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.

StepStone Solutions can be found at Stand H356 on the ground floor of the CIPD's HR Software Show 2010.  Further information about our stand and pre-event bookings for one to one appointments with our Talent Consultants.

In this week's Three To See: Productivity, performance and changing expectations.

There is a touch of levity in my first pick which comes via Andy Headworth's blog Sirona Says:  Xerox's Information Overload Syndrome video raises some serious points on productivity and performance wrapped-up in genuine comedy (although I'm not comfortable with the dart scene at the end).

Gartner analyst, Jim Holincheck's post to his personal HCM Software blog is more sober but no less interesting as he asks What If Performance Appraisals Did Not Exist?

Holincheck skims the touch points in the employment lifecycle where performance factors (Hiring/Onboarding, Learning/Development, Career Path/Planning, Succession Planning and Compensation) and determines that:

"The answer, to me, is not to get rid of the performance review.  It is to do a better job of appraising performance and communicating with employees."

He goes on to share the following options:

1. Get rid of forced ranking, but keep calibration
2. Make sure that total compensation alignes with performance, value delivered, and the market
3. Find other ways to recognize the highest performance other than just compensation
4. Keep an ongoing performance dialogue going

Before concluding that:

"The bottom line is that I do not think performance reviews will go away because the feedback loop is critical to talent management success.  What needs to improve is the performance conversation.  Technology can help in some respects, but managers and executives need to step up their game."

Kevin Wheeler's post to ERE: Why Recruiting Good People Will Get Harder and Harder explores the changing attitudes to work of some professionals who are choosing blended careers over full-time work with a single organisation.

This phenomenon, fuelled by recent experiences of the recession, see's some workers engaged in multiple jobs, partial self-employment or other self-sustaining activity that acts as a hedge against economic uncertainty and engenders lifestyle resilience.

Wheeler observes that:

"Individuals are finding new freedoms and exploring their own capacity and taste for change and entrepreneurism. Some organizations are looking for ways to adapt to all of this without endangering their own success, but it may be that these two different needs are not compatible. We will find out over the next 10 years or less. Certainly manufacturing firms and companies where hands-on work is required will not be able to flex to these changes. They will face friction between the workers whose jobs allow them to be virtual or part-time or flex-time and those whose work does not."

What do you think of this week's Three To See?