When focused on the performance of the business, HR can become a competitive weapon. When focused on the efficiency of internal process, HR is a boat anchor. It really, really doesn’t matter how fast or slow your overall HR processes are, how much they cost per employee or who is to blame for process inefficiencies. What matters is having the right people in the right place at the right time with the right skills and the right objectives. The actual deployment of people to work on the business problem is the only thing that matters.The rest is the land of pretend that HR is famous for occupying. In today’s organization, you are either part of the momentum or you are a drag on progress.

More than ever before, customers have gotten really smart about implementation costs. The total cost of ownership of a piece of software is driven by a combination of functionality, customer maturity, provider maturity and process sophistication. Customers are extremely wary of deals where the cost isn’t precisely controllable. So are sophisticated providers. That’s why there’s a burgeoning market for simple, single function tools. These products can be easily integrated into existing workflows without complex implementation processes. If they are simple enough, the can be installed without modifications to configuration or customization.

While the primary education and trade associations of the HR Industry have continued to focus on industrial era competencies, cutting edge technologies, outsourcing and massive data flows are changing the working reality for HR Pros. Today’s effective HR Department is considering the use of predictive analytics, increased vendor usage and the integration of more automation. That means that each member of the much smaller HR operation is responsible for getting much more done.

Influence Reconsidered Influence is part reach and part focus. Although some commentators suggest that influence is the ability to cause things to happen, the reality is more subtle. Power is the ability to make things happen. Influence is the capacity to increase the likelihood that something will happen. Can you see the distinction? Power is […]

Virtual HR Unique is the new normal. Each and everyone of us is somehow persuaded that we are the ones who are living outside the mainstream. Our little customized universes are separate from and better than. This is the new universe. Even though it is still primitive, we are able to radically customize huge swaths […]

In those three short years, I have come to understand that jobs are a part of the problem. The whole employment notion, handed down from feudal practice, creates a nagging sea of entitlement. Today, the wasting resources are hanging on to the payroll and the hope that they will one day be able to afford their home. Great talent management and optimization ought to focus on creating independence and self-determination. In any company, employees who poses those things are the most impactful. Talent management that doesn’t address the impact of the economy on the workforce is a Pollyannish exercise.

Far too often, HR Leaders who express their objectives in the few things that they can control lose sight of the rest of the business. It doesn’t matter how fast or slow you hire people if you are hiring the wrong people or even the right people for the wrong business segment. There are many, many ways that HR can be the generator of massive transformation and huge economic success. It’s just that none of those things involve doing HR faster, better or cheaper. They all involve applying smart Human Capital planning and practice to the business. Great HR makes money.

We estimate 20-40% of that “buyer’s remorse” can be alleviated with an effective onboarding program. The key elements of the program will be ensuring the new hire understands and learns how to navigate the culture, creates networks that support them personally and professionally, learns company culture and his/her role in executing it, and gains insight and support to achieve career progress. The hiring manager has a role in supporting or teaching the new hire in each of these areas throughout the first year, and through their participation the hiring manager will see better results.

When software vendors use the term, it can mean anything from ‘managing and tracking all of the necessary actions and forms’ to ‘automatically having all of the necessary forms filled out in advance’ to ‘having a data bundle ready for the HRIS system to import’. When Learning and OD people use it, it means a range of things that look a lot like an orientation. Onboarding consultants will insist that the term means something much more than the traditional orientation.

Recruiting is hard work. Typically, the recruiting professional is given requirements without adequate time or preparation. She is then expected to deliver a seamless and enthusiastic presentation to a series of prospects with the goal that each of them hopes they get the job.