Tomorrow Achievant will be exhibiting in the HR Marketplace of the 2008 Indiana SHRM Conference (http://www.indianashrm.org/INSHRMconference.htm) and announcing a very exciting partnership with HR Dimensions (www.hrdimensions.com).  Together we are giving away the grand prize - a Dell laptop.  

What a wonderful opportunity to speak with over 1000 HR executives about the issues they face on a daily basis.  On the flip side - what a great opportunity for them to listen to a number of excellent speakers, network with their peers and peruse the latest in HRIS software. Which brings up an interesting question - do you always give your best effort when away at conferences like this or do you take a mental break? 

With how fast everyone is moving it's easy to attend events with no real plans to network or stroll the exhibit hall.  Don't be tempted.  Take full advantage of your peers - introduce yourself to 10 new contacts.  Take full advantage of the exhibit hall - find out what's new in marketplace even if you're not in the buying mode. 

Finally, regardless of whether or not you have a need for help with performance management, applicant tracking, time and attendance or HRIS please stop by and say hello.  Don't worry, we won't bite.

I was recently helping a friend sort through resumes responding to an ad she had placed and came upon a realization.  No one …. ok very few people….. do cover letters anymore.  I must admit that I have a prejudice toward candidate who take the time to write a cover letter.

I find them valuable for several reasons.  They provide an opportunity to assess:

• grammar proficiency
• writing style
• attention to detail, are there typos?
• ability to formulate thoughts into words in a coherent fashion.

In a recent Office Team survey, 86 percent of hiring managers say cover letters provide valuable insight when evaluating candidates.   However, the prevalence of online job sites has job seekers responding to email addresses with a few sentences of introduction.  I think that job seekers would do well to include an old-fashioned cover letter, personalized to the extent possible.

Candidates should make sure that their cover letter is devoid of the typical errors –

• Addressing the letter Dear Sir -  As a female hiring manager I have received far too many Dear Sir letters.
• Referencing the incorrect job – When recruiting for multiple jobs, if you don’t know what job you are applying for then how should I?
• Failing to include an attachment – If you are asked to provide salary history, cover letter, salary expectations, resume, etc.  Do it!  It is not a suggestion, it can eliminate you from consideration.  If you can’t follow instructions during the hiring process I am not optimistic that you will follow instructions as an employee. 
• Cute email addresses – Don’t list “cute” emails on your resume.  PartyGirl, BabyFace, Loverboy, may be great for friends, but not for obtaining employment. 
• Providing unnecessary personal information – I want to hire you, not be friends with you.  I do not care what your hobbies are and certainly don’t tell me about your children, their ages, what your spouse does for a living, etc.

The job market is tough, use every opportunity to tell why you are the ideal candidate and differentiate yourself from the hundreds of other people applying for the job.

So, it is clearly obvious that we have all been yelled at here at Achievant for not blogging enough if at all.  Like so many times in life we are being punished for the actions of a few.  Well!  I am that few, or at least a member of a very small group (like no more than 2).  Big picture, I sort of get the blog idea but I am one of those individuals that if I can't see some pretty immediate and measurable gain I am less likely to move it up on my priority list.  Being brutally honest, everythng seems to be a priority!  This is not a new phenomena but one that always intrigues me. I think we would all agree that not everything is a priority and if it is then we better settle for a heavy dose of status quo and mediocre results.

Same holds true for the many organizations we talk to on a daily basis.  We/They get so stuck in the tactical day to day that you can never get out in front of things that are the "supposed" priorities.  Examples would include but not be limited to conversations that should sound very familiar and and usually start out something like; "My top priority is...", "The top project we need to deliver on is...", "The results of our 4 column process (strategy session) reveals we need...",  now insert the priority:

....to improve and automate Applicant Tracking
....to streamline our HRIS System
....to create a consistent Learning Management approach
....to train leadership on the essence of Performance Management
....to automate Time and Attendance 
 

I think you get the picture!  If we continue through the conversation and go out several weeks if not months I would submit that very few of these priorities would actually still qualify or would not be that much farther down the path of completion.  The biggest obstacle is nothing went on the back burner or yielded to the priority.  Sound familiar?  

Speaking of looking out several weeks or months, I am expected (priority) to deliver several more blogs, as in one a week.  Let's see if I can break the cycle.  Wish me luck! 
  

I had the best of intentions.  We purchased the coolest blog service from Compendium Blogware (www.compendiumblogware.com) and I was going to blog once a week and let the world know what my thoughts were on life, business, HR and brag a little about Achievant's success.  Well....it's 8 months later and I've written 5 blog entries.  I've fallen 27 entries short of my goal of once per week. Pathetic.

I feel like some of the organizations we're talking to about applicant tracking, HRIS and performance management. They bought some software with great hopes and expectations.  They were going to load their employee data, track time & attendance, do on-line benefits enrollment and automate their performance management review process all at the same time. Somewhere along the way their "day job" got in the way. We both needed more than just software - we both needed a partner invested in our success.

That's what makes Achievant so different from the rest.  We invest in our clients by ensuring they utilize our platform.  We invest in our clients by taking responsibility for getting the application up and running - loading employee data, configuring workflows, defining reports, training the organization and ensuring after the 90-120 day implementation period they can be proud of the decision they made.

I will have to say the Compendium has held us accountable to our initial promise and have been on-site recently to ensure a good kick in the pants.  They know how to partner and so does Achievant.....our clients will testify!

  

Learning management software is a beast unto itself.  It can be a very simple piece of human resource software or it can be a giant, full-blown module.

In my career I have worked on Online Employee Training software that has covered the entirety of the possible range of robustness and complexity.

Because learning management modules can spider their way into so many other aspects of HRIS they can be an integral and important part of any talent management system. Learning management naturally flows into performance management, succession management and even applicant tracking depending on what your on-boarding process is like.


This week Achievant rolled out some new enhancements to its LMS.  Our module for learning management started off life as a lightweight module that though flexible and fairly robust had room for growth.

We've added over 17 new features some of which included:

·         proctoring features for trainers who need more detailed class planning and tracking

·         more robust class rosters and session results

·         the ability to track education credits for both internal and external classes

·         automated notifications for minimum class size not being met

Our goal, as is almost always our goal (and philosophy), as we build out our web HRIS software is to grow it incrementally.  Each time we work within the app we look for areas where we can add new features.  We listen to our current clients, our future clients and our industry to see what needs and wants are out there and we take the opportunity to add them whenever we can.

For us, such a successive refinement approach to all of our modules is not unlike learning management itself: with continuous work and grooming people (or applications) can get better at their jobs.

I just got back from my first prospective college visit to Florida with my oldest son, Michael (because of course why would he want to attend a college with in-state tuition!).  I’ve also been traveling a lot lately for new and perspective clients so I’m becoming quite the airline connoisseur.  Frankly as airfare has sky-rocketed I tend to book whoever is cheapest or works with my schedule, but I do have my favorites.

This most recent trip had me on Southwest Airlines.  Now I’ll admit that as an HR leader I have followed this company for several years.  Southwest is one of the few profitable airlines and has been in the black for 33 consecutive years and has paid a small dividend for 127 consecutive quarters. While its competitors are reducing the number of flights offered and grounding hundreds of aircraft, Southwest will add a few flights daily, will take delivery of another dozen aircraft next year and still plans to grow by 2 percent to 3 percent.  Southwest now carries more passengers annually than any other U.S. carrier.

So, my down time in the airport yesterday had me pondering...how has Southwest been successful?  I think it is based on a few guiding principles –

    * Keep things simple
    * Keep it consistent
    * Manage costs and maximize productive assets, and
    * Manage customer expectations.

These are business strategies that can be applied to most businesses.

Keep It Simple

While Southwest’s competition operates numerous types of planes, Southwest flies just one plane type.  This saves millions in maintenance costs, employee training, parts, etc.

Business Application – Do one thing and do it well

In the technology world, Human Resources software providers are trying to be all things to all people.  At Achievant, we have determined what we do is provide HRIS software solutions to small and mid-sized companies.  Achievant is not a payroll company, but we work with your payroll company to manage your employe data.  We have seen numerous companies try to meet all needs by bolting together the components of a human capital management system (i.e., HRIS system, time and attendance tracking, learning management, performance management, applicant tracking, and succession management) together with a payroll system and try to pass it off as integrated.  As a result these providers are adequate at many things, but not really good at anything.  Don’t get caught up in a feature/function comparison….who has the prettiest screen, bell, or whistle.  You should evaluate the entire package.

Keep It Consistent

I have to admit that I have not always been a fan of Southwest's approach to assigning seats.  Which is…..there are no assigned seats. You just line up according to an assigned number and you choose an open seat as you board the plane.  As someone who is slightly a control-freak (ok, maybe a little more than slightly), this was initially unsettling to not have a seat assigned specifically to me.  But, as I have flown with them more I have come to appreciate the control of choosing my seat...the one that is not next to the crying child or the chatty person, and have relished the opportunity to get a seat with extra leg room or no one sitting next to me.  Best of all, they still provide beverages and snacks for free!

Business Application – Manage the brand experience

At Achievant we work very hard to manage the experience our clients have with us and our Human Resources software solution.  Every time they contact us we want to respond to them in a friendly way, on a timely basis, and in a way that is relevant to them.  

No fees, no frills

As other carriers have removed perks and added fees, Southwest has kept its customer proposition streamlined and unchanged. The airline only sells in a few price "buckets" which allows it customers to understand the fare structure and believe they are getting value for their money. Prices are all-inclusive too, no fees for fuel surcharges, ticket changes, or luggage.  They have looked for out-of-the-box solutions to things like the clunky beverage cart.

Business Application – If customers can’t understand the pricing structure, they can’t understand the value you offer

Most HRIS systems, learning management systems, time and attendance solutions, and payroll providers utilize an ala carte menu for the services they provide.  In addition to the monthly or annual subscription, anything additional you’d like (e.g., a system change, new report) is charged by the hour or project.  This can make it very difficult to manage your costs.  I have spoken with numerous potential clients who when questioned how much they pay their current system provider, respond that they won’t know until the end of the year.

At Achievant, we have adopted a modular pricing model that is very simple to understand and is inclusive.  You are not charged for new version releases, minor system changes, client support, etc.

Management, Happy Workforce

Herb Kelleher finally stepped away from Southest earlier this year after leading it for more than a generation.  Although he was a very colorful leader, the airline avoided fads, shied away from anything that increased costs or complicated the basic travel proposition. Management ranks are lean, but most importantly, productive.

Southwest has embraced a culture of making their work (and consequently our travel) more fun.  They sing, dress in casual uniforms, and allow employees to go “off-script”.  In return, they have employees who are friendlier, seem to enjoy their jobs, and don't strike.

Business Application – If your workers aren’t happy, your customers aren’t happy

It is important to note that there are many intangibles that contribute to how much employees enjoy their job.  Take time to focus on these and you will be repaid for your efforts in higher levels of customer satisfaction.  360 degree feedback can be a great tool for this.

These are important business applications that I think will apply to any industry, not just HRIS software and talent management providers like Achievant.  In the meantime, I will continue to watch the progress of Southwest. 

On June 6th, President Bush signed an amendment to Executive Order 12989 requiring all federal government contractors to use E-Verify to confirm the employment authorization of new hires.

 

E-Verify is the Internet-based system operated by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in partnership with the Social Security Administration to electronically verify employment eligibility of newly hired employees.  This is done by comparing information electronically from Form I-9, the employee eligibility document used for new hires, against more than 425 million records in the Social Security Administration’s (SSA) database and, for noncitizens, against more than 60 million records in the DHS immigration database.  Some officials believe the system should be mandatory nationwide.

 

The amended Executive Order requires all federal agencies and departments that enter into contracts to require, as a condition of each contract, that the contractor agree to use an electronic employment eligibility verification system (E-Verify).  This applies to: (1) all persons hired during the contract term by the contractor to perform employment duties within the United States; and (2) all persons assigned by the contractor to perform work within the United States on the federal contract.

The amended Executive Order directs the Secretary of Homeland Security to issue rules and regulations to implement the requirements.  According to DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff, the implementing rule is being sent to the Federal Register for publication.  This will be followed by a 60-day public comment period.  Secretary Chertoff indicates the new system could be up and running later this year.

The original Executive Order 12989 provided for debarment of federal contractors whenever the Attorney General made a determination that a contractor had violated the Immigration and Nationality Act's employment verification provisions.  The regulations implementing the amended Executive Order will be updated and will presumably make the debarment penalty applicable to federal contractors that fail to use E-Verify.  Secretary Chertoff declined to comment on whether subcontractors will also be required to use E-Verify, but it is likely that such a requirement will be specified in the forthcoming regulations.

A bill that would ban employment discrimination based on a person’s genetic makeup received overwhelming approval (414 to 1) by the House of Representatives on Thursday, May 1, sending it on to the White House.  President Bush is likely to sign it into law.

This bill prohibits employers from linking hiring, compensation or other personnel decisions to an employee’s genetic predisposition to a disease.  It also prevents health insurers from using genetic information to deny coverage or charge higher premiums.

Although generally in support of the spirit of the bill, businesses are concerned about the day to day ramifications of the bill.  The bill has been criticized for not including language giving it authority to supersede state genetics laws, for allowing punitive and compensatory damages and for potentially holding employers liable for information they gather through common HR practices like processing leave requests.

This will be one more area of regulation that will have to have the details worked out through litigation and legislation.

This morning I read an article by Anthony Balderrama who is a writer at CareerBuilder.com.  Anthony asserted that we all tell lies at work.  Now I don’t know about you, but that wasn’t a news flash for me.  Our workdays are filled with many “little lies” or exaggerations and they have become part of the corporate culture norm. 

 

The good news is that much of our dishonesty doesn't result from bad intentions; it often is the results of trying to please other people, even at our own expense.  Although telling a lie can be easy, and you might even get away with it sometimes, you're not creating the best work environment.  To help bring more honesty into the workplace, Anthony identified five lies we're all guilty of telling. 

 

You might ask yourself if you are guilty of telling them and assess how you could better handle them.

 

1. "I'd be happy to"
   
   Think about the last few times you've said you'd be happy to do something.  How often was that statement sincere?  I oftentimes find these words coming out of my mouth before I think the assignment all the way through.  If I accept a task then my boss expects me to get it done.  So if I’m afraid that a new assignment might interfere with my other work I usually try to review my workload with my boss to clarify priorities and remind him what else I have on my plate.   
   
   
2. "No, I don't have any questions"
   Ok, who hasn't been given an assignment that just didn't make sense, but when the boss asked if you had any questions you said no?  Usually this is based on the fear of believing that if I ask questions, they’ll think I don’t know what I’m doing.  However, in reality the opposite of this is true.  Projects usually turn out better with clarification. 
   
   
3. "My alarm didn't go off"
   This one is not a problem for me as I am rarely late for work.  I tend to take the straightforward approach of, "I'm sorry I was late", and then get right to work.  If it happens infrequently, it probably won’t be a big deal.   
   
   
4. "I'm not sick – it's just allergies"
   The only thing worse than being sick is having to use personal time to cover it and getting even further behind on your work.  If you think you have too much work to take a day off you might be tempted to pull one over on your cold and flu-fearing co-workers and attribute the sniffles to allergy season – don't.  Your coworkers won’t be pleased that you're putting their health at risk and lying to them.  If staying home is not an option for you, at least barricade yourself in your office and try to minimize contact with co-workers.
   
   
5. "I'm right on schedule"
   As someone who has project management responsibilities, I am very cognizant of meeting deadlines.  When asked about the status of a project it can be very tempting to say everything is going as planned, when it’s not.  "I am working on it," might be the better response, but you need to develop a timeline to put the project back on track. 

 

More and more companies are hiring a CBO (that’s Chief Blogging Officer for those of you who missed that latest acronym). 

At Achievant we don’t have a CBO but rather our entire senior team shares the responsibility to blog.  We each focus our blog on our areas of expertise.  Mine typically focuses on HR topics, system capabilities and our HR consulting services.  Others on our team focus on technology (http://blog.achievant.com/blog/hris-software-technology) and sales. 

The number of companies which are blogging is growing rapidly.  Today, more than 11 percent of Fortune 500 companies have corporate blogs according to SocialText, this is up from 4 percent in 2005.  At first it was more of a fad and everyone was jumping on the bandwagon saying ‘this is really cool, we should do it too’ without approaching it thoughtfully with a plan.  It is really like any other marketing strategy and now finally companies are evaluating blogs as tools. 

For us, our blogs are to:

1. Communicate with potential clients about the technology and services we offer
2. Provide existing client yet another connection with us
3. Convey to potential employees the culture of the organization. 
4. Share the brand experience of working with our company

I like that we don’t have a corporate blog, but rather individual contributors, as it would be difficult for any one person to completely convey what it is like to do business with us.  However, I can certainly see the need for the position as it is really hard work to blog regularly (although it is a great creative outlet).  

We regularly track statics of visitors (new and returning), page views, and RSS feeds using Compendium Blogware (http://www.compendiumblogware.com).  If you don’t already, I encourage you to subscribe to my blog via a RSS feed. 

Really Simple Syndication (RSS) is a way for content publishers to make news, blogs, and other content available to subscribers.  You can add your favorite RSS Feeds (such as my blog) as subscriptions in Microsoft Office Outlook 2007.  The benefit of RSS is that it aggregates of all content from multiple Web sources in one place. You no longer have to visit different Web sites for news, weather, blogs, and other information. With RSS, summaries of content are delivered to you, and then you decide which specific articles you want to read by clicking a link. 

You can add an RSS Feed through the Microsoft Office Outlook 2007 Account Settings dialog box as outlined below:

1.     On the Tools menu, click Account Settings.

2.     On the RSS Feeds tab, click New.

3.     In the New RSS Feed dialog box, type or press CTRL+V to paste the URL of the RSS Feed. For mine,  http://blog.achievant.com/blog/hris-software-services.  

4.     Click Add.

5.     Click OK.

Yes, of course a blogger benefits when you subscribe to their blog.  But even better, you benefit. “Home” delivery (for free) of blogs is perhaps the greatest bargain on the Internet. You can get my blog by email every day setting up the RSS feed.  

A few years ago when gas prices started to cross the $3.00 mark I had a number of employees come to me and ask about working remotely.  Their rational was that gas was getting expensive and their long commutes were hurting their budgets.  Some wanted extra compensation to set off the rise in gas prices or the flexibility to work from home a few days a week and some just wanted to work from home.

My answer then was a firm “no”.  I am not a fan of working remotely.  On the most part I simply don’t trust human nature.  It’s the rare person who will work as hard sitting in his den as he does sitting in his cube.  Add to that the associated challenges with communication, lack of team building and the security/insurance risks of having a telecommuting workforce and I have really never found the idea a promising one.

This week I had an employee come to me with the prospect of a three week trip to Egypt two of which would be telecommuting and one of which would be vacation.

So I did what any good manager does and said I’d get back to him, delaying the uncomfortable confrontation when I’d have to tell him no.   So while I pondered the easiest way to tell him he couldn’t go I also pondered my reaction to the request and came to realize that one of my biggest knocks against telecommuting was simply that I am an old dog and this is a pretty new trick.

I’ve come to realize that if telecommuting doesn’t work it’s the company’s fault and not the workers'.  If you don’t have the right policies, checks and balances and employees to succeed with a distributed workforce you probably don’t have the right policies, checks and balances and employees to succeed period.

Let’s start with the people.  If you have someone cheating the proverbial clock while working from home you can generally rest assured that they’re cheating that same clock one way or another at work.  And if you can’t trust your employees to work while the boss isn’t looking you need to examine your hiring process… somewhere along the way you’re hiring the wrong people.

As for productivity, if you can’t manage it when someone is working from home (or wherever) you probably aren’t tracking it appropriately to start with. 

Communication can be a challenge, but technology has pretty much bridged that gap: web cams, instant messaging, VOIP, video conferencing and a plethora of other mainstream technologies make keeping in touch pretty easy.

So in the next month we’ll be having our first trial run at supporting a virtual office of one as one of our team takes his VOIP phone, air card and laptop partway around the world and works from the land of the pharaohs.

Everywhere I’ve worked I’ve recommended background checks on employees along with drug screens and a robust set of policies and procedures. 

It’s not the most fun thing to do.  I generally dislike a lot of policy and procedure.  It’s annoying and it sets a tone I don’t really like.  However, take a look at the security breach at LendingTree and you’ll see why these things are necessary.

In short, employees from the company gave their passwords to unscrupulous individuals who then accessed account data of clients using the service.

This is a tough hacker approach to defend against.  Offer someone enough money and they are likely to be willing do most anything.  How much for info on Britney Spears’ medical records?  How much for a photo of a celebrity’s kids?  How much for a password?

You can’t control human behavior, but you can be aware of it.  If you run a shop with sensitive data and you hire people who have a criminal record, with huge debt, who maybe take drugs you increase the likelihood that those employees can be compromised via bribes or other approaches to illicit data access.

Performing background checks and drug screens help weed out potential risks.  Having robust security measures, frequently changing passwords and a termination workflow that makes sure account access is terminated in a timely fashion when an employee leaves the company all help ensure your data doesn’t become someone else’s data.

Routine review of access logs would also have helped catch the LendingTree problem more quickly.  If a user is suddenly accessing the system all hours of the day all days of the week it’s a fairly sure sign that that user’s account has been compromised.

A little bit of due diligence, however tedious or even slightly uncomfortable can go a long way to ensuring that your data remains secure.

I always find trends interesting.  TechCrunch has a great blog post today that shows Internet trends (using a Morgan Stanley report).  In a nutshell the report shows that social sites are dominating with respect to user traffic.  Being a business to business kind of site, Achievant doesn’t necessarily fall into the same bucket as such sites, but I think there are lessons to be learned.

We all want traffic to our sites whether our sites are the company intranet dolling out the latest company news, or a marketing site pimping the latest product or a consumer site selling the latest must have widget.  Whatever basic human need is driving people to YouTube or Facebook is the same human need we can tap to bring people to our sites regardless of their function.

If you’re trying to get your employees to read the latest policy on this, that or the other thing and you can’t get them to stop on the intranet’s home page, maybe adding something social (as the trend shows) will bring them in.  If you’re trying to sell widgets it would appear a widget forum where the general masses can leave their two cents worth would bring traffic your way.

As a developer of websites I find the trend pointing toward the next iteration of a user interface.  These social sites that hundreds of millions of users hit each month are being hit by the same people using Achievant’s HCMS.  The user experience on these sites frames the expectation of the user for our site.  We probably won’t ever have video sharing or a friend tracking widget, but we might have forums or a look and feel that is less business and more social.

One of the many benefits of using Achievant’s HRIS system is the on-going system improvements that we provide.  We are continually working on the system, module by module, to make improvements.  Typically the suggestions for potential enhancements come from either our clients or Achievant staff. 

Best of all, we provide these enhancements at no additional cost to our clients.  Very few Human Resources software technology companies offer this.  Usually the new version comes at a significant cost to the client. 

Currently we are working on some Training or Learning Management enhancements.  We anticipate having these enhancements ready to roll out late April/early May. 

We are excited to be rolling out the following features:

• Place to record outside classes – allows for better tracking of conference or workshop attendance
• Ability to add classes not part of curriculum – allows for customized or ad hoc additions of coursework unrelated to an organization’s curriculum map for the position
• Class start and stop times – improvements to the training calendar view
• Track number of training hours – more and more organizations set standards as to the number of hours of training each employee is required to have. 
• Print roster for class sign-up sheet with class proctor capabilities for attendance and scoring
• Course enrollment close date – if desired, decline admittance to a class after a certain date
• Track scores and Pass/Fail on per class basis
• Determine class size by course and close class when seats are filled
• Set a minimum class size and if desired, cancel if the minimum is not met
• Create additional reports

 What has your HRIS software provider done for you lately - for free?

 

 

 

There seem to be no end of cautionary tales in the media these days.  Hackers steal over four million credit card numbers,  more hackers steal students’ personal information,  electronics come straight from the factory already infected ,  your swipe card for door access at work and other places can be easily hacked , and even your pacemaker (if you have one) isn’t safe.

It’s like a hail storm of bad technology news.  I might move to a deserted island somewhere and give up all my modern conveniences in order to escape to digital mongrel hordes that are after my data.

So what do you do?  You take all the precautions you can.  You make sure your anti-virus, anti-spyware, anti-malware and anti-spam software are all up-to-date.  You make sure your OS is up-to-date.  You are careful about what links you click, what emails you open, what programs you install.  You make sure your spouse, kids, mom, dad, cousin and aunt are all aware of the same precautions and are taking them.

Sounds tedious.  Sounds time consuming.  Sounds like a pain in the rumpus.  It is. But you’re not done yet.  You need to make sure that all the people who have your data do the same: the grocery store, the bank, your online retailers, your doctor, your accountant, your HRIS vendor and pretty much everyone else you do business with.

If you outsource an HRIS needs (like time and attendance, learning management, payroll integration, etc) you need to make sure that vendor is doing all they should.  They don’t just have your data… they have the data of every employee in your company and quite possible the data of their dependents, beneficiaries and a whole host of other innocent people.

A company should spend at least 10% of its IT budget on security.  All of the things I suggested you do above are the bare minimum they should be doing.  Ask to see their security policies, their intrusion response documents, their SAS 70.  Ask to see everything.  Then ask them how they know all of these policies are being followed.

For me, I believe actions are better than words.  Any good company has their employees sign acceptable use policies, claim they use “best practices” around digital security.  I like to prove that.  How?  You can:

1.       Hire someone to perform a physical penetration.  In the past I have (about every six months) had someone walk into the office, pretend to be a computer technician, a new IT employee, whatever and then work to gain access to computers, networks and other data stores.  It’s a great way to keep people on the alert.

2.       Pay a company to perform a penetration test against your network (or, if you have staff with the right skills perform it yourself).  Do it once a quarter.  Things change and you need to make sure you haven’t accidently opened a whole in your digital fortress.

3.       Send out monthly security newsletters… it helps keep security on everyone’s mind.

4.       Subscribe to security alerts from your anti-virus, anti-spyware and other security software vendors.  They generally do a great job of getting in front of new attacks and keeping you aware of the latest schemes.

 

There will always be new and improved security threats.  There’s not much you can do about that.  What you can do is be aware, be ready and be on guard for what may be coming your way.

Today I am back on the HR 2.0 topic.  It seems like every blog, news article or factoid I read these days is all about social this or wiki that and the word “mashup” seems to be on the tip of everyone’s tongue.  Actually ‘social” and “wiki” are already kind of dated and mashup is (IMHO) a newer, slightly evolved, version of the same.

So, reading about things like Yahoo! Buzz and MyPunchBowl’s own Buzz I began to wonder what an HR mashup would be?  What would it do?  How would it make our lives better?

I see two possible HR mashups: one for the HR professional and one for the HRIS user.

First, let’s define what a mashup is: a mashup is essentially the aggregation of data from diverse sources into one place.  A hip techno geek might want to wax poetic about the separation of data and presentation, but in my mind that’s over complicating something that is basically simple.  In the modern age you can get instant access to pretty much any piece of information you want and from pretty much any source you prefer.  Bring all those pieces of information from all those various sources into one place and present it in a meaningful way and you have yourself a mashup.

If you look at either Yahoo! Buzz or MyPunchBowl’s Buzz you’ll see what is essentially a mashup (more so for Yahoo! Buzz) that adds a social twist by allowing users to rate the content within the mashup.  Visit Digg and you can see more of the same.  The proliferation of this kind of site must mean there is (at least a perceived) need for it.  I think it also means that the need has not been met.

So, back to the HR Mashup…

What if you, as an HR professional, had a mashup at your disposal that brought together all of the HRIS, HR automation, time and attendance, etc information of meaning to you and then let other HR professionals give it a virtual thumbs up or thumbs down so that the cream rose to the top and the chaff fell away?  Would it help you keep up with current HR issues, changes in HR law and see HR trends emerge?

What if you, as an HRIS user, had a mashup at your disposal that brought together all of the time and attendance, learning management, performance management, applicant tracking, etc data you might want?  You could see that suddenly everyone is taking the day after Thanksgiving off or that everyone in your job family has signed up for a new course or certification or that everyone with your experience is applying for this new job?  It seems like it might be a nice way to stay on top of changes and events within the workplace for which you might use your own company’s HRIS tool.

A mashup is kind of a mob mentality, but one that would use a collective to push important current and emerging topics to the forefront.  It’s really a two heads are better than one kind of thing: if every other HR professional is finding topic C to be particularly salient maybe you will too?  Or maybe you can keep your marketability high by seeing the trend that everyone competing for that job you want 9or have) is adding to their skill set by getting certification Y.

I am a nerd; ergo, I am a fan of the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy series.  What’s that have to do with IT or HR?  Well, I learned my most import IT lesson from the first book of that series.  The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (an actual interstellar travel book ala Fodor’s or Lonely Planet within the context of Douglas Adams’ imagined universe) has one important message at all times: “Don’t panic!”

It’s as good of a mantra for an IT professional as any I’ve ever heard.  Things happen.  Bad things happen.  In the midst of a techno-calamity remaining calm can be the difference between a good decision and a bad one or between hours of down time or minutes of down time.

Monday’s Blackberry outage is a shining example of why panicking isn’t productive.  For those of you who don’t carry the ubiquitous device and are maybe unaware of the outage, Blackberry subscribers lost email functionality for a portion of the day Monday.

So you’ve read my title and you’ve read my intro and you’re wondering… what does any of this have to do with succession management?  Succession management, in the simplest of terms, in having a plan in place for when something (really someone) you need goes away.

In the case of the Blackberry outage you can find a number of testimonials on the web about how someone was so detrimentally impacted they want to sue Blackberry, or get a refund, or switch to a Treo.  Apparently, those people did not have a plan for what to do if their mobile device lost email.  Apparently they also couldn’t devise a plan on the fly.

So what if something more important than a Blackberry went away?  What if, say, I got fed up and quit or was lured away by a better organization?  What if I was promoted to Chief IT Czar of the Universe and someone else had to fill my role?

Fortunately, I have plan.  A succession plan.  I won’t list the many things that would make a good succession plan or succession management tool.  They are really pretty simple:

1.       Know who is on your bench. 

2.       Measure strengths and weaknesses

3.       Know who you need to keep

4.       Have a plan for making sure anyone you need to keep stays

5.       Be sure to continuously groom those employees for roles further up the career ladder

For me my first step in succession management for my position is to hire my replacement.  Once I’ve done that I start actively preparing that person (or maybe even persons) to take on my role.  I identify the gaps in their skill set and I start little by little giving them some of my responsibilities, exposing them to the details of my role/job.  I do my best to help them grow and learn.  Not only does it provide the company with a new me should the current me move on in some way, but it allows me to take vacations, effectively delegate work and provides a staff in whom I can trust and on whom I can rely.

Succession management doesn’t have to be overly architected or cumbersome.  It doesn’t even have to be overly formal.  Good succession management starts with the awareness of what leadership roles are needed, who currently fills those roles and who can fill those roles in the future (given the appropriate mentoring, training and career development).  Have a plan; work the plan; don’t panic.

Ok, I admit it.  When I saw this headline by the Associated Press the other day, I had to read it.  It turns out that those employees who are in high demand are being paid to interview and they set the price.  Yep, you heard me correctly…who knew there would be a market for such a thing? 

That's the proposition behind the self-funded startup NotchUp.com. Its founders, Jim Ambras and Rob Ellis, say the site will fill a void between recruiters who charge 30 percent of a new hire's salary and resume job sites such as Monster.com.

Their audience are passive job seeks who are happily employed professionals who are just keeping their options open.  Their web site indicates NotchUp is for you if:

• You’re happy at your job
• You’re good at what you do
• You’re not looking for a new job

Here’s how it works.  You plug in your industry, job, pay and experience into a calculator on the site to help you set your pay for an interview. NotchUp typically recommends a range between $200 and $500, but you decide the final amount.  Obviously a higher price may result in fewer offers to interview and a lower price results in less money for you. Then you submit your profile to the site.  Ok, I’ll admit that I put in my information and it suggested I “charge” $850 to interview me! 

Joining NotchUp is free, but you must apply or be invited.  If a hiring company is interested in you, it deposits the money with NotchUp and talks to you. If you seem like a real, engaged candidate, NotchUp will transfer the money to your PayPal account once the interview is over. The site makes money by charging a transaction fee, which it estimates will be somewhere around 15 and 20 percent.

A number of large companies including Google Inc., Yahoo Inc. and Facebook are recruiting on the site, which interestingly bears a striking resemblance to Facebook. So far, the response from would-be job seekers has been warm. The site officially launched Jan. 28, but it went from 445 members to 10,500 in the five business days.

Since most recruiters have discovered that typically the best people you want to hire are the people who aren't in the job market, this will be an interesting site to watch. 

Does your organization have a performance management solution? Or are you just “doing reviews”?

For many companies, this time of the year is often touted as “the review season”.  The previous year’s financials have been determined and goals for the next year are set.  Managers are juggling their priorities – trying to balance their “real work” with HR pushing them to do performance reviews.  The happiest time of the year – or not, depending upon whether or not like Santa Claus, you have kept a careful list of who has been naughty and who has been nice all year long.

As a human resources manager, you and I both understand the importance of having a strong performance management process in place. Such a process helps align individual goals with overall corporate objectives, reinforces desired behaviors and creates a more engaged workforce. 

But if your company is like many that I speak with, your current performance management system consists of a word processing document that is manually collected by HR.  This no longer needs to be the case.  More and more small and mid-sized businesses are turning to HR technologies to improve their performance management processes. The availability of affordable, web-based solutions automating the performance management process is no longer just for very large employers. 
 
At the senior staff meeting here at Achievant, one of the tasks we are working on is creating our own Performance Appraisal form to use in the Achievant platform for our organization.  And if you think it’s difficult to obtain consensus of an appraisal form in your organization, try getting 5 “HR types” to agree on one to use.  But, we all agree on how important it is. 

Studies show that employees value clear, consistent feedback and acknowledgement as much as they do the money.  For those companies who have invested in a performance management solution, the review season isn’t so bad and provides a number of benefits, including:

1. Recognizes your best performers

• Actual progress against performance goals is tracked so you can identify who is delivering…and who’s not
• Reinforces continued positive behavior and set expectations for non-performers. 

2. Provides clarity for employees

• Set goals, establish timelines, track progress, and identify obstacles to communicate what's expected of them
• Give employees a clear understanding of their individual goals and how they fit into the bigger corporate picture
• Provide the link between overall business objectives and employees' day-to-day actions

3. Protect yourself legally

• Provides documentation  to support employment actions such as termination, demotion, or lack of compensation adjustment

4. Stabilizes your workforce

• Reduces employee turnover and attrition

Discover how you can put Achievant’s employee performance management automation to work in your organization — and improve your organization’s business performance.

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What’s the best way to monitor time and attendance?  Is it the honor system?  A swipe card system? Or, should we just trust that everyone’s working a full day?  What factor does trust play in your decision?  The answer clearly lies in the organization, role and position.  These are all good questions.  Regardless, each and every organization needs to make a conscious decision on how they are going to monitor time & attendance.

Not coincidentally, there are just as many vendors out there that can help you monitor your organizations time & attendance policy.  How do you make a choice?  Who’s the best?  What’s right for your organization?  Achievant is in the time and attendance business and I can offer a few things for you to consider.

1)  The overarching goal should be to accurately capture your employee’s time on the job – both hourly and salary.  In a perfect world time data gets sent to multiple systems including those that perform payroll and time off accruals.  Don’t over think the solution hoping to catch someone cheating you out of 15 minutes a day.  It’s much more important to have a seamless and integrated flow of data among the HR applications you’ve deployed.

2)  Your time and attendance needs to be flexible enough to meet the needs of your desk and floor staff.   One size definitely does not fit all.  Swipe and punch systems are the only real alternative for manufacturing/distribution/warehouse floor.  The desk environment can work well with pc based clock in and out.  However, both have a need to track and monitor your time off plans with an associated approval process.

3)  How does your time and attendance decision integrate into your human capital management (HCM) needs?  Most small and mid-sized companies are well served by deploying an integrated HCM platform and not best of breed solutions for applicant tracking, time and attendance, HRIS, learning management, performance management and benefits management.

All of this may seem obvious but when looking at time and attendance applications many organizations can get tunnel focused on finding the “best of breed” system and lose sight of how this application fits into the overall architecture of the HR infrastructure.  Take a step back to get a better view into your time and attendance decision.