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 Influencers and author 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.

Read the full post from day 1 here

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.

Read the full post from day 2 here

The post on day three, contained points from Lexy Martin's, presentation The Public Debut of 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.

Read the full post from day 3 here

I hope you enjoyed StepStone's coverage of the HR Technology Conference and Exposition summarised in this week's Three To Read.

This post is part our series of HR Technology 2009 related posts.

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.

Thanks to HR Executive for a great few days.