And, it hardly ever worked. It turns out that customization forces you to live withoutmoded processes until you can afford to fix them. You own the software but haveto feed an army of independent contractors. Enterprise software with lots of customization turned out to be a build your ownprison kit. You designed it, paid for it, and lived with the consequences. SaaS is usually presented as a low cost alternative to self-incarceration. With nocapital investment and a month to month lease, it’s easy to get in and out of. Thebest news, according to many sources, is that the software can be rapidly modified.All clients are always at the latest revision. That’s either a wonderful world or Alice’s Wonderland. All manner of HR software is now delivered as SaaS: Performance Management, Talent Acquisition, Recruiting, Training, Talent Management, Applicant Tracking Systems, Incentive MAnagement, Compensation Analysis, Payroll. The question is not whether you’ll have SaaS tools but when. It’s not a straightforward change. Here are the five most difficult realities:

In The Know v1.42 SaaS Tutorial If you are involved with HR Technology in any way, you need to understand the Software as a Service (SaaS) story. These five links will help you get a clearer picture and sort out some of the mumbo jumbo. Microsoft’s Definition According to the folks in Redmond, SaaS is […]

By now, you’ve heard my notion that software is really that thing that operates between you and the people at the vendor. Thick or thin, software is a kind of membrane that is supposed to be the place where all of the action takes place. Since it’s 80% the same, what matters? Company culture. What you really need to know when you buy technology is what is the vendor’s culture? Do they blame each other when something breaks? Do they get creative when there’s a problem? Do they quickly jump to tell you whether or not the problem is a scope issue? Are they more interested in your success or their own? Are promptness and accuracy the way they role? Or, are they quick to obfuscate and slither with spin?

While social recruiting operates as Jason describes it, the problem is really different if you are a 10 person shop, a 500 person company or a 100,000 person enterprise. For a lucky few (say the top 1500 companies), the existing brand is good enough to drive employment branding activities. For the other 97% of us, employment branding is a challenging battle rife with opportunities to throw good money after bad. The trick is that ‘defining your target audience’ isn’t so easy. There are no good templates and no proven methods for adequately identifying, sizing and attracting the people you want to reach. Whenever you hear someone tell you about the ‘viral power of the internets’, hold on to your wallet. For the vast majority of us, the internet is anything but viral.

You’re going to hear more and more about influence. At some point, there might actually be useful stuff about how to get specific things done using it. Until then, we’re all going to think and stew. In the new world of work, no one has any authority. We all represent a team. In most cases, more than one of our team mantes can over rule us. So, we’re learning to manage using influence. It means that we make decisions without firm backing and try to make sure that the holes are filled in as we go along.