As part of our "Talent Crowd" series, I interview Andy Headworth, founder of Sirona Consulting and one of the top rated bloggers in the talent space, to find out what he thinks is good about the CIPD's 2010 HR Software Show and what the next 12 months hold for HR practitioners.
As part of our "Talent Crowd" series, I interview recruiting futurologist and founder of MetaShift, Matt Alder to find out what he thinks is in store for HR practitioners over the next 12 months and why he is going to the CIPD's 2010 HR Software Show.
As part of our "Talent Crowd" series, I interview Robert Symons, StepStone Solutions Director of Sales for UK & Ireland to find out what he thinks is in store for HR practitioners over the next 12 months and why he is going to the CIPD's 2010 HR Software Show.
CE> Why are you going to HR Software Show this year?
RS> StepStone Solutions is a regular at the CIPD HR Software Show and, as our portfolio of products and services has expanded, we've moved to the ground floor of the expo hall as it gives us an opportunity to highlight the breadth of our Talent Acquisition and Talent Management solutions.
I am planning to attend on the first day to ensure we get off to a great start, see how the pre-booked consultations are going and to hear what current and prospective customers have to say. One of the things that I'm curious about is the increasing interest in talent management solutions from particular sectors over the last 6 months - I'm keen to learn if that is specific to those sectors or reflects broader needs.
I'm also looking forward to having a bit of fun with the Table Football competition that we've organised to celebrate the World Cup.
CE> What is good about the show?
RS> It's a great show to talk to a real cross-section of people across HR, IT and Procurement from Directors, Head of Talent and Resourcing and Heads of Procurement through to the people who are on the ground sourcing and managing talent. From an attendee's perspective it offers access to a range of providers and can prove very effective in shaping shortlists for coming projects. Also when meeting the suppliers face to face you can understand more about the quality of staff, culture and dynamism which are factors which cannot always be effectively gleaned from a website or glossy brochure.
From a supplier view point it offers us an opportunity to showcase our solutions, build our brand and demonstrate how committed we are to servicing the UK market with local solutions supported by local staff who really understand the market.
CE> What are the priorities for employers over the next 12 months?
RS> The key aspect for employers will be striking a balance between cost efficiencies and ensuring they manage talent effectively whilst focusing on business improvement. Organisations will continue to struggle to find high quality people even though the market is awash with candidates. Meanwhile high performers will need to be managed carefully as organisations continue to optimise their business. Employers will need to be agile to respond to the fluctuating market conditions and have flexible resources quickly able to take advantage of opportunities as they arise without carrying people on the bench.
Those companies who are rigid or constrained will be slower to respond, allowing more agile competitors who can target skills and flex resources more effectively to maximise opportunities and take market share. Employers also need to address the difficult questions around structure to ensure business is lean enough to drive profitability but supported enough to be efficient and deliver value to customers.
CE> How should HR respond to these priorities?
RS> A priority will be to ensure that talent initiatives drive value. There will be continued competition for budgets for projects and the money will go to those projects providing the most business value or strong evidence for a return on investment. HR needs to focus on demonstrating tangible business benefits through optimising talent and ensuring that the business has the necessary skills and resources to compete in the tough market conditions. Analysis of skills, improved performance management and effective use of compensation management will enable HR to respond and support the business moving forward.
Tight control of recruitment coupled with a focus on quality not quantity will also address the changing organisation requirements as many companies seek to upgrade staff to address the tougher market conditions and to be ready for the upturn.
The Big Conversation continues more than a week after the 2009 StepStone Summit in London.
It was a great day with a good mix of attendees and speakers from the customer and partner communities and some of my fellow StepStoners - some of whom appear in the clip below.
StepStone Group Managing Director, Matthew Parker opened the event with the observation that C-level executives are more than ever looking for HR to become more agile as a way to cope with the changes in the economic landscape and the "new normal".
Parker went on to say that agility depends on three elements:
Insight
Execution
Impact
Elements that StepStone helps hundreds of organisatons with - as reinforced by our next speaker, Sue Chatfield who talked about some of the achievements that she has spear-headed at TUI. Achievements such as reducing "offer to hire" time by more than two weeks, whilst improving offer acceptance by more than 10% due to the implementation of the i-GRasp Onboarding solution from StepStone.
Rose Bevan from Mouchel followed Chatfield onto the stage and shared her experience of defining and building a meaningful and truthful employer brand and then bringing it to life within the organisation by redesigning job families, career development and internal mobility programmes around the "promise". Bevan indicated that central to the business case for doing so was the need to encourage staff to develop their skills in order to grow organisational capability for the future.
Deloitte's Sarah Jepson, has attracted the attention of journalists and bloggers. Her presentation "Engaging your future Talent: Impacting your future success" was reported by People Management and HR the human resource both of which picked up on one of four ways to improve employee engagement and ride-out the "Resume Tsunami" (I'm touting "Resunami" as a new term) that she predicts as the economy improves.
As part our coverage of HR Executive's HR Technology Conference & Exposition 2009, I interview William Tincup, Principal with Starr Tincup the Human Capital marketing specialists, about his views on the conference this year and what is in store for HR practitioners over the next 12 months.
CE> Why did you attend the conference this year? WT> The conference is all about having conversations - whether it be looking back at what happened during '09 or looking forward to 2010 - there is an immense amount of thought leadership at this conference - be it in the presentions, panels or informal conversations. Its also good to walk the floor, meet people, make connections and see and hear the innovations of vendors and practitioners.
CE> What was good? WT> It is the one time each year that we can all get together to discuss the same topics. Last year the recession dominated the conversation - the fear of the unknown was the underlying theme where as this year there is a hint of optimism and the talk has been about economic recovery. I think there was a real atmosphere of having shared an experience over the past year.
CE> What are the priorities for employers over the next 12 months? WT> Well, I think we have to rewind 18 months to two years and dust off the priorities at that time, they haven't really changed, but organisations needed to shift focus to react to the economic situation. Back then the priorities were:
Engaging and incentivising employees
Retaining key staff
Succession planning for the gap between current leaders and those that are nearly ready
I'd add a new one to these three though - the need to displace inefficiency by integrating talent processes with the organisation's "System of Record".
CE> How should HR approach these priorities? WT> HR needs to switch gears and be more pro-active than it has previously. In 2010 reactivity is not going to benefit employers, HR leaders will have to look at the biggest weaknesses they have in their organisations and develop a plan to deal with them.
Next they'll need to work out how much its going to cost and where the return will come from - they will then have to build and present a business case to their CFO. In 2010 they'll be fighting for budgets and so it will be important to think about how to present the case and show the return on investment. They should involve their vendors in this - vendors that help HR to build the case and can share what is happening in the market and what other customers are doing will be the most successful.
As part of our "Talent Crowd" series, I interview Robert Symons, StepStone Solutions Director of Sales for UK & Ireland to find out what he thinks is in store for HR practitioners over the next 12 months and why he is going to the CIPD's 2010 HR Software Show. 
As part our coverage of HR Executive's 
