Value | | October 06th, 2009
Last week I attended the HR Technology Conference in Chicago. For me it was a bit of nostalgia. Nine years ago I was the HR Information Systems Manager at GSK, so going to the conference was like a step back in time. It was great to see some people I hadn’t seen in a long time, and fun to see some of the new technology. But in reality, it seemed like not much had changed since I left the field. Even though the terminology has been updated, the underlying principles have not changed much. Most of what I saw on the expo floor was vendors with systems that “added value” by automating needlessly complicated HR processes. I guess if the processes were radically simplified, it would kill the market for these systems. (And yes I know that external forces, regulations and requirements “drive” much of the complexity.) But the industry is due for some radical re-thinking.
I went to the conference looking for movement toward (what to me seems to be an obvious opportunity) the integrating of social computing into HR Systems. I did see some progress in this direction, but those cases seemed to be the exception rather than the rule. At booth after booth, I asked the same question, “Are you looking at social computing as an opportunity for competitive advantage?” The results of my totally unscientific survey indicated a lack of innovation among most HR System vendors. Reflecting back, Clayton Christensen’s The Innovator’s Dilemma comes to mind. (If you are not familiar with this book, it is absolutely worth reading.) I think many of the HR Systems vendors are suffering from this condition.
I will be the first to admit that social computing in not the magic bullet to move HR Systems to the next level, but a little dose of it couldn’t hurt. I think the focus really belongs to dealing with business objectives. I do believe that for the most part the HR System vendors are better at this rhetoric than the Collaboration System industry, who spend most of their time selling features. But when you really look under the hood at most HR Systems the talk of supporting the business looks superficial, as most of what is being done is simple process mechanics. There is little in these systems that promote development of new knowledge and supporting better decision making.
Tags: conference, HR Systems, HRIS
Value | | September 10th, 2009
Though I am sure many will argue this quote, I really like it, for it’s provocative nature if nothing else:
But through these social technologies HR has a tremendous opportunity to become more valuable than your PR department, your marketing team, and even your sales team by making a fundamental shift from control and comply to connect and engage.
This is from a post by Mike Thompson on his blog The Organizational Champion. Mike is focusing in on the same issues I am with Decision 3D, mainly that your internal culture, behaviors and processes will be reflected in how you are perceived externally. Moving in the direction of trusting employees will make better employees and strengthen your external image. Giving employees the freedom to interact with their peers without the rules and regulations typically imposed by HR governance is a clear expression of that trust.
Behavior, Value | | August 07th, 2009
Booz Allen Hamilton (BAH) was the darling of the Enterprise 2.0 conference this summer. Their success story about the deployment and adoption of social technology seemed to have all the pundits and practioners buzzing with excitement. Of the several articles written about the BAH case, I found the one from Read/Write/Web the be excellent, giving a good overview of what BAH did.
From the R/W/W post, the five key points in BAH’s success were:
- Empower Evangelists - “when many people think of an evangelist, they think of an individual or two that take up the mantle of enterprise 2.0 on an ad-hoc basis. But Booz Allen went about it in a much more directed way by bringing together a cross-functional team to develop and deploy the software.”
- Draw on Past Experience – “The fact that they drew on past attempts to understand just how they should move forward was a essential factor in the outcome…”
- Know Thyself - “…the real trick is having enough self-awareness as an organization to know when to discard the given wisdom.”
- Create a One-Stop-Shop – “…constructing more silos out of multiple enterprise 2.0 platforms creates more problems than you ever had with just email and filesharing.”
- Just Solve Problems for People – “…an unwavering focus on solving real problems for people within the firm, not aiming at the vague goal of boosting collaboration and openness.”
If you notice, none of these key success factors are really about technology, but instead they are all focused on organizationa behavior and business objectives.
Tags: Booz Allen Hamilton, business objectives, Case study, Collaboration, innovation, read/write/web
Value | | August 07th, 2009
As people embrace social media in their private lives, they naturally expect to use similar tools within the enterprise.
This is one of the findings of a research report conducted by Jakbo Nielsen of the Nieslen Norman Group. The report tracks 14 companies in 6 countries and addresses how social technology is being used on their internal networks (intranets). Nielsen provides a summary of the report in this blog post. The full report can be purchased from the Nielsen Norman Group site for $298.
Most of the findings are in line with the operating principles behind Decision 3D.
Some of the key findings include:
- Slow adoption of social technology will risk losing workers who expect innovation in the outside world to reflect directly on how they communicate at work.
- The majority of social technology implementations began life as grassroots initiatives.
- Initiatives that were deemed successful and continue to provide value were predominately built to meet business objectives and not just for the sake of technology.
- Social systems tend to be “self-policing” from within the community itself, and requires little “management control”; in fact too much management control tends to reduce the effectiveness of these systems.
My thanks to Bill Ives of the FASTForward blog for the pointer.
Tags: bill ives, FASTForward, jakob nielsen, recruitment
Value | | May 19th, 2009
The following is an article I wrote and was published on June 19, 2009 in the CED (Council for Entrepreneurial Development) newsletter.
Can Social Media Help my Business?
The news is teeming with articles and updates about Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and all the new social media vehicles.
You may find them compelling in that, “it might be interesting to get in touch with my old college roommate” sort of way. You may also wonder if all of this stuff can really help your business. The answer is yes…or no.
The thing to remember about all of these on-line tools is that they are just that, tools. Twitter is not a silver bullet. Having a Facebook fan page will not instantly improve your marketing. These tools are only part of your overall plan, and it’s essential to remember that it’s the concepts these tools represent that are powerful. The concepts of trust, transparency and simplicity, that define social media, can be the leverage points for transforming your business.
Improving social connectivity within your organization is the mechanism for facilitating that transformation. Deployment of social media tools is just one aspect of that process.
Improving the ability for people to connect within your organization will increase your operational effectiveness. Allowing employees and stakeholders to connect and interact freely, beyond traditional hierarchies, will lead to improvements in your organization’s ability to:
- recruit tomorrow’s best and brightest
- engage employees and get the added value of their discretionary effort
- manage your workforce, by being able to easily find the right people for the right role
- innovate
- manage key risk factors around projects
- educate and develop your staff, partners, vendors and customers
In the end, the technology associated with social media may be part of the solution for improving your operations. But for those tools to be effective, you have to first address your willingness to be transparent and authentic, the first steps in generating trust. Trust is the currency of social connectivity, without it, technology alone is kind of like a boat, which is often described as “a hole in the water, into which one pours money.”
Guest Columnist and CED member, Lee White, is the founding member of Decision 3D, LLC. Before starting his own company, Lee worked with GlaxoSmithKline for 14 years delivering innovative operational solutions and facilitating change initiatives. He established Decision 3D to help small to mid-sized companies envision and implement organizational improvement initiatives based on the concepts and tools embodied by the Social Web.
Tags: CED, Facebook, LinkedIn, Social Technology, Social Technology Tools, twitter