The Future of HR Shared Service Centres

The rationale behind creating HR Shared Services was predominantly cost and efficiency. Over the years we also realised that it could not be the dumping ground for the ‘Sick, Lame and Lazy’ , but rather required highly focused people, who not only understood HR but appreciated the concept of customer service. Things have been looking good for these centres and employees are getting the service they deserve, but along comes a game changer….. Social Media .


Whilst HR SSC’s have been the hub of accurate data management and information sharing , the rise in SM tool are demanding a new approach to how SSC operate in order to stay effective. Perhaps a more appropriate name moving forward is  HR Shared Services Community .
Introducing SM into your SSC offering is not simply adding another communication channel – far from that, the nature of SM tools change the dynamics of how a group of ‘voluntary’ participants discuss, share knowledge and draw conclusions. Whilst the SSC may participate in a discussion on ‘Leave Policy’, they can’t control the debate or views shared amounts the participants. It’s no longer a one-on-one interaction over a short period of time.

So being part of a Shared Community is going to require some changes to maintain effective operations and services. SSC staff will need some new skills such as Facilitation techniques, Moderating and innovation.

The opportunity to improve HR services can be harnessed by promoting SM interactions between employees, managers, SME’s, ex-employees, job applicants and others rather than trying to ‘control the answer ‘ – the organisations that understand this will be the ones to surge ahead.

Looking forward to seeing the Evolution !

Is your HR System geared for Work 3.0

I’m not normally one to jump on the acronym band-wagon, but ‘Work 3.0’ is definitely emerging as a real issue for many organisations ~ especially from an HR strategy and systems perspective. One of the messages from Work 3.0 is the notion that the workforce will be made up of lots of people providing specific skills to resolve specific outcomes, based on an on-demand working model.

The growth in crowd sourcing on-line businesses that essentially allow prospective employees to bid for a piece of work,  is a good indicator of this trend, although I would hasten to say that the growth of these businesses are not an indicator that organisations are shedding full time employees to be replaced by on-demand services. I think there will be a far more gradual shift to a on-demand workforce through natural attrition and opportunity. Practically the type of work suited to crowd sourcing is fairly limited and is currently best suited to outputs that are clear-cut and easily definable, and where the risk is low. As we see technology improving in terms of speed, collaboration capability and the ability to create a sense ‘closeness’ and ‘trust’, we will see the opportunity for jobs outside of the low risk category growing.

Let me cut to the main point of this blog – your HR system and its capability to manage an on-demand, and physically dislocated  workforce. There are a number of challenges that immediately spring to mind:

Hiring: Hiring someone to do a piece of on-demand work is simple – A line manager can go on-line, place a work requirement, wait for responses, select the resource you like and away you go. Of course this is reminiscent of ‘cowboy’ recruitment we have seen in the past and has a wide range of risks. So how will HR departments manage the hiring of these types of resources ?

If your organisation doesn’t have a sound practice to hire and manage contractors currently- this is a signal that you are going to have problems in Work 3.0 environments too. HR systems need to assist in managing the  process, provide tools to validate employee/organisation fit, manage post work assessment (performance management) to name a few. In my view I haven’t seen any HR or Talent tools stepping up into this space. We should also not assume that current system  functionality in Hiring, Assessment and Performance management can simply be extended to this new category of employee – it has very different requirements.

Classification of the employee: One of the basic HR functions is to know how many people work in your organisation – in many organisations this only means people paid through the payroll system. In my view this is a misrepresentation of the total workforce and its associated cost. The reason provided by HR is often indicated as a lack of system capability to track contractors who are paid through invoicing to finance. Work 3.0 will further exacerbation this issue, and HR organisations need to quickly get on top of this so that the workforce count if properly represented.

Data sharing: Crowd sourced employees will want to share information with organisations and want their employer to feed them information back – this data could be stored in commercial social networking tools such as Linked-in, Facebook, the crowd sourcing platform or their own personal database. The ability to share information between a corporate HR system and external and individual social / cloud tools is a new concept for HR vendors, but will become a prominent need in the next few years.

Payment: How you pay a crowd-sourced employee or on-demand employee can be challenging, particularly if they are in another country where you don’t have a physical presence. Its not so much the movement of money that’s the issue, but rather compliance to local tax regimes.The recording of time against a task will also be an important area for development and integration.

Hyper specialization: Crowd sourcing or on-demand working will give rise to the concept of hyper-specialization. Activities will be broken into a multitude of tasks in order to take advantage of an on-demand workforce. For a line manager, this brings in new dynamics to manage a team of people collaborating on a common output – Line managers will need new tools to help co-ordinate work across tasks and teams of physical and dislocated employees. Some HR systems do a decent job in supporting project environments, but its not the norm, and in future they need to provide better end-user management tools outside of the ‘Project Manager’ type tool mindset – tools that will facilitate teamwork, team management, performance management, completion tracking and communication.

Strategic Workforce planning and Talent Management: The on-demand workforce will provide new opportunities to manage the ‘supply’ side of long term talent management needs, which could ease the fears around the ‘war on Talent’ – however most workforce management tools are geared towards the traditional employment model. Workforce planning tools are emerging as an important components of an effective HR environment, particularly in the area of predictive modelling techniques. The crowd sourced employee adds an unknown layer into this equation that will need to be understood in order for WFM tools to be put to best use.

We are heading for an exciting time in execution of work in our workplaces, but we do need HR systems to start providing tools to better manage this future environment. What are your views.

HR Dashboards: All chalk and dust..

956386I have a good mate and ex-colleague at Deloitte, Lyle Cooper. We regularly have  debates (typically over email given the time difference between Australia and South Africa) over topical HR issues. Last week he asked me for my views on HR Dashboards, and how prevelant they are:

The question was : “would you say that Dashboards and scorecards are prevalent  or do most HR depts. get by with standard reports or specifically collated reports (not from an automated tool).”

I though I would share my answer with you and see what others are thinking:

My Answer:

Personally I  haven’t seen a major take up of front end strategic visual tools by HR ( there are lots of individual HR staff that have developed  tools and systems for themselves that are visual displays / dashboards ) and most HR departments are still generating their strategic reports and manipulating them prior to distribution to executives and managers.

Part of the problem that Dashboard tools are not effective when used (or  if used at all) is because the business requirements eg. measure total workforce numbers & cost, is not accurately supported by HR departments and their systems. There is also still a lot of mistrust of HR data. Another reason is the lack of system capability knowledge generally in HR environments. Where I have see positive movement is when ‘new age’ HR senior resources are appointed ( execs that don’t come from an HR background ) – they have see decision making tools like Dashboards and Scorecards work in finance , procurement, marketing etc. and know the value that such tools can offer if they work correctly. The other thing that is pushing change is when HR departments have placed analytics people in their structures or CoE’s – they tend to increase accuracy of data and use the outputs to help support decision making. 

So while Dashboards are not the norm, these days I’m seeing more standard reports being generated that look a lot nicer – use of graphics etc. are definitely being used ( sometimes to hide the real answers though), but not seeing a lot using interactive graphics eg. Business objects type tools.

I should say again that I see a difference  between the use of dashboards at an executive vs operational level. The former is the area that is not doing well in my view ( ties into the maturity level of HR ).

So, should HR be going down the Dashboard route? In my opinion ….Yes , but the back end HR/People data must be trusted first, it must contain the data to support business decision making (not HR decision making…. there is a difference) and the dashboards should show direct lines of influence or effect on a business strategies (eg. What is the contribution from HR strategies on the annual 20% growth target). Dashboards for operational management is probably less useful, and the line managers need for this data is likely to be supported in MSS tools and tools like instant Analytics  (Workday approach).

So let me know your thoughts and experiences on the use of Dashboards in your HR world…….All ‘Chalk & Dust’ or ‘working well.

10 Things HR Transformation

Dug up an old presentation on HR Transformation. I remember putting this presentation together and at the time wondering how much of this would come to fruition in the general HR/Talent departments. I am pleased to say that there has been some movement in the right direction, but HR is generally still struggling to add visible, direct and aligned value to the overall business.

Of course it would be wrong to paint all HR departments with the same brush ~ I have seen some fantastic strategic changes in some clients where the HR role is integrated and critical to the overall business strategy – the CHRO is recognised as a real business agent. But in other (and sadly most companies) they are still little more that payroll/personnel departments. This is not to say that all HR departments should be strategic – in many organisations its not needed and there is no executive desire for a strategic role. The issue really is when HR tries and wants to be strategic, but just cannot get there. Often this is due to an incorrect level of HR Maturity, wrong HR leadership or an executive that needs education.

Enjoy the slides and let me know how you rate your HR department against the 10 focus areas.

 Click to Launch: 10 things HR transformation http://www.slideshare.net/slideshow/embed_code/8193759

HR System 2020 : Challenges & Opportunities

HR System 2020 : Challenges & Opportunities

My recent slides from the presentation I did at the Mastering SAP HR Conference in Sydney. The focus was on the future of HR systems, but rather than focus on the future features of such systems, I took a look at how the rise of personal measurement, and in particular health measurement, will impact the HR and broader work environment.

HR Systems 2020: The Challenges and Opportunities http://www.slideshare.net/slideshow/embed_code/8167048

Creating Value in Human Resources | Presence of IT

…But there are so many inspirational stories about people who have become really successful, but are not regarded as gifted or highly intelligent. In his book, “Outliers”, Malcolm Gladwell shows that success is often influenced by a range of factors, including where we are from, the opportunities we had, the amount of time we put into our passions and that in all cases successful people don’t get to where they are alone – they always have been helped along the way.

Creating Value in Human Resources | Presence of IT.

Influence vs Environment : an HR Employee Value Proposition

I’ve never done it before! – sat on an idyllic beach, looking out over the deep blue sea, working on my laptop. Well her e I am in the 5 star Hilton Hotel in Kuwait, sitting under an Arabian tent, scattered with Persian carpets and low, comfy couches, looking out over the calm Gulf waters, intermittently spoilt by a large oil tanker passing by (and reminding me of the riches of this region)

Amazingly I’m not on Holiday either – but have a few hours to waste before heading off to the airport for my 15 hour flight back to Sydney. All of this got me thinking about the importance of the work environment – Here I am being highly productive (done 2 presentations, answered some mails, reviewed a client document and managed to write this blog), spurred on by something that is causing me to feel almost euphoric . Would I have got so much done at the office? – Definitely not- too many distractions and people. Would I have done as much sitting at my home office – More than the work office probably, but still would not have felt as relaxed and keen to do more as I am at the moment.

If I were a Talent director, considering my Employee Value Proposition, then recreating this relaxing influence (note I said influence, not environment) would be a real winner. Imagine having staff feeling so relaxed and highly productive – the creativity and energy would be mind boggling.

We’ve all heard about the Google work environment – is this an example of a relaxing influence (which is what I am experiencing) or a relaxed environment (spatially inviting and culturally aligned to a sense of freedom). I think the two (influence and environment) are different, although I concede that the immediate environment has an important role. Knowing a few people who work at Google – they love their work environment, but after the mystique fades, they are not significantly less stressed or more productive that people I know who work in highly structured and rigid organisations.

Perhaps this has been a moment in my life that “The Planets all Aligned”; I hope this is not the case, because I would love to have this happen to me every day. I don’t know the whole answer, but perhaps it has something to do with me being able to create an experience that suited me – maybe organisations need to provide a framework for operating that allows people to create their own experience. Food for thought – I do know that next time I’m in Kuwait – I’ll be back under my tent with my laptop.

The Future of HR Technology – Personal HR Databases

Its bound to happen sooner or later ~ the uptake of web2.0 or social networking tools has seen a large portion of the working population, students and scholars setting up pages that contain a fair amount of personal information on education, job history, life experiences etc. HR Professionals also know that people don’t stay in jobs as long as they did 10 years ago, and in that process of moving between jobs, much of that history of training, development programs, performance appraisal information and other data that is stored on the organisational HRIS is lost.

For many organisations hiring new staff – they have the proverbial forms that they ask to be filled out, but I would guess they tend to get far less information that they would like – often because the new hire can’t remember all the detail or couldn’t be bothered or the HR department has a policy to start from scratch. With web2.0 applications and cloud computing coming of age, there is no reason to source data from the new employees “Personal HR Database or Cloud” and likewise as information is updated on the in-house HR information system, a copy of that record can be provided back to the individuals cloud.

Even though most organisations are recovering from an economic downturn, we should not take our eye off the ball when it comes to effective talent strategies ~ the information that the employee does not provide because its not available or he forgot, could negatively influence your workforce planning, particularly as that sector of technology is making huge strides in the development of predictive modelling tools. Critical skills, or other skills and attributes  that an individual has acquired over the years are not know and organisations don’t leverage these strengths for the benefit of the employer and employee.

From an Employee Value Proposition, what a great attractor it will be for potential employees to know that you will automatically update their personal database with relevant HR information. Although I have no proof or seen any relevant research, I am almost  certain that most people will keep their personal HR database regularly updated more that they will inform their HR department of changes ~ especially if its linked to a popular social network. As people remember things or find old data whilst cleaning out a drawer, they will be more inclined to update their personal HR database because they are frequently interacting with their web 2.0 tool anyway.

How would these personal cloud databases operate. Well firstly, I think this would be a simple addition of services for the likes of Linkedin or Facebook – Account holders will simply update the pages with relevant personal information and have options to allow it to be downloaded by an employer or not. The pages will be flexible enough to receive “flat file” information from most HR systems that will  automatically be provided to the employee personal URL and the employee is then notified every time an update is made from his employers HRIS or the employer pulls information from the personal HR Database or cloud.

In the longer run, I can see Personal HR information systems being embedded into these personal cloud tool, that will allow peoples to do typical HR analytics on their own data eg. How marketable am I in the Financial industry? or do an  online gap analysis with a future employer prior to submitting a resume or application. How has my salary trended with similar jobs…

The creation of personal  HR databases will need some discipline from users – we have seen a number of horror stories with people being “too free” with their personal data and this leading to work related issues. But with the growth of web 2.0 there is a natural tendency to be more perceptive about control of your own data.

If this becomes a trend, then what will be the future for in-house HR systems and tools like Employee Self Service or workflow. What I have observed is that web 2.0 is providing people with power and ownership ~ thats not necessarily what current in-house HR Systems provide! –  let me know you thoughts and watch this space for some views on this soon.

Human Resources Management Systems : 7 ways to add value

Most of the reputable HR systems have continued to improve in functionality and offerings over the last 10-15 years. If one had to compare what they had to offer say 10 years ago, I would be surprised to find anyone arguing that these tools have not become far for attuned to HR operational and strategic requirements.

Yet, time and time again, I hear some HR folk saying their HR system is useless or too complicated to use. I hear statements that “The payroll is OK, but the rest just does not cut it !” ~ why is this, when the general principles around typical HR offerings such as performance management, compensation management, learning, talent etc. have not fundamentally changed over the last decade.

I’ve put together a list of 7 key  items that I believe need to be adequately addressed in organisations to ensure value can be derived from  HR systems:

  1. The Maturity of HR : An HR department that has a low level of HR maturity (nothing to do with competency of people, but rather the level of importance of the function displayed by senior and executive management) will find it difficult to use HR systems beyond basic employee bio-graphics and payroll. There will be inherently little support for the use of the other functions, and HR tends to then blame the tool when they are not used. [ACTION: determine your current level of HR maturity and build a road-map to improve this.]
  2. Alignment to Business Goals: Still a misunderstood area in many HR departments. All to often, HR implements HR tools and solutions without understanding how they will support a business goal. The lack of alignment distracts the organisation and is seen as time wasting and non value adding. HR often use the tool usage  or non-usage as a measure of its own success, rather than business success. [ACTION: Ensure that every HR solution can be measured back to a business goal, else seriously question its value.]
  3. HR Operations & Strategy Split: The inability of many HR departments to create a definite split in the way they deal with operational and strategic activities creates confusion at the HR technology layer. Some of my leading clients have come to realise that the split in focus allowed for better understanding of the respective HR solution requirements [ACTION: Ensure you HR operational activity is managed/housed separately. Your HR org design should reflect this]
  4. HR Systems are a Mirror: A difficult one to sometimes swallow, but its true. HR technology solutions cannot be your saviour. If your HR operation is poor, then you will have a poor HR system – no debate! [ACTION: Be bold enough to assess your HR competency and take action where required.]
  5. Dedicated Technology Ownership: Although it’s improving, most HR people tend to see technology at the opposite end of their psychology framed minds. Although I don’t agree with the sentiment, it is a strong reality. This sometimes manifests itself as “techno-phobic” behavior.  HR also need to own their system implementations, rather that leaving it in the hands of the IT department. [ACTION: Hire people into HR that love technology and HR (they are around) and give them accountability to ensure the technology integrated into everything HR does]
  6. Think Solutions! : Performance management, recruitment, on-boarding, compensation, learning etc. are not business solutions – they are HR tools. Organisations needs HR solutions that combine effectively to provide positive outcomes for their business goals. [ACTION: Define HR business solutions and build your HR structure to support this eg. If your organisation is big on Acquisitions, then your HR CoE’s should align to this eg. an HR CoE focused on “Merger’s and Acquisitions” and not for example the traditional “Comp & Benefit” CoE.]
  7. Change of Attitude: Most HR software solutions will never be a 100% fit for your requirements. If you have between a 70-80% then that is good enough! – HR often nitpicks and uses the lack of 100% suitable as an excuse to not change. HR has got loads of room to change and improve as they align to a more business oriented way of servicing their organisations. [ACTION: Be prepared to change they way things are done in HR. This becomes apparent when implementing a real HR Business partner role]

Dealing with these 7 issues can be a challenge and somewhat painful to get through, but it is a journey that is necessary if you want to get real value out of your HR solutions.

Your views?

    Future HR Technology : The influence of Robotics and Avatars

    I’ve been reluctant to open this can of worms for fear of being labeled as an absolute “loony”, but in the last 6 months there have been a number of interventions and announcements from the US and Japan about the future use of technology and robotics that (if it happens) will impact how we use HR systems.

    Nobody doubts that technology will become more and more powerful over time, but we are getting to a stage that some of the top brains are predicting the next big step-up in technology ie. the ability for technology to think and develop itself is closer than we may be aware. The announcement of the establishment of Singularity University with Dr. Ray Kurzweil at its head is a reality shock for many in that organisations like NASA and Google are prepared to put their money into this establishment that in essence will help scientist understand how to deal with technologies more powerful than the human brain and the human species – think about it for a moment….

    A second article caught my eye in the last week. A Japanese company has announced that they will have a robot nurse in hospitals within the next 5 years because of severe talent shortages in this space. I’m OK with a “machine” monitoring my pulse or heart, but images of a robot trying to inject me or put up an intravenous drip is a bit more scary.

    A little bit closer, is the development of Avatars in places like “Second Life” that actually do work on behalf of real people. I was at an HR technology conference in Orlando late last year and saw how a recruitment company had created a business in Second life using non-real people. 

    So the question is how will HR systems deal with robots and non-real people doing work that was previously done by real people. There is a funny side to this if you think about it. What will you do with the robot nurse who makes a mistake – can you performance manage this event through a software upgrade. Will the HR system need to record the software version as a competency?. What about your recruitment avatar who needs to be “taken down” for modifications – will this be a form of leave request. And will real employees scream discrimination and call in the union because the organization provides power (food) to these non-real “employees” and not to real life employees?

    Funny as it may sound, there are some serious considerations for HR software developers of the future. How will HR tools accommodate non-real life employees. Of course the first question is if they should just be treated as machines under the asset register and the maintenance department will put them onto a planned maintenance schedule, but then thinking about Singularity University,  I can foresee the need for intelligent machines to be treated in a non mechanical way.

    I don’t have all the answers and I guess we need to let this area brew a bit more, but what I am clear on, is that there are some serious people out there with intentions to take technology into the human zone. 

    Food for thought indeed! – what do you think?