It’s time for HR service providers to take accountability for what they sell

Consulting, Future HR, HR Strategy, HRIS 11 April, 2013 1 Comment

charlatanCross post from HRmaturity.com  (please visit this site for some great blogs and thought leadership on HR Maturity)
Today I spent some time wandering around an HR conference and Vendor expo in Sydney. I like doing this partly to ensure I’m up to speed with what’s on offer, but also to look for any fundamental changes taking place in the HR industry. On my agenda today was to ask all the Vendors & Service providers I met one pertinent question -”Did they have any accountability for their product/solution success after the sale?”

As I expected, most of the answers contained elements of ongoing support contracts, help with the design/implementation/creation of the solution and similar rhetoric. I couldn’t find any vendor that would categorically take any accountability for the outcomes expected from their offerings.  The key argument was that they were not in a position to take accountability as ownership passed from them to the buying client and decisions made by the client could not be influenced by the vendor.

Here is the problem with these arguments – it’s a convenient “cop out” and smacks of simply wanting to take the money and run! It was a similar argument that many consumer product manufacturers used in the 90’s when they said they could not be held responsible for how a consumer used their wares, and if it killed the consumer in the process, well that was simply not their problem (to be harsh and blunt) – but times have changed and many countries now have strong consumer protection laws in place where the producer of a consumer product is accountable and responsible for ensuring the product brings no harm to the buyer and does what it purports to do. Of course there is an equivalent onus on the buyer to use the product as it was intended and according to instructions.

This notion of responsibility and accountability between the producer and buyer of consumer products didn’t happen quickly. There was a maturing and education process that took place over years to get producers to understand that they could still make profits, but they had to do it responsibly and take accountability for negative impacts experienced by the buyer.

If I look at so many HR departments, they are littered with tools, solutions, ideas, schemes, strategies and other paraphernalia that was procured over years, all with great expectations of achieving fantastic outcomes, but they didn’t.  And so, the failed solution got thrown out onto the proverbial HR solution junk heap, and the search for something better and greater continues. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not trying to push all the blame onto HR solution providers and vendors, but I reckon there are many that would go out of business if there was a legal obligation to ensure their HR wares achieved the outcomes they claimed.

I would like to see HR vendors and service providers playing a far stronger and leading role in assessing if a buyer is positioned to use their tool, solution or idea before committing to selling it to them. The onus should rest with the seller, (who after all is supposed to be the guru in terms of their solutions) to help educate the buyer around the necessities for their solution to be successful, and have the professionalism and guts to withhold a solution if these critical elements are not in place. In short, HR vendors need to skill up in making a professional diagnosis, and assessing any risk and negative impact that their solution will have on an organisation, its employees or associates. There needs to be severe penalties for those that “sell and run”.

Making HR a successful and value adding part of an organisation requires the commitment of all stakeholders and it’s time for the charlatan HR vendors to change their ways or move out of the industry.

The Clash of the (Social) Titans is Near

Future HR, Gamification, HR Strategy, HR Technology, HRIS, Social media, Talent Management 18 December, 2012 Comments: 2

2012 ushered in a new era for HR software solutions. It will be a year that we saw some really big deals going down as the big boys of the ERP world manoeuvred themselves into  strategic positions within the cloud ecosystem. The writing was on the wall and vendors that didn’t have a cloud based solution and strategy (or at least claim they had one) were likely to  face some difficult times financially and competitively over the next three years.

With the advent of HR cloud based tool, we also saw the introduction of social and gamifcation layers being added directly into these new products. Not just as optional extra’s, but often forming the epi-centre of the product driver. Particularly in areas such as Performance Management, where communication and discussion needs between employee and manager were ripe for something new to spur what was typically a dismal failure in most organisations.

As society was settling down to the acceptance of social media as a legitimate means of sharing knowledge, ideas generation and general chin-wags in the work environment, the HR vendors saw the gap to add this functionality into their solutions to drive out better HR and Talent management. And the good thing is it works ~ you have to be prepared to adapt your work environment, leadership styles and accept that the control that was prevalent in hierarchical organisations may not work in a social environment, but if you get that right, there is a lot of good stuff that HR can do. That’s not the problem!

Who owns the social layer?

While the HR vendors were thinking about how to leverage social layers within their products, the Enterprise social guru’s were making strong headway into major organisations. Tools like Yammer have moved many organisations into a new ‘Knowledge Management” and information sharing era – building stronger communities and starting to see good paybacks on tacit knowledge lying wasted around in their staff’s grey matter.This is good too!

So what happens when Mr HR Director goes ahead and purchases a subscription to a new cloud based HR solution that also uses a proprietary social layer tool?  The reality is that many of these tools rely on the end-user using the solutions social layer, not a third party tool. OK, well having more than one social tool is not a big deal, I hear you say, we have more than one in our private lives like Twitter, Facebook and Linkedin, so things should work out.

This is where I think the proverbial paw-paw hits the fan and it’s going to get worse. If I look at the emergence of other cloud tools in the Finance, Rostering & Scheduling, Procurement and other business areas~ many of these tools are integrating proprietary social layers into their products just like the HR vendors, and they all have an expectation that you need to use the SM layer.

If I’m a user of the Finance tool and use its social layer, I might find that I’m having to repeat my knowledge post, great idea, message of recognition or piece of gossip on the HR tool – that’s of course if I remember to do that when I next use the HR tool. Not to mention the owners of the Enterprise Social layer who will be putting pressure on all employees to share and discuss on the corporate system. Then of course there is the confusion of whether I said something via email or on a social layer, or was it perhaps a text message.

Who will win the battle?

Maybe someone will come up with a clever technology layer that can plug into all these new emerging social tools embedded within discreet products to help manage the data flow and curb the likely confusion and risks. Until then I can see a number of battles taking place, with someone loosing and someone winning. The looser unfortunately may also see value disappear  from their beloved cloud solution. What we should acknowledge is that custodianship of the social tools is not an HR right!

I think we will be seeing a bit of fur flying in 2013 – a good thing in my view. Its the only way we will see the need for something new to help us manage our changing work places.

Let me know your views.

Iphone 5 vs Samsung Galaxy S III – The same “love” is found in HR systems

Consulting, Future HR, HR Strategy, HR Technology, HRIS 13 September, 2012 Leave a comment

The lead up to the launch of the iPhone 5 as well as the actual announcement leaves nobody with any doubt that marketing (if used correctly)  is a powerful mechanism to convince and manipulate people into taking a position and influencing future behaviours (in this case buying patterns).

It has an unfortunate side-effect… one that brings out a darker side of the human psyche and has the potential to be destructive to the person being influenced by the marketing spin, but also to other people who don’t hold the same view. Its called Technology-Fundamentalism.

During the lead up to the announcement of the iPhone 5, I would periodically read articles on the likely features and changes to the phone on “balanced-view” websites. What struck me more though, were the comments section at the end of the article, where readers can provide their owns views and comments. To say that it often turned into a ‘war of words’ is an understatement, the iPhone fan-boy club would be absolutely ruthless generally towards anything Android and visa versa - I have no doubt that many of these on-line discussions could turn into nasty brawls if all the contributors where physically sitting in the same location. Why is this, and is this healthy ? – has effective smartphone marketing turned people against each other to the extent that they cannot acknowledge the positives of another product without feeling that they are going against their Smartphone doctrine.

It got me thinking about the world of HR software, which I take a particular interest in. There is a lot of similarity in the dialogue between smartphone owners and HR software users/vendors/consultants. And it is very prevalent in the SAP, Oracle, Workday, Taleo, SuccessFactors space – most people working with these solutions tend to align themselves with a company or a product and fight “Tooth & Nail” to convince you that their chosen product is better than the others.

I have no doubt that in each of the mentioned products there is functionality,  components and  tools that are better than the other products, but they are also likely to have their weaknesses which are either obvious or are not discussed so that they create the impression of “Perfection”.

And people in this space go to extremes (fundamentalism) – I was once hosting an HRIS session at which all the main ERP / SaaS players were in attendance. I spent some time chatting to the country MD of Workday, which obviously offended the SuccessFactor guy, who thought it correct to lay a formal complaint to my employer. Admittedly, these sort of behaviours are extreme, but it shows you how people can be absolutely in love with their technology, that they will go to great extremes to if required.

On a practical level, I have seen functional consultants making fundamental mistakes in trying to convince clients that they can MAKE their product do what the client needs (and often the client agrees because they don’t know better), when clearly there are other solutions and options that are better. You can do just about anything with most HR technologies if you want to, but that doesn’t make it right.

So being passionate about you product (or your phone) is good, it drives one to greater depths of understanding that can be very powerful, but there are limits, that if you pass, you become obsessed and start thinking everyone who is using another HR tool (or uses another phone) is making a huge mistake. That’s the sad part!

To all the SAP, Oracle, Workday and other product fundamentalist – take a step back and explore the other solutions and offerings – you’ll firstly be amazed at the similarities, but also realise that there is other ways to do things as effectively as your product does. Your ability to help your clients will be significantly improved and you can broaden your understanding of HR technology significantly. Who knows, you may even find it easier to switch from your Samsung or iPhone…..

The Future of Recruitment

Future HR, HR Strategy, HRIS, Uncategorized 25 August, 2012 Comments: 2

I presented a paper in Singapore this week on the Future of Recruitment. It’s a topic that touches on so many parts of a corporation, and yet the fundamentals have not changed over the last 25 years. We spend significant time still managing the recruitment and on-boarding PROCESS, believing that this is adding business value, but its not.

The recruitment industry is at a cross-roads. I liken this to the Horse Manure Crisis in many cities in the 1800′s. Recruiters need to think beyond solutions that are simply improving the existing process and the recruitment agents need to accept that charging 10-25% for a candidate is no longer accepted practice… especially when you are finding that so-call-fantastic-resource on Linkedin!. There are some fundamental  shift required to allow the activity of recruitment to add real value to organisations, and we are starting to see some Talent solutions integrating this new thinking.

Here is a link to the slides I presented.

Enjoy

Organisational Structures versus Social Networks

Future HR, HR Strategy, HR Technology, HRIS, Talent Management, Uncategorized 26 June, 2012 Leave a comment

Cuboid series 2

The fundamentals of organisational structure have been the focus of attention of late, particularly as we see the emergence of social environments in the workplace, and the power that they can yield. Jamie Notter, co-author of Humanize has made a strong case for organisations to move from being “Machines” to more “Human Like” in order to tap into the values that social environments can bring to the workplace. The “Human” principles of collaboration, openness, trustworthiness, courage and a sense of belonging are instrumental and well aligned to the success of social environments and social media tools.

I get that, and agree a new work environment is necessary to create a social enterprise, but there are some flaws in the notion that social enterprise is a necessary replacement over hierarchical structures.

Lets look at the Arab Spring movement that used social principles (and tools) to overthrow President Hosni Mubarak. What we observed was the power of a networked group in achieving a goal of ousting a dictator, but in the end the new Egyptian president was far from being a representative of the people who orchestrator the social uprising, nor did he have anything to do with the movement. The movement itself was seemingly chaotic – there was no formal leadership, but assumed a life of its own, to which individuals were absorbed into.

Recently, one of my favourite authors, Malcolm Gladwell, made this comment, which sums up nicely the view that I hold:

“Networks may start revolutions,but they can’t finish them. Our job is to remind Millennials of the importance of hierarchies as well as networks.”

So, I think the future organisational design model does need to change – but it’s not a complete replacement of existing hierarchies with a mass movement mentality. The future need will be to understand how to leverage the power of the collective but still allow for purposeful and clearly identified leadership. It’s also  far more fundamental than simply installing a Social Media tool such as Yammer or Jam into your organisation, and as a leader hoping that you have ‘done enough’ – absolutely not! there will need to be real shifts in “who speaks”, “who decides” and ‘who acts”.

Finally, as a lover of HR technology, it would be remiss of me to not add a note that the link between HR system’s Org Management solutions/modules and social media tools is a major gap that needs to be addressed. While we have seen vendors integrating SM tools into their HR solutions, they have not truly understood how the Org management tools need to changed in order to create and support the new working environments.

What’s your Position ?

HR Strategy, HR Technology, HRIS 7 June, 2012 Leave a comment

Over the last few months, I have had the privilege of presenting at a number of large HR and HR technology conferences in Australia and the USA – It gave me the opportunity to mingle with a lot of  HR practitioners that I didn’t  know (or are not clients) and to hear first-hand how their day-to-day HR environments are operating.

What I can report is that there is a lot of good things happening out there in HR land ! – practitioners are very much aware that HR’s role is about achieving the business goals (alignment), and that every major HR intervention needs to have “line-of-sight’ to a business objective. This was music to my ears because these are signals that HR is shifting to new levels of HR maturity generally, and realising the importance of seeing HR as a solution provider to business goals rather than doing things for the sake of “HR best Practice”.

So while I see positive movement in terms of understanding the business role of HR, I was still disappointed  that there is not the same ‘growth’ in understanding the value that HR technology can can bring to the organisation. Don’t get me wrong, the HR technology space is abuzz with activity and everyone is chasing after the next best module, tool, social media plug-in or cloud offering. I’m pleased that we have this happening in the HR technology space because it is helping to create fascinating products and help achieve some fundamental shifts such as “HR technology that is simple and easy to use”, but I think there are many HR folk who are still in “transactional” mode rather than building their skill in how HR technology can support strategic HR initiatives.

So I’m on my education drive around levereaging HR technology and have put together a thought leadership paper on position management as a start. Hope you find it useful :-)

The Future of HR with Gamification

Future HR, Gamification, HR Strategy, HR Technology, HRIS, Uncategorized 24 March, 2012 Comments: 5

When one first encounters the term ‘Gamification’, the impressions and images created in ones mind tend to focus around the word “game” – Images of your 14 year old son spending hours in front of his game console protecting the planet from a group of renegade creatures with fire power that would impress any military leader. It’s these images that for many HR people is a trigger to dismiss the notion that the principles of gaming have no place in the realm of HR or HR Technology.

If I cast my mind back, HR has actually used gaming principles in much of its work, particularly in areas like learning. Think back to some of the training courses you have attended, where you had to work in groups to create an output that was compared to the other groups, or your team output may have been ranked or voted as ‘best’ , your facilitator may also have used a visual display of how teams were tracking overall against each other. You may have attended an assessment centre where you were ‘playing out’ the role of a manager or at the end of a training session you received an award for being the ‘best participant’. Outside of the learning space, gaming principles have been applied to recruitment and performance management, and typically result in a form of recognition.

Gamification is really talking to the natural human needs and desires to achieve, compete,be recognised, have some control over the outcome and be entertained. The advent of technology has allowed these human needs to be expressed through computer based games – its a highly successful industry, to the extent that it has over taken video and DVD as the number one form of entertainment in the UK.

So the question is, can these computer based gaming methods and approaches that satisfy human nature and instincts, be transposed into the broader HR technology environment? The answer is absolutely yes, but not necessarily in all parts ~ and it should be focussed on peoples behaviour, not the HR system per se. I asked my colleague Andrew Butow, who has great experience in gamification to identify some of the critical success factors for gamification in HR technology. He suggested the following:

  • people interact with the tool frequently
  • people have a variety of interaction points
  • there exists a community that people care about recognition in
  • interaction points are easily quantified
  • adoption is a high priority
  • frequent feedback is important

These are valuable guidelines and should prevent organisations trying to add gaming principles that wont have any value. As an example, if you were thinking about adding gaming principles to your HR ESS system, it probably wont achieve its objectives as ESS is not a frequently accessed tool in most companies, nor does it add any value to place me in position “1″ on the leaderboard for changing my home address. However if you had a knowledge management tool, or were using tools like Yammer, gamification could be a very clever way of building a culture of knowledge sharing. Saba has recently announced a product that does just that (see article). I can also see gaming being applied in the areas of recruitment (eg. Referral schemes, or agency effectiveness), Performance Management ( recognising excellent behaviour, sales achievements, accolades received from peers), Learning ( turning e-learning into a business simulation game, your contributions to knowledge sharing and mentoring).

What HR does not want to do is use gamification as a form of control or mechanism to get staff to comply to HR administrative needs – gone are the days of being the ‘People Police’ – if used in this way, it is likely to backfire and create negative perceptions of the HR function. I also think that gamification needs to be integrated into a company culture – for people over 35, the gaming principles wont be new, but the application through technology will be. The younger generation will easily accept and play along (excuse the pun), but older employees will need encouragement and assistance over time (remember to move from an in-box on your desk to email days).

Let the games begin !

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