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 our coverage of HR Executive's HR Technology Conference & Exposition 2009, I interview Josh Bersin, CEO and Founder of Bersin & Associates, about the conference this year and the priorities for HR practitioners over the next 12 months.
Why are you at the conference this year?
What has been interesting at this year's conference (1m 03s)
What else are you interested in? (2m 48s)
What will be the biggest priorities for HR over the next 12 months? (4m 31s)
Apologies for a slightly belated Three To Read this week - I've been away at this year's HR Technology Conference and Exposition produced by HR Executive and have been busily blogging from the event. Indeed this week's Three To Read follow's on from the conference and the posts that I made each day.
In the day one post Allan Schweyer,one of John Sumser's Top 100 Influencersandauthor of "Talent Management Systems" shares his thoughts on the priorities for employers over the next twelve months and how HR should approach them.
There are also great contributions from Don Tapscott on The Dumbest Generation and useful insight into how organisations are enhancing HR service delivery by deploying broad portfolio's of HR Technology from the panel; HR Doesn't Stop in a Down Economy lead by Jason Averbrook.
In day two's post founder of the Saratoga Institute, noted author and a leading proponent of Human Capital measurement, Dr Jac Fitz-Enz gives his views on HR's approach to employer's priorities over the next twelve months.
There are also some interesting comments about the emerging structure of HR departments and what they look for from their technology from the Industry Analyst Panel: Today's Technology Trends and Predictions. Further details were described in the Recruiting Technology Panel:2010 and Beyond - A Corporate Perspective on the Promise, the Hype and the Reality lead by Gerry Crispin.
The post on day three, contained points from Lexy Martin's, presentation The Public Debutof the 12th Annual CedarCrestone Report where she talked about the relative levels of technology adoption in HR departments in different industries and the tools that HR practitioners believe are key to enhancing service delivery in the short-term.
The post also included contributions from Naomi Lee Bloom who set HR practitioners three great challenges and three clear actions for the year ahead.
Unbelievably the conference is already coming to a close. My day started by firing questions at William Tincup, Principal of Human Capital marketing specialists Starr Tincup - his response will be posted shortly. Then I attended the first of the day's sessions: The Public Debut of the 12th Annual CedarCrestone Report presented by Lexy Martin, which delved into the adoption of HR technology by organisations and highlighted some interesting trends.
For example, from their survey research CedarCrestone identified technology adoption by industries in three streams:
Early Adopters - Financial Services, Hi-Tech, Communications and Services
Main Stream Adopters - Retail, Manufacturing, Transport & Utilities, Health and Agricultural
Late Adopters - Public Sector and Higher Education
Interestingly, although considered late in adopting common HR technologies such as recruiting (75% of respondents ave already deployed a talent acquisition tool), the Public Sector and Higher Education were reported to be amongst the most aggressive in deploying Business Intelligence tools - one of six applications that respondents identified as key to service delivery in the short-term:
HR Helpdesk
Competency Management
Performance Management
Absence Management
Reporting & Business Intelligence
Social Networking
The final session of the conference was the closing keynote delivered by Naomi Lee Bloom - Do the Right Thing: HR Technology Strategies for the Best and Worst of Times.
In a humorous and warmly received session, Bloom shared her experience of the recession, her views on what organisations should be doing in order to ride the up-turn and what HR practitioners could do to help:
First find out what drives revenue and profitability in your organisation
Second, define how HR contributes to these drivers
Third, determine the most effective method of delivering HR
Bloom then went on to suggest actionable priorities for HR in the year ahead:
Clean up HR Systems data
Simplify - stop doing the things that do not add value
Review talent requirements and practices.
The conference closed on a high note, literally, as Bloom lead delegates in a rendition of the song from the musical; Annie.
Today started with an interview with Jac Fitz-Enz, CEO of Human Capital Source. In the video below he shares his views on the conference year's conference, the priorities for employers over the next 12 months and how HR should approach them.
Next-up was the Industry Analyst Panel: Today's Technology Trends and Predictions with Lisa Rowan, Naomi Lee Bloom, Jim Holincheck and Josh Bersin participating in discussion chaired by Bill Kutik. This was a great session starting with the panelists talking about Software as a Service as an important architectural decision for HR departments as it ensures that the newest functionality is always easily available to end-users and means that organisations are able to respond rapidly to changing business conditions.
The panel went on to talk about the trend toward less siloed HR functions and predicted the rise in demand for consolidated end-to-end solutions for acquiring and managing talent - either through systems integration or single platforms with modular capability - but issued a warning that organisations would be unwilling to sacrifice functionality to integration.
At the end of the panel I rushed off to meet-up with Josh Bersin, CEO of Bersin & Associates and asked him for his opinions about how HR should approach the challenges of the coming year. The video of this interview will be available shortly.
Rounding off the day was the very entertaining Recruiting Technology Panel:2010 and Beyond - A Corporate Perspective on the Promise, the Hype and the Reality moderated by Gerry Crispin from CareerXroads.
The panelists shared their experiences of using technology to recruit, identifying changing the mindset of practitioners and (internal) customers as the biggest challenge to successful implementation and adoption of new methods.
Interestingly the panel also agreed that one of the gaps in the tool set available to them was a way of gaining visibility over external labour markets: Current tools are concentrated around demand-side data to identify what the organisation needs but there are few tools for assessing supply-side data that enable employers to compare their own current strength in areas of the business to the external market and provide information about that market's profile e.g. size, location etc. Tools like this, the panel concluded, could reduce sleepless nights for many a practitioner with responsibility for Strategic Workforce Planning.
StepStone can be found in booth #315 at Human Resource Executive's 12th Annual HR Technology Conference & Exposition.
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.
