Author: Mervyn Dinnen

Thoughts on Talent, HR and WorkTech trends from an analyst, researcher, writer, podcaster and Top 100 Global HR Tech influencer

The Future of Employee Engagement

As an HR blogger I know the perils of dropping the ‘E’ bomb. Few words occupy more gigabytes of space, are more debated and argued over, than ‘engagement’ – particularly when prefixed by the word ’employee’.

I’ve taken part in many discussions, read many blogs and watched many presentations, all concerned with trying to nail down what employee engagement actually is, what does it mean and how to do it right. And does it even matter. For many years it was considered that a pay cheque, with the correct amount arriving in your bank account on time, was all that was really needed for engagement.

The thinking has moved on though. As an HR recruiter I used to interview many aspiring managers. When I got them talking about achievements many would give priority to the engagement initiatives that they had worked on, offering both anecdotal and data evidence of their success. For some it could be simply organising awaydays or parties, fresh fruit for every department, a proper coffee machine or a new style of internal communication. For others it was down to benefits and perks, finding ways of recognising people who went the extra mile for colleagues. And for many there was also the nitty gritty, some would say real core part of engagement, of understanding and communicating vision and values, defining guiding principles.

For my part there are certain recurring messages that crop up at most events:

  • People don’t wake up in the morning thinking ‘am I engaged?‘
  • Engaged workers are more productive
  • Engagement is an outcome of doing the right things, not about the process itself
  • It starts with a CEO committed to the people agenda
  • People need to be treated with respect and dignity, shown that they are valued
  • It needs to be assessed in the ‘now’ and not with historical surveys
  • Social media is the new water cooler and you can pick up how your employees feel about you by being in the conversation

There are many more – and you’re welcome to add some in the comments – but the main drift is always that it starts with a mindset, of having a vision and culture that values employes and the contributions they make.

As Meg Peppin says in her latest blog on the subject:

“The solution is simple, create time and space for people to talk with each other to make meaning. Time, patience, space, respect. Simple and yet so difficult.”

Most people tend to see this as easier to achieve in a smaller business where employees are closer to, and likely to be more aligned with, the core vision and values, whilst leadership also tends to be more visible and approachable.

However it’s clearly on the agenda of most major businesses also. This report on the future of employee engagement suggests that over 80% see it as a priority, with pretty much everyone (97.4%…to me that’s everyone) saying that they will be investing in improving engagement levels over the next 12-18 months. All companies involved said their CEO was involved – although only 20% classified the CEO as instrumental – whilst recent Chartered Management Institute research suggested that the number one priority for business leaders this year is a reshaping of workplace culture, with employee engagement and better leadership at the core.

The report was produced by Osney HR ahead of next month’s HR Vision Conference in Amsterdam. They pulled together a panel of 9 specialists in employee engagement and comms from a range of business sectors – IBM, Starbucks, Electrolux, Zurich Insurance, Starwood Hotels to name some – and put 7 questions to each. They ranged from ‘who will be the drivers of employee engagement?‘ (line managers not surprisingly featured heavily) and ‘will engagement be replaced with empowerment or enablement?‘ (seen as drivers not replacements) to the thorny subjects of measurement and ROI (crowdsourcing and assessing impacts feature).

One contributor said

“Times will be challenging. Building engagement does not happen via tricks or treats, it’s about shared vision, challenging goals and being given the appropriate tools to achieve.”

You can download the e-book here – it’s an interesting read.

I’ll be heading over to the HR Vision conference and will catch another of the panel – Ralf Larsson (Director of Employee Engagement, Electrolux) – presenting a session on engagement at the event. He’s called it ‘Schmooze or Lose‘, which I guess could become a new catchphrase for the whole employee engagement debate. I noticed some of his suggestions:

  • Breaking down the silos through social technology
  • Development of internal social communities
  • Getting buy in from leaders to connect with employees via social networks
  • Power of a collaborative workforce through crowd sourcing and idea generation

Much about our workforce is evolving and changing – from technology to working arrangements, email to enterprise social software – and hence engagement needs to evolve too. Ensuring people have the right technology to get the job done may seem obvious but nothing disengages more than not feeling that you have the right tools to perform.

And with labour market shifts embracing new arrangements such as zero hour, managed workforce, and freelancing, businesses will need to find ways to engage people who are working for them and representing them, but may not actually be employed by them.

The future for employee engagement may involve a lot more schmoozing…

Innovation, Diversity and Uncertainty at #euhrevent

 

Permission to Experiment

 

I’ve just returned from 2 days in Berlin at the European HR Directors Summit. We had a strong mix of delegates (drawn from across Western Europe) some helpful and informative sponsors (who didn’t push too much and had some interesting analysis to share) and a friendly, energetic team from WTG who kept the event running smoothly.

I was there in tweeting/blogging capacity, aided by Mark and Perry, when they weren’t engaged on their well received chairing duties.

The overall event was really enjoyable. There was a good energy about it, with inquisitive delegates. Those I spoke during the networking breaks all felt that they had learned and discovered some new ideas to take back with them.

The tone was set each day by the opening keynotes. Both Dr Nicola Millard (changing nature of work) and Liggy Webb (resilience) spoke with a passion and energy that was infectious, using humour and imagery to help make their points. The audience felt involved and identified with many of the issues that they raised. I think that the impact of the opening keynote, and the way that it sets the mood for what follows, can often be overlooked when agendas are put together. The most impressive CV or academic research may be important to establish credibility, but do not necessarily create awesome from the stage. It is the ability to captivate an audience, to entertain as well as educate, illustrate as well as inform, that often makes it a success or a disappointment, and adds weight to the points raised.

There were recurring themes across the 2 days – change, uncertainty, diversity, learning, innovation, leadership and empowerment – and here are some of my takeaways:

The Age of Uncertainty

Many presentations dealt with the rapid change we are experiencing. Whilst there may have been other similar periods in the past the current combination of technological, economic, demographic and cultural shifts are impacting heavily on our work. One session from the EU Commission looked at the increase in productivity and job creation that Europe would need by 2030 – quite frightening. The four generation workforce was also referenced many times.

The recent Deloitte report on Global HR trends had highlighted the ‘overwhelmed employee’ as a major issue facing business and the conference opener from Dr Nicola Millard looked at the factors driving changes to work – disappearance of a ‘9 to 5’ working mindset, technology enabling remote working and collaboration, the end of the tradition office space – and how the ‘always connected, always on’ mindset creates distractions (or time vampires as she called them) that could affect productivity, sleep patterns and general wellbeing. “Where in your job description does it say that you need to spend up to half the day dealing with email?” she asked.

Another session talked of the need to hire people who enjoy uncertainty as the need for change grows and of striking the balance between pragmatism and perfection – “for change to succeed, perfection needs to take a back seat to pragmatism“.

Embrace Diversity

Perhaps unsurprisingly for a European conference, diversity was an issue that also ran through a number of sessions. There was little mention of the dreaded generational classifications – “mind the generation gap but ignore the millennial hype” said Nicola Millard – with adaptability and technological competence being seen as key differentiators, irrespective of age.

Whilst in the UK we often talk of diversity in terms of age, gender and ethnicity, here the main areas discussed were around culture and personality. The need to have a culture that caters for both introverts and extroverts, and to lead in a way that brings both together, maximising their skills irrespective of their different approaches, was referenced. Not everyone is the same, we all react and contribute differently to a range of situations. To build and inspire a team of diverse characters requires leadership skills that we may not always fully assess. Praise and encouragement were seen as crucial people builders – “How hard can it be to make other people feel important?“.

We also had a powerful session on leading multicultural workforces, across countries and businesses. Production and consumption, markets and commercial relationships, are now international, whilst IT systems are global. In bringing this together the key is to not erase diversity but use it to foster different viewpoints for creativity, innovation and competencies, whilst leveraging it for insights to different markets and buying habits. Leaders need to acknowledge local cultures, accept their differences and integrate (not attempt to change) the values and perspectives they bring.

Keep the Talent

Internals First was the name of a session from Credit Suisse about their ‘Grow Your Own’ programme – a sourcing strategy that supports internal mobility and direct approaches to the internal labour market. The external focus is shifted to entry level positions and then an internal market is created, with the main benefits being:

  • Development strategy
  • Maintaining culture
  • Less performance risk
  • Qualified candidates becoming harder to find
  • Helps retention

Framing is important, hence there is no talk of internal headhunting, but the campaign does bring all internal opportunities to everyone’s attention. Employees are encouraged to keep their skills up to date and visible, whilst managers are able to get the attention of internal passives. There are challenges – employees need career coaching and their expectations managed, whilst managers can sometimes also expect too much from the internal market.

One interesting stat was that around 40% of internal employes moving roles had already been contacted by external headhunters regarding external roles. It shows the importance of making opportunities visible to keep employees happy, demonstrating the variety of an internal career, or else risk losing them.

Fostering Innovation

Keeping talent is one thing, encouraging and empowering it to help the innovation process is the next stage. “Don’t just source ideas from researchers but from all employees. Innovation is the responsibility of every employee” said Olivier Leclerc from Alcatel Lucent when introducing us to their entrepreneurial bootcamps, which produce between 30 and 40 ideas every 6 to 9 months. They foster a buccaneering spirit (from ego-centre to eco-centre was one delegate comment) and involve external parties to give a VC feel and ensure that innovative ideas are viewed on their merit and not with a company bias. Some key benefits had been:

  • Diversification of the product portfolio
  • Revenue from bootcamp projects
  • Refreshed company image
  • Culture change and greater engagement

In an earlier session, Simon Watt from Mattel had also talked of inspiring an innovation culture amongst employees. I particularly liked their ‘Permission to Experiment’ ticket – encouraging employees to to experiment fast, often and without permission – and an example from their Mumbai office. This wasn’t about product but more cultural. Most new starters had their interviews during the working day, and had taken only 20 minutes or so to travel to the site. On their first day, rush hour traffic meant that this journey could take a couple of hours or more, often leading to surprise and disappointment. The existing teams noticed this and decided that they would pick every new starter up from home, each day in their first week, and drive them to and from the office, both showing them the fastest routes and short cuts, and helping integration by spending quality time with them in the car.

Bouncebackability

What is resilience? This was the opening question from best selling author Liggy Webb as she took us through the key behaviours that can help build resilient, agile and innovative workforces. Amongst the delegate definitions we got bouncebackability, tolerance, positivity, calm. She introduced us to the Doomerangs (like boomerangs but instead of bouncing back they continually re-live negativity) and the Doom Goblins (those in the workforce whose negativity and moaning drains the lifeblood front the team) whilst conjuring up more imagery with “negative attitude spreads like germs, don’t sneeze your whining on others”

She suggested we ‘hug a problem and learn from it‘ and also urged “Change for the better. If you don’t like change, you don’t like life – don’t mourn the past, seize the opportunity“.

It proved an energetic start to the second day, and there were serious messages here. With the overall themes of change, uncertainty, innovation and corporate realignment there is a need for strong and inspiring leaders, and workforces who are resilient, adaptable and creative.

Perhaps it was one Dr Nicola Millard’s comments from the opening that stuck with me most through the two days – “No is a really dangerous answer. So lets say yes“. There is much going on in our working lives, from what we do and how we do it to the way in which we are contracted to do it. We have become distractible and overwhelmed, often in need of guidance and the type of strong leadership that lets us know someone has a plan and a vision.

Finally, one session looked at HR strategies and competencies, the importance of a CEO committed to the people agenda, and how to lead the way for greater transparency and clarity. It defined HR competencies for the new work environment as:

  • Leadership
  • Innovation
  • Leverage networks
  • Data judgement
  • Business acumen
  • Organisational acumen
  • Talent management acumen

We need to foster the right practices and and mindsets, and this often starts with recruitment and the ability to find the people who will best fit the business vision and culture.

Certain hiring for uncertain times…

Looking Forward to #euhrevent

Today I’m heading to Berlin for WTGs European HR Directors Summit. I’ll be there in a blogging capacity, whilst fellow Brits Mark Ellis and Perry Timms will be sharing chairing duties.

I really enjoyed their UK event in February – you can read some of my thoughts here – and am looking forward to this one.

Checking the agenda certain themes caught my eye:

  • Resilience and agility
  • Reverse mentoring
  • Leadership skills in a globalised, virtual workforce
  • Cultural change
  • Empowering intrapreneurs
  • Cultivating an internal labour market

It’s my first European HR event. I’ve been to some in the US and always find that the conversations, issues and challenges are very similar to those we discuss at UK conferences, so I will be looking to see if this changes with a European audience. Particularly perspectives on skill shortages, workforce planning and cultural change.

It is also my first visit to Berlin so I’m hoping to get some sightseeing in too!

The hashtag for the event is #euhrevent and I will be sharing the key messages I hear on Twitter and on this blog too.

Look forward to sharing my thoughts with you over the next few days…

Graduates, Award Winning Apprenticeship Schemes and Social Mobility

I recently watched a webinar involving Capp, Sonru and Nestle about the benefits of strengths based video interviewing for graduates. You can read a summary on Capp’s blog here.

Many things stood out for me about the benefits of both video and strengths based assessment – and there was post hiring process research to show that the methodology was popular with candidates too – but two main outcomes that struck home were:

  • Improvement in social mobility
  • Increase in female recruits for technical disciplines from 22% to 67%

And part of the reasons for these outcomes were:

  • Unlike traditional competency approaches, this methodology doesn’t rely on past experience
  • As assessors don’t see an application form they have no pre-conceived ideas on the candidate they are assessing

I don’t think anyone will deny that there is much under utilised potential amongst our young emerging workforce and the challenge is to bring opportunity to people from all backgrounds and skill sets. That there is potential for unconscious bias when it comes selection, even at this level, maybe a taboo subject but with recent research indicating that hiring on gut instinct, or intuition, is on the rise, it is something that we need to be aware of. Any process which reduces the chance of interviewers and assessors entering the selection process with pre-conceived ideas must be good.

But this isn’t all just about graduates. The increasing importance of apprenticeships, and the need to harness the potential of school leavers, is being recognised across industry with the concept of apprentices being the new graduates being discussed at the recent Association of Graduate Recruiters conference.

At this point I’ll raise my hand and say that there’s a reason that I’ve referenced the work of Capp – I’ve been spending some time with them recently, finding out more about what they do and helping on social marketing outreach. I’ve always been interested in the benefits of strengths based interviewing versus more traditional competency methods and how this could lead to more diverse, harmonious and creative workplaces.

Last night, together with client Nestle, they won the Recruiter Awards for Excellence 2014 in the category of ‘Best Apprentice/.School Leaver Strategy‘. It was given for work on Nestle’s ‘Fast Start’ programme, a 3 year ‘learn while you earn’ scheme providing school leavers the chance to work in a salaried role while studying for a degree in Professional Business Practice. Capp had worked with Nestle defining indicators of success and designed an assessment strategy to identify potential without relying on limited previous work experience.

A main aim of the scheme was to increase social mobility – to reach out to candidates from a more diverse social background and ensure they were not disadvantaged from progressing – and it turned out that 78% of candidates successfully reaching the assessment centre were from a state school, with 60% of candidates having neither parent completing a university degree.

As part of an ongoing project to better understand social mobility they have recently launched a survey – ‘Understanding Social Mobility’ – which explores social mobility from the level of the individual, rather than group or social class. Hopefully this will help shape an approach that empowers the individual.

You can complete the survey here – I’d really appreciate it if readers of my blog could contribute to the research too, both in a personal capacity and by sharing with people they know.

I’m sure that social mobility will dominate the conversations around the world of work over many years. The need to recognise talent, potential and capability irrespective of background and previous experience will become key to future business success.

 

It Starts With a Job Description

The hiring process usually starts with a job description. Sadly of the type that is a list of corporate-speak duties, deliverables and requirements.

Most searches start with the job description of the last incumbent or, worse still, someone’s view of what the new person ought to be doing and the competencies they should have. It also usually starts with structure and a title and a mission to find someone already doing it.

It should start with a need and no structure or title. An opportunity to help a team perform better, the business to be in a better position to reach it’s objectives, or to be more compliant.

It starts with something that has to be done, and the accompanying ‘job description‘ should be a blank canvas or page – ready for a picture, or story, that gives colour, purpose and context to the role.

Then it needs that colour, purpose and context.

But before you paint or write, look at whether you need someone new at all.

Is there someone already in the organisation who has the skills, capabilities or potential to do this? Who could thrive if you showed faith in them or gave them some training to help development.

Maybe you need to look outside the organisation. Then think about who you know – personal and business networks and who they know, employees and who they know, alumni and who they know, partners, collaborators, suppliers and customers. And who they know too.

Then paint your picture or tell your story and let people share it. Make sure anyone seeing it gets a clear vision of your culture, scope and purpose, how the role makes a contribution and how valuable this is. Forget the duties and personal characteristics and bring the context to life.

There are many reasons why people seek a new role – lack of opportunity, lack of trust, not feeling valued, current opportunity not matching expectation, boredom, and inability to use skills are usually the main ones. If you are looking for someone new then to get the best out of them there’s little point in offering more of the same.

Candidates seldom want a checklist…they want an opportunity to be a part of something. Give them one. Paint that blank canvas…

 

 

Social Recruiting…What’s in a Name?

Last week I took part in the latest episode of Voice America’s internet radio show HR Trends with Game-Changers Radio. I was joined by Will Staney from SAP in the US and fellow UK based social recruiting commentator and trainer Katrina Collier.

You can listen to the show by clicking on this image…

HR Trends with Game Changers Radio
It was an interesting conversation. I’ve been talking about the use of social media within the recruitment process for a few years now but here I was addressing an audience who may not have much knowledge of it. It’s often easy in the day to day Twitter echo chamber to assume that everyone knows this stuff, but even our host had checked out what Wikipedia had to say about the subject.

At the very end we had to offer a prediction on what we would say in 5 years time about social recruiting – would we still be talking about it or would we have shelved the concept in favour of a return to traditional recruiting.

Except, of course, traditional recruiting would probably mean advertising on job boards (or their 2020 equivalent) and searching CV databases – two things that 15 years ago were the future and were never expected to replace the phone, rolodex, fax and print media.

As a society we often get hung up on new technologies and try to see them as fads and fashions. Something that’s new unsettles us, makes us feel that we have to adapt to something out of our comfort zone – something that other people will do better than us and therefore may be more successful at. Which is why we focus on the methods and not the outcomes – hence social recruiting becomes about Twitter and Facebook and not recruiting. As I’ve said before, we no longer talk about internet recruitment or telephone recruitment.

Here are a few of the points I made:

  • Social recruiting is about the recruiting. It starts with a hiring need and a properly scoped job description. If you don’t get the recruitment process right then whichever platform you use will be immaterial.
  • Or put another way, if your recruiting processes suck they’ll suck louder and harder on social channels (I didn’t quite word it that way on the show)
  • It’s not about volume, be it noise or the amount of words, but about having the right conversation at the right time in the right place.
  • Put yourself in the job seekers’ shoes and ask why and how they are using those channels, and why they would reach out to you
  • You won’t successfully recruit someone through social channels if you’re not a social business. It’s not a trick to try out, it’s a window and spotlight on your culture.
  • Content should be about telling your story and giving people a compelling reason to want to be part of it. No-one is interested in how wonderful you think you are, nor how many awards you’ve won, unless said awards give a clear indication of the employee experience they can expect if they join you.
  • Manage everyone’s expectations as to what they can expect from the hiring process. If they are using public social channels to find you then they will almost certainly also use them to let everyone know how bad their experience was.
  • LinkedIn is not a social media channel. It’s a content sharing platform. Use it that way instead of as a direct access mechanism to someone you don’t know.

Katrina and Will said lots of interesting things too so make sure you listen to the show – you can even download it from iTunes and listen to it on your way to work!

 

3 Things Millennials Need to Know About Their Bosses

First off…Congratulations! It’s not easy getting hired in this market but well done for showing the skills, capabilities and attitude that an employer was looking for. You can now look forward to start paying off some of that student debt and getting so good at your chosen career that you’ll be able to go freelance in no time.

Now for the first few days in a proper job – very different from the ones that you did to earn some beer and rent money whilst you were studying – and your first proper, corporate boss.

There’s no need to worry though. There are 3 things you need to know about them…

  1. They’ve read a whitepaper/study/report on what you’re like and how they should manage you. They may even have had a day rate consultant come in and educate them on it.
  2. The report has told them that you’re a digital native, have a sense of entitlement, get bored easily, want to spend all day on Facebook and whatsapp, don’t intend to stay with them very long and would much prefer to work the hours that suit you than a regular 9 to 5.
  3. They have kids, or have friends who have kids, who are similar in age to you so they really do know even more about you than the report could tell them.

Your relationship with your boss is important so you need to get off on the right footing. You don’t want to disappoint them or fail to meet their expectations so I suggest the following…

  • Turn up about 10 minutes late on your first morning and make sure that you’re holding a takeaway coffee cup – not from a high street brand. When you meet your boss for the first time just say ‘Hey, didn’t realise it was going to be so difficult to get a decent cup of coffee round here‘
  • At some stage you’ll be given a tour of the office. Towards the end of the tour be sure to ask where the ping pong table is. If they’ve got one then ask where the pool table is. If they’ve also got one of those then you’ve actually done quite well so quickly move on to point 3. Unless they haven’t got any bean bags, in which case ask where yours is.
  • Once the tour is finished you’ll probably be shown to a desk, work station or open space and given a laptop. Remember to look at the laptop you’re given and tell them that you can only work on an Apple machine. If they’ve given you one then make it known that you can only produce your best work on a top of the range iMac.
  • Once you’re logged in and ready to go make sure you spend the first hour updating your social profiles and sending Facebook friend invites to everyone in your team. Also follow them all on Twitter and be sure to connect with your boss on LinkedIn and ask them for a recommendation.
  • When you get ready to leave at the end of the first day tell your boss that you’re going out with a few college mates to celebrate your new job and ask if it would it be OK if you work from home tomorrow.

Your boss may pull a strange face but remember that they’ve almost certainly spent a lot of money on the whitepaper/study/report/consultant and it’s your duty to make sure that their money isn’t wasted.

Don’t worry that you might be giving the impression that you’re not serious about a career there – the report would have almost certainly told them that 80% of your age group want to work for themselves anyway…

 

(image via Midland University)

 

Talking Game Changing Social Recruiting on #SAPRadio

Screen Shot 2014-04-07 at 16.20.36

I’ve not been on internet radio a lot. I have graced HR Happy Hour a couple of times and co-hosted it, whilst my session on Drive Thru HR is in the Top 50 of their most listened to broadcasts.

So it’s time to give the vocal chords another airing!

Tomorrow, Tuesday 8th April at 4pm (GMT) sees my first appearance on HR Trends – Coffee Break with Game-Changers which is hosted by the charismatic Bonnie G Graham on behalf of SAP. I’ll be joined by Will Staney, Director of Recruiting and Strategic Programs at SuccessFactors, and my friend and social media trainer Katrina Collier, who will no doubt be flying the flag for Australia as well as the UK!

The topic for discussion is ‘Social Recruiting : Art or Science’ and here’s the scene setter

“Gone is the era of your HR manager hoping hard-to-find talent would stumble upon their business-critical job postings. Today, millions of job candidates eagerly post their credentials on social media sites. Is successful social recruiting for top talent an art or a science for today’s HR?”

We’ve each already shared a conversation opener:

Will : “Social media is not necessarily a source of hire, it’s a communication channel. It’s important to remember this when measuring an ROI of your social recruiting efforts”

Katrina : “Finding people on social channels is easy. Getting a response is a different matter and that’s the art. If you ignore or mistreat social job seekers you’ll miss hiring great people”

Me : “Social recruiting is just recruiting. Forget the word ‘social’. Get the hiring process right then ‘social’ becomes no different to ”telephone’ or ‘internet'”

You can read more about the show here and you can follow/join the Twitter debate at #SAPRadio

Hope you can tune in…but don’t worry if you miss it live, as it will be available to download on iTunes later…

…and I expect to see you all download it so we can try and give Will.I.am a run for his money 😉

Froth Free HR

There’s been some banter on the HR twitter timeline recently about coffee shops. It started when myself, Michael, Emma and Anne were sharing the worst misspelling of our names (mine was Murvy) on cups from a certain chain that tries to personalise the experience. We’ve joked about trying to set up an HR Coffee Shop.

Fairly typical early morning Twitter banter but today Emma shared the above picture from coffee art and the chat turned to froth. I said that there should be no froth in the conversations at the HR Coffee Shop.

Around the same time Neil’s latest blog popped up in the timeline about big data vs big thinking and whether the rush for HR to understand and use analytics was an act of cowardice, an avoidance of dealing with some of the more pressing, creative issues by hiding behind numbers.

When a serious post meets a bit of fun banter on social media a there’s usually an interesting point to be made and it’s this…

…..to many a lot of HR’s work and concerns are seen as froth. I don’t for one minute believe they are, but many people out there do. As someone who is not a practitioner but is closely tied to the profession I hear it a lot, especially from people who aren’t (and unlikely any time soon to be) part of the Social HR echo chamber.

Recently I was lucky enough to be invited to an espresso tasting at Nespresso’s London boutique. There’s a thin layer of froth on the top of a new espresso which you push to one side to taste the real coffee.

So whatever’s on your agenda today, this week or this month – push away the froth.

Smell the real coffee and make sure everyone else does too…

#HRTechEurope – HR Is Dead! Long Live HR!

Me & OracleOscar

My previous two blogs previewed the HRTechEurope Spring Conference and Exhibition , which I duly attended last Thursday.

It was a fun day with exhibitors offering lots of swag and jellybeans, stormtroopers and a robot – you can see a somewhat blurred picture of yours truly with OracleOscar above – and I was rather excited to win cinema vouchers in a prize draw from Oracle too. Thanks guys! The conference content ranged from why HR is doing it wrong to how tech can save the day, with a final call of ‘HR is dead, long live HR’.

My friend and co-blogger for the event Doug Shaw has offered his thoughts on some of the morning sessions so in this post I’ll look at the afternoon, and in particular two well received and thought provoking presentations from visiting US commentators – William Tincup and Jason Averbook.

In my pre-event posts I was mainly concerned with capability – does HR have what it takes to really grapple with technology and use it to create the kind of experience that employees want, and produce the data that helps decisions rather than fills out barely read monthly reports.

Getting it Right

William Tincup was looking at the process of buying HR software from the angle of getting both satisfaction and success. His presentation was thoughtful and well structured, taking HR professionals through the sales and implementation process. I often get the feeling that there is a reticence within the community to truly challenge the salesmen and account managers from the big vendors, as if the complexities of technology are off-putting. It’s their budget, but not their own money I guess, so maybe due diligence is glossed over.

William gave a simple plan through the 7 stages of the process – product, sales, negotiation, implementation, training, adoption and support – with 5 or 6 questions at each stage that need to be asked and answered.

Some of the key ones for me:

  • What reports and features are really important to us?
  • Do I feel like I’m being over-sold? Did the demo meet or exceed expectations and have they done significant work in my sector?
  • Who owns the data? Am I giving up things in the negotiation that are important to me?
  • Can I meet the implementation team before I sign? How will we manage change and communicate it to all employee users?
  • Will all users be trained the way they want to be? How will new users be on-boarded?
  • How will we get users to ‘love’ the new software and how will we know if they don’t?
  • How will vendor support handle help desk items versus things that are broken?

There were two things he said that really nailed some of the issues that I think HR has with technology…

Good software doesn’t fix a bad process, it just highlights how bad the process is.

A feature is not a feature unless users use said feature.

He also urged people to ask vendors how they make their money as the answers can be very illuminating. This is excellent advice but I wonder if it might be too confrontational for many within the HR profession? The whole process of acquiring technology is a major investment for the business which has to be done well – and needs to be approached with the professionalism and determination that such a major investment requires.

Facing the Future

The closing keynote was from Jason Averbook. Closing presentations can often feel slightly lack lustre – the space many be partially empty, exhibitors are dismantling stands, some people have already left and others may be suffering from information overload – but Jason played it just right with a fast paced, high impact session.

I’ve seen him speak before and do like his style and thinking. A couple of presentations earlier in the day had lacked pace and verve, giving the Impression that the speaker had delivered them before, but Jason’s was different to the one I had seen last Autumn and, importantly, showed a progression in his thinking.

The message I took away was simple – things around the workplace are changing and HR can’t deal with new challenges by doing what it’s always done, it’s going to require a shift in attitude and thinking.

There are many examples of this. Our expectations of technology, and in particular the user experience, have shifted immeasurably. When employees use our internal software, or complain about it, they aren’t comparing it to what went before but to the experience they get from Amazon or Apple. When something changes – be it interface or new application – they expect it to be seamless, just like downloading a new app. He showed the video I’ve embedded at the end of a 4 years old’s reaction to having to use IOS7.

Innovation, and the impact of technology, is more than a redesign of payslips and needs to culturally shift the way we do things. HR has to lead this, to know what differentiates the business – new systems don’t drive differentiation.

There was talk of the changing work practices, how some jobs are beginning to disintegrate into a series of tasks, and workers to perform these tasks are being crowdsourced. ‘Do you know how you manage contingent labour in your business?‘ he asked. Some of that contingent labour may also be working for 4 or 5 other companies at the same time – potential for disruption that HR needs to understand.

One important point is that away from the workplace we don’t phone call centres or help desks to buy something online, download a new app or integrate a new Facebook function. We work it out for ourselves or search for the solution online – either video or on a blog. A lot of employees will expect to do this with their HR systems and processes, to self-solve. Do you have that in place?

There were many more examples of how shifts in technology, expectations, workplace strategies and staffing arrangements are shaping how our people feel about the business. The need for real time data (not historical surveys) in areas such as performance illustrates the importance of information in helping solve real business issues, not being inward facing or merely a tick box exercise.

The final summing up was that HR as we know it was probably dead and that a new HR approach, driven by technology and evidence (data), will be developed. People no longer want hand holding; they need to know that the information is there when they need it and that they can access it when it suits them. They don’t want self service; they want direct access.

This summary caused much debate and consternation amongst both the attendees and people following the Twitter threads from afar. The conversations and debates that it prompted were still going on a day later.

Which sounds to me like exactly what a good conference presentation should do – explore ideas, prompt and provoke thinking and conversation that helps us to make sense of an evolving landscape that will require new attitudes and solutions. It was also good to see Jason get involved in the online chat personally.

Something that I had observed in the morning was that none of the the early speakers had a social media presence, yet the HRTech event has a very good social outreach. Those morning presentations, as Doug’s blog had pointed out, seemed to be a tad lacking in depth and rationale whereas both Jason and William Tincup demonstrated a good understanding of the issues that HR professionals face and reflected this in what they said. Maybe it’s no coincidence that they are very active on social channels and this almost certainly helped towards their engaging and insightful presentations.

Reports of the death of HR may be an exaggeration, but there are certainly some interesting conversations to be had about adapting to meet future challenges.