffee room and vending machine, how long they stand waiting outside a conference room because the prior meeting ran long - all of this and more.  Mash up that 'experience' data with other electronic data trails (email, IM, internal collaboration tools, etc.), and boom - the data will be able to prescribe optimal amounts of employee interaction, recommend the timing and duration of breaks, send push notifications alerting you that the guy you need to connect with about the Penske account is two stalls away from you, and crucially - keep your managers informed about just what the heck you are up to all day.

    But it seems really likely to me that if these workplace tracking sensors gain more well, traction, that organizations will quickly realize that the only way to really exploit them, and the data they collect to its fullest potential, will be in a traditional workplace environment - with all employees together in a physical location and 'on-duty' at the same time. Let's face it, for a remote worker wearing a tracking sensor probably won't produce much valuable data - unless its to try to 'prove' to a suspicious manager that a remote worker is slacking off.

    The tracking sensors, if they catch on, will change the anti-telework argument from 'We need you to come in to the office so we can keep an eye on you' to 'We need you to come in to the office so we can track everything you do, say, touch, and feel all day.'

    It's a brave new world out there my friends...

    Wednesday
    Dec182013

    Uber, surge pricing, and data at work (at work)

    The on-demand black car service Uber took quite a bit of flack over the weekend for implementing what is known as 'surge pricing' during a pretty nasty snowstorm in New York City. If you are not familiar with Uber, (and you should be because it really is an amazing service), the basics are pretty simple. Users use a smartphone app to summon a black car or equivalent that picks them up and then are taken to their desired destination. The entire payment transaction (including leaving the driver a star rating) is executed via the app, for prices (at least in my experience) ranging 15-20% more expensive than 'regular' taxi service.

    But during times of extremely high demand for rides and low supply of on the road drivers (like on a Saturday night in a bad storm), Uber implements 'surge pricing', essentially increasing the cost of rides anywhere from 2 to even 6 or 7 times the normal fares in order to balance demand with supply. The ECON 101 logic is pretty simple - the increased prices (which users are warned about in advance of booking a ride) will serve to simultaneously reduce demand while increasing supply, as more drivers will be enticed to get out on the road in order to earn increased fees during the surge pricing period.

    In addition to using basic pricing flexibility to manage and try and balance supply and demand, Uber also is attempting to mitigate the one really frustrating piece of the typical customer's experience, (I can attest to this one), which is the simple lack of availability of a car when you need/want one.

    But the backlash from last weekend's surge pricing in NYC seemed pretty harsh as people took to Twitter to vent about their frustration with Uber for radically increasing their prices during a time of "crisis" in the city - it seems like there were scads of celebrities that were particularly peeved about having to pay what they felt like were exorbitant prices for transportation around town.

    Putting aside the natural lack of sympathy I have for anyone complaining that their on-demand, door-to-door, black car service costs too much (on a Saturday night in the busiest city in America and during a snowstorm), I wanted to highlight this story as one of the very few that we see that showcases how data, technology, and the combination of the two are actually conspiring to benefit the front-line worker - in this case the Uber affiliated black car drivers.

    Normal taxi drivers or even limo drivers might see a little extra in their pay rates for working a Saturday night, but certainly could not take advantage of the dramatic increase in demand for their services as the Uber drivers who braved the storm were able to realize.

    Through a combination of new technology, absence of the pricing regulations imposed on traditional taxi services, more flexible labor rules, and most importantly, the presence of information of the increased demand, these Uber drivers were able to make better and hopefully, more informed, data-driven decisions about whether, where, and when to provide their services.

    Most front-line workers never really get the exercise the kind of labor pricing power that we see in this example. Last Saturday night lots and lots of pretty well-off people wanted black car service on one of the worst weather nights of the year. The kind of night that most folks would rather stay home and stay warm, much less venture out into the cold and wet and storm to work for their normal pay.

    Thanks to data and technology at least in this example, the Uber drivers who did venture out into the weather did a little better than most front-line workers.

    It looks like they were paid what they deserved. Which is not always easy to say, both for black car drivers and for the celebrities they ferried up and down Manhattan last Saturday night.