Yesterday, one of our smartest employees did one of the dumbest things ever.  She opened an e-greeting card from someone she didn't know.  Within seconds she knew she had a problem.  It could have been the anti-virus warning that popped up or the freaky image that suddenly became her desktop background.  Either way, the first thing she did was raise the alarm.

You may be asking yourself what a virus outbreak and HRIS Software have in common.  To me, the commonality is in the quality of the response.  Anyone can sell you a talent management system.  In fact, any two pieces of HRIS Software are likely to be very similar.

What's not going to be similar are the people behind the product.  When the virus hit that one user the first thing we did was isolate her from the network (well, isolate her computer, we didn't really do anything to her). 

Then, to make sure there would be no further spread of the virus we took all of our computers off the network.  We did this by simply unplugging the switch that handles all computer traffic.  We left the switch that handles all VOIP up and running.  In short, we had a good plan and were well prepared.  Within minutes we new the extent of the problem, had it isolated and were on our way to better times.

The same can be said of how we provide service.  Maybe you use our employee time and attendance module or our performance assessment module.From the day you kick off your implementation and everyday thereafter the achievant team is ready to answer questions, address issue and help you make the most of the tool you purchased.

Any two pieces of software Human Resources Software are going to be more or less the same.  But the people who support them, who make you successful are not.

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 live in a house full of guys and it seems like we live sports 24/7.  In that light, I find myself using those teachable moments to point out to them that the “sports world” is not like the “real world”.  I mean where else can you make an incredible salary, not be held accountable for your actions, and be uneducated and successful all at the same time.  But from time to time there is a sports story that mimics life for the rest of us.

Currently that is the Bret Favre story.  I think this story is fascinating to watch from an HR perspective.  Here you have a nice guy working for your company for a very long time.  He’s a great employee and you’ve got an employment agreement to keep him with you.  For several years he has been openly talking about retiring in the near future.  Finally he decides that this is the time to make that change.  You hate to see him go, but you understand and are even happy for him.  So, you send him off with a great good-bye party.

Then as an organization you set about rolling out the succession plan that you’ve had in place.  So, you replace him and move on as an organization.  Then, he decides that he misses working for you and wants to come back to his old job.  You tell him that you’ve already replaced the top spot, but he can have the number two position.  He is not content with that and asks to be released from his employment agreement so he can go work for your direct competitor.  He doesn’t like that and goes to the local paper or industry trade magazine and gives an interview saying that he doesn’t feel welcome back at his old company and that because of his years of service, he should simply be released.

 What do you do?

Favre is a legend.  The Packer's management is taking a beating in the media about its handling of his request to return.  It's a talent management nightmare.  At this point, it seems the Packers have chosen to take the do nothing approach.  They don’t seem to be in any hurry to release or trade Favre.  In the meantime, they seem set to continue the process of rolling out the succession plan they have in place.

What's your position?  Should the Packers take him back as the starting quarterback?  Should the Packers continue the succession plan they began when Favre retired a few months ago?

I'm siding with the Packers in moving on, here are my reasons why:

    1. Football is a business – There is no disputing that both the Packer fans and up until this point the management absolutely love Favre.  But that being said, we must remember that football is a business.  So, it would be a poor business decision to release him to a competitor without getting something in return. Remember, along with the benefits of being a contracted employee, there are also some down-sides (i.e., management decides when you play, where, and if you will play). He in essence has a non-compete.

   2. Once you cross that bridge – My experience has been that counter-offers and allowing employees to rescind their resignation are only temporary fixes.  Typically whatever factor made them vulnerable in the first place is still there and in the not too distant future will reappear.  As a side note, no one wants to continually hear that you are thinking about leaving the organization.  Keep it to yourself until you are ready to make the move.    

   3. Don’t make it public - When the Packers didn't rush to reinstate Favre, he went negative.  Going negative against an organization in the media is pretty much going to the point of no return.   Even if you end of getting what you want, it can be a pretty ugly place to be.

   4. It’s all about me – When an individual makes the situation all about them and not about the organization, they typically fall out of favor with their coworkers.  Favre has seemed like a great teammate through the years, a good citizen and a role model for youth.  But, if you listen closely to him over the last few weeks he seems to be talking more about himself and less about coming back to help the organization or his teammates.  

The Packers have done the right thing from an organizational development or succession management perspective.  They knew he was going, they put a succession plan in place for a number of years (i.e., Aaron Rogers), then when they got notification that he was leaving, they started it in motion.

What would you do? 

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. 

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Ivy Tech Community College has been selected as Indiana’s only college to offer the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) Global Professional in Human Resources (GPHR™) certification.  In fact, Ivy Tech is one of only 27 universities and colleges across the country to offer this certification.

What a great honor for Ivy Tech to have been chosen as the school to offer this certification.  Ivy Tech is Indiana’s second largest public post-secondary institution with more than 110,000 students enrolled annually on its 23 campuses.

The Global Professional in Human Resources (GPHR™) certification assesses the mastery of HR knowledge to be successful in companies conducting business worldwide. Globalization is the defining political and economic force in the world today. It requires new ways of thinking and responding. For HR professionals, recognizing and understanding this phenomenon is fast becoming a job requirement.

The GPHR course is delivered in 35 contact hours over 12 weeks of instruction and is scheduled September 2 to November 18, 2008. The course fee is $995 and includes the GPHR Learning System manuals, software, access to the Resource Center and instructor handouts.

Assume a customer has a very positive and memorable experience with you.  The experience somehow exceeded his expectations, whatever they were.  Perhaps the waiter was more attentive than expected, or the price was better than expected, or he received an immediate return phone call with a resolution to his problem. 

How many people will he tell about that experience?  Given the fact that service that exceeds expectations is quite rare, I would suggest that he will tell everyone he knows.  Positive word-of-mouth referrals will exceed the success of your marketing program every time.  Satisfied customers will provide a limitless number of referrals for an organization.  But just remember, the opposite of this is also true. 

Think about a time when a company exceeded or failed to meet your expectations.  How many people did you tell?

With any organization, there will be times when their service level leaves the customer feeling dissatisfied.  We all expect that their will be some problems, the true test of the company is how they respond to those problems. 

Step 1 - The Apology
Let the customer know that you are very sorry that the product didn't meet their expectations, wasn't delivered on time, fell apart, or was missing parts.  It is not the customer’s problem, it’s yours.  Simply apologize sincerely for not meeting their needs, and offer to do what it takes to make it right for their complete satisfaction.

Step 2 - Make it Right
Probe and explore with the customer what "making it right" means for them.  At this point in the service recovery process most customers will have appreciated your interest in their satisfaction and will come to terms with what they require to 'make it right.'  Getting to this point may in itself be a 'wow' factor for many people... but there is more..

Step 3 - The Wow Factor!
This is a mandatory step in service recovery.  You have apologized, taken full accountability for your problem, explored and agreed with the customer on how to make it right to their complete satisfaction.  It's about whatever it takes, in this situation, to demonstrate to the customer that you are accountable for their complete satisfaction, you value them as your customer, you have pride in the products and services you provide, you regret the inconvenience you have caused them and ... you care.

Tomorrow I will tell you about a great customer service experience I recently had. 

I spent my morning with a potential partner going over key aspects of their business model for which we will be adding support in our application.  It was a very typical software requirements meeting: it started out with a group of people looking across the table at each other wondering how to start.

I suggested we start with four or five goals and work our way into the details of each in succession.  Pretty soon we were drawing like cavemen on whiteboards, talking compensation matrices and other minutiae of the HR world.

Some of the items we indentified would be tough to implement and at one point the statement was made that “maybe this isn’t a solvable problem”.  Huh uh.  No way.  Not going to happen.  All problems can be solved.  Sometimes the cost or the time or the effort required exceed our means, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be done.  It just has to be rethought.  We left the meeting with scads of notes, a number of great ideas and the general feeling that we’d had a productive morning.

When I got back to the office I found a news article about Time Magazine’s Top 100 Influential People in the world.  It was an interesting read.  One story in particular reverberated with me after the morning’s meeting:  if Mary Lou Jespen can bring a computer to children around the world who don’t even have physical classrooms I can create an enhanced performance management and  compensation management tool that can morph and evolve to meet almost any client’s needs.

Challenges arise, problems happen and all too often I see people give up.  I hate that attitude.  With creative thinking, some strategic compromises and hard work a lot can be done with a little.

My hope is that after each such meeting, whether with a client, a potential partner, or our own staff people leave with the feeling that by working together, by pursuing the goal we can get to wherever it is we want to go.

Veritude, a Boston-based talent acquisition, consulting and management services provider, recently published a research report titled, Working Together, Working Apart.  The report, confirms what most HR people has known all along - significant gaps exist in the working relationship between HR and business line leaders,

In the report, respondents said HR must improve business leaders' perceptions of their skills and abilities, while business managers must learn to turn to the "people experts" for support in addressing significant workforce issues.

The online survey gathered feedback from 101 business leaders with responsibility for at least 500 employees and 99 HR leaders in director-level or higher positions in three areas:

• The top strategic challenges that face business and HR leaders.

• The working relationship between business leaders and HR.

• How HR's relationship with business leaders affects the implementation of workforce plans.

I found the most surprising finding to be that 57% percent of business leaders said they have no established relationship with HR or that it would not occur to them to include HR in implementing workforce plans.  Imagine what it must be like to be the HR leader in that organization!

Business and HR leaders report frustration with one another.  21% of business leaders perceive HR as not being able to find the right people for the job or as lacking responsiveness to business leaders’ needs. On the other hand, HR leaders believe business leaders set unrealistic time frames, lack an understanding of workforce issues and are inconsistent in implementing initiatives.

The report also identifies a glaring inability, from the perspective of business leaders, of HR leaders to speak the language of business.  Only 55 percent of business leaders rate HR as "well versed" in financial acumen, but 80 percent of HR leaders give themselves that assessment.   What can you do to increase your ability to speak the language of your business?  When I first moved into banking, I was fortunate enough to report to a bank president who was supportive of me learning about the business.  I attended the Stonier Graduate School of Banking and stepped out of my comfort zone to write a Capstone project on something I knew nothing about, trust services. 

Both groups want to see HR more fully involved in workforce strategy and implementation. According to the report, HR should take the lead in driving human capital management strategy and get involved in the strategic planning process. Business leaders, meanwhile, need to recognize the importance of HR strategy in achieving business results while working to develop a deeper understanding, acknowledgment and respect for the function.

HR leaders are encouraged to schedule time with key leaders on a regular basis to build relationships.

The report contains key questions HR leaders should ask themselves:

• Is my HR team driving the workforce strategy with the sophistication, data analysis and planning savvy required by your business?

• What is the strategic alignment between my HR team and the business, especially in terms of the grasp of the culture and key drivers of success in support of the core business areas?

• At what level is my HR team exhibiting sophistication, business acumen, analytic contributions and leadership skills?

• What is the quality of my HR team’s relationships with business line leaders?

The bottom line - HR leaders who truly speak the language of business are in a position of great power and can offer tremendous value to their companies.

 

I read with great interest this week a study called “Actions Speak Louder Than Words,” which purports that companies need to take steps to make sure an ethics policy is something they are living, not just giving lip service to.  This includes balancing self-interest with community interest and having company leaders serve as ethical role models.

The study was written by Valparaiso University (my alma mater) business professors Dr. Michael McCuddy (a former professor of mine), Dr. Karl Reichardt and Dr. David Schroeder.

The paper was recognized by the International Journal of Business and Economics has named the research the best ethics or business law paper in 2007 and offers empirical evidence that the presence of a written code of ethics and, more importantly, its effective implementation, does promote business success and a positive organizational reputation.

Dr. McCuddy and his colleagues surveyed thousands of accountants between 1994 and 2000 to determine the
short- and long-term impact of both written ethics codes and the effective implementation of ethical practices.   In his analysis of the survey responses, Dr. McCuddy said the presence of a code of ethics and ethical effectiveness explained six to seven percent of the variance in organizational success.

Dr. McCuddy said, “Since the margin between success and failure can be quite slim, ethics could be the solution to having the margin fall in the company’s favor.”

Moreover, ethical effectiveness was deemed a more important factor in a company’s short- and long-term success and reputation than merely having a code of ethics. When a code of ethics and ethical effectiveness were significant predictors of short- and long-term success, Dr. McCuddy said the correlation for ethical effectiveness was 3 to 10 times larger than the correlation for code of ethics. The disparity in company reputation was even greater, with the correlation for ethical effectiveness 13 to 26 times greater than for code of ethics.   “With respect to ethics explaining both short-term and long-term success, actions do speak louder than words,” Dr. McCuddy said.

Ethical effectiveness was measured by respondents rating how effective their employers were with respect to seven practices, including providing ethics training, conducting daily operations in a manner consistent with its ethical standards, consideration of ethical standards in making long-term decisions and rewarding ethical actions.

To make an ethics code more than window dressing, Dr. McCuddy said companies should take four actions: 

1.      They need to look inside themselves and balance self-interest with community interest.

2.      Leaders throughout the organization have to become authentic role models to the rest of the workforce, putting into practice that balancing of self-interest and community interest.

3.      Then companies must foster and reinforce an organizational culture that creates expectations of everyone doing what is fair, right and just, and

4.      Make sure the organization’s rewards system is in alignment with its vales and ethics.

What are the actions of your organization “saying”?

You’ve probably heard the term Web 2.0 tossed around like a good salad at a fine restaurant.  It’s one of those buzzwords whose drone seems ever present in the background of web based technology talks today. 

What Web 2.0 is can be hard to define or maybe isn’t widely agreed upon and is generally based on your own biases.  In my opinion and in short Web 2.0 is generally comprised of any combination of three things:

1.       Functionality and features (particular within the user interface) equivalent to those you can get with a desktop application.

2.       A social twist on a formerly strictly technological domain (like search).

3.       Transformation of what was essentially tactically oriented automation of previously manual task into strategic analysis and action based on data from those tasks.

Being a web developer who works in the HR space I’ve started wondering what HR 2.0 should be.  Should I be developing a virtual HR world along the lines of Second Life where your avatar walks into a cyber-faux HR department that looks like a Caribbean resort in order to request time off or to complete an expense report?  Should I be working on a social alternative to the usual HR functions that uses a wiki-like mob Inteligencia to perform daily HR tasks?  Probably not.

What I should be working on is a way to take the tasks of time and attendance, learning management, session management, performance management, etc that we’ve automated and elevating them to be tactical and strategic.  An HR 2.0 application should be a proactive piece of software that doesn’t just help streamline day-to-day task; instead, an HR 2.0 application should point your organization in the right direction by helping determine strategic success factors.

Let’s take succession management (the subject of my last post) as an example.  The application might tell you what gaps you have now, might help you use our learning management module to plan to fill those gaps, might give you a roster of who is where and how long have they been there, but as an HR 2.0 application it should also tell you (maybe without your asking) that Bob Smith is the best choice for that new VP of Whatever slot that just opened up.  It should tell you that if you train Mary Jane Doe on topic X she’ll make the best replacement for John Somebody who has 29 years of service in and is ready to retire.

In short, a HR 2.0 app should be an active virtual employee within your company bringing solutions to you without the need of your asking it for the data to make that decision yourself.  Two dot oh means that it is time for software to move beyond automation of mundane tasks into the space of strategic planning.  Two dot oh software doesn’t just work hard; it work’s smart, too.

I read an interesting article in Workforce Magazine this week that indicated that most succession planning aims to replace senior management and ignores middle management.   

 

According to a report by Ernst & Young, as a large segment of the workforce nears retirement, large U.S. companies are woefully “unprepared for the looming brain drain” that will result. Based on responses of human resources executives at Fortune 1,000 companies, it found that most companies are not actually focusing on employee development. 

One in four companies (25%) say their middle management ranks will be most affected as these “boomer” employees exit the workforce. Even so, three-quarters (75%) of those with formal succession strategies in place focus exclusively on replacements for top senior executives, rather than identifying would-be middle managers.

 

This lack of deliberate succession planning results in higher costs: 52 percent of those surveyed say costs of recruitment have increased, while 43 percent have seen an increase in their training and development needs. The report warns that many companies will be exposed to “economic and productivity challenges” within five years unless they implement strategic succession plans.

 

Does your organization have a succession plan for all levels?

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.

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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Defining what is or what is not a defect is a lot like defining happiness or love, but in reverse.  Happiness and love are fun, defects are not.  In two recent posts I discussed metrics and goal setting.  For me, and I think for IT in general, metrics are null and void if a company does not have a well defined set of criteria for what’s a defect and what’s not.

A lot of issues can masquerade as a defect and defects can come in many shapes and sizes.  Without being specific about what a request type is and means too many issues will get lumped in one bucket and the wrong people and groups will get saddled with the weight of that bucket come metric measuring time.

If you’ve read my posts Metrics 101 and Metrics 102 you know that we’re going to measure IT success (in part) at Achievant based on the flux within our ticketing system.  In order to have valid metrics we’ve identified 10 types of tickets:

1.       Data Update:  This category covers any data transformation, update, whatever.  These aren’t defects.  They are usually in responses to changes in state or federal codes or a change is business practice by a client.  For example, when the fed changed the convention for ethnicity codes that generated a Data Update ticket in our system as we complied with the change.

2.       Defect - Business Logic:  There are lots of flavors of defects.  We wanted to pin our defects down a little so we could better track where we are breaking down.  A business logic defect is one where the actual business rules are not followed.  For us a ticket is marked as Defect – Business Logic only if the developer coded the business logic incorrectly.  If we see a lot of these we know that we’re doing a poor job of communicating business requirements to the product development team and can adjust our requirements gathering and reporting accordingly.

3.       Defect - Hard Error:  Really you should almost never see these.  These are errors that are full on blow-ups.  You shouldn’t see them in QA and you shouldn’t seem them in production.  A developer doing his job unit testing should uncover any error so egregious prior to releasing his code.  If we see a number of these we know we’re either rushing the process or have developers who aren’t doing the due diligence they should.

4.       Defect - User Interface:  This means the UI has an issue.  Maybe the screen does refresh after a drop down list change or a button is in the wrong location on the screen.  These are strictly issues relating to the look and behavior of the UI.  Too many of these means we are not validating or work against the specs well enough or not following our own design rules.

5.       Defect - Validation Failure:  this category is exactly what it looks like.  The code failed to validate a data entry upfront and bad data has made it into the system or caused an error.  To many of this type of issue means we’re not taking the time to bullet proof the application and are rushing.

6.       Enhancement:  Enhancements are any changes to the app that make it better and which are not a simply a gap in current functionality.  These are for brand new functionality only.  If our applicant tracking module doesn’t allow for the upload of resumes in Word format that’s a gap, not and enhancement.  If we decide to add a module for union labor disputes that’s an enhancement.

7.       Gap:  Gaps are those things the application should do, but doesn’t.  Every application has these kinds of issues.  They are like enhancement in that they are new functionality, but unlike enhancements in that we should have thought of them while developing an actual enhancement but didn’t.  these are the slap your forehead, :why didn’t we think of that” kind of things

8.       Missed Requirement:  These are a failure in the requirements definition.  If a client MUST have duplicate copies of all emails sent to legal and we fail to note that and don’t develop that it’s a missed requirement.  These are things that come up in the sales and discovery process, but which never make it into a requirements document and are then never developed, but should have been.

9.       Performance Improvement: These are tweaks to code, SQL, OS configuration, whatever that make the application perform faster.  At Achievant we record the load time for every request of every page and regularly review the numbers to make sure we’re not slowing down and to also ensure that we don’t have any dogs out there.  Performance Improvement tickets address application slowness.

10.   Wish List: We all have this.  We might call it a portfolio, a backlog, whatever.  It’s those things that one day we’ll get to when all the planets and stars align and we’re not busy doing something else.  These are unique tickets because they sit on the shelf for a long time by their very nature.  When you’re measuring the closure rate, etc of your tickets this bucket can skew your numbers if not accounted for accordingly.

Just as important as defining what the tickets are is the goal of getting everyone to agree and to follow that convention.  We all know there are politics associated with the tickets in queue for product development.  If everyone follows the game plan then everyone is measured equally by the metrics.

Hello World. 

Every entry level programming class begins with its students building a program that displayed the words “hello world”.  Since this is my first blog, I found it fitting. 

Now that I’ve gotten the worry of sounding cliché out of the way, allow me to introduce myself.  My name is Byron Pitney and I am Ed’s guest blogger (thanks for the blogstipation intro).  I am also the Software Architect on Ed’s team here at Achievant.  I’ve spent the last seven years writing code, but this is my first year writing HRIS software.  I have always enjoyed building things that are useful to people.  Working on a system that benefits employees and their employers definitely fits that bill.

Not too long ago Ed sent me an email with an attachment he affectionately refers to as The Bus Document.  In other words, if he were to get hit by a bus we would (in theory) still be able to continue on without him based on the information in “the bus” document.    

At first I was laughing at the way he was so carelessly talking about his own demise, but then the wheels started turning in my head.   What would we do without him?   What if instead of getting hit by a bus, he got a really good offer from a start up state-of-the-art search engine and left us behind? 

Do we have a plan B?  Being makers of HR automation software we should certainly have a succession plan for our key employees.

I know that leaders of any business have a lot of responsibility (what they choose do with this responsibility might be a blog for another day).   It is important for them to groom their employees to someday fulfill their roles.   I’ve seen first-hand how neglecting succession planning can cause major headaches. 

A company that I worked for struggled with this concept.  For sake of protecting the innocent, let us call the company Company X.   During my time at Company X I worked under a manager that was heavily involved in developing his team.  Next to getting the job done, team building was his top priority.  His was a sound philosophy. 

In order to be successful, he surrounded himself with successful people.  He made sure his team had proper training, and that they were reaching their clearly defined goals and objectives.   However (this is where the neglect part comes in), Company X did not have job descriptions or career paths in place.  In the eyes of the company, his standard for developing employees did not meet the same standard the company had (or in this case didn’t) set.  When the manager eventually stepped down, he recommended his replacement.  Since Company X hadn’t given time to succession planning they treated the recommended person the same as any other resume off the street.  To make a long story short, instead of losing one employee, their lack of succession planning eventually cost them four.  In retrospect, having a plan B seems like common sense.  Unfortunately, common sense does not always prevail.

To see an example of strong succession planning, simply take a look at the news.  Tony Dungy is well known for developing his coaching staff.  His “coaching tree”, as it is commonly referred, includes Lovie Smith (Bears), Herm Edwards (Chiefs), Rod Marinelli (Lions), and Mike Tomlin (Steelers).   Now it looks as if NFL teams are interested in Jim Caldwell, one of his current assistants.  Knowing that Dungy will not be around forever, the Colts have put in place their own succession plan by extending Caldwell’s contract to keep him in town.  In addition, he will be involved in the decision making processes in which a head coach would normally be responsible.  While Dungy will have the final decision, Caldwell will be gaining real world experience in his future position.  This foresight should ensure a smooth transition when Dungy finally steps down.  They should not feel the same decline in productivity they might have suffered by failing to plan ahead.

Those of us here in Indianapolis are still in disbelief that football season is over for us here in Colts’ country. 

What will we do on Sunday afternoons?  What will we wear on Friday’s? How will we end our emails with something other than, Go Colts! 

 

But since Colts' fans are no longer Super bowl bound, they have now turned their focus to speculate whether Coach Dungy will return for a seventh season.  Just like in the corporate world, national football teams must answer the age old hiring question –

 

Is this the time for succession planning or an outside search?

 

If Dungy leaves, owner Jim Irsay and president Bill Polian will need to decide if it's time for a new direction and hire an outsider or promote one of the other coaches within their team who they think will maintain the current success. 

Either way, this will be a critical decision for the Colts.  Succession planning is designed to groom your bench strength by putting strong performers in several key positions within the organization.  In the corporate world, we do it all the time.  Sometimes we do it more successfully than others.

 

In one of my previous blogs, I described how Eli Lilly and Co did it well when they needed a CEO and tapped John Lechleiter. He held numerous jobs in his 29 years with the company and spent more than a year as the understudy for former CEO Sidney Taurel.  Sometimes one individual hasn’t been targeted, but rather a small pool of internal candidates may vie for the spot such as at Wellpoint.  Other times an outsider is brought in, typically when there is a need for the organization to take a new direction because the current approach is not working well. 

 

The Colts’ organization has good bench strength in their coaches, so my guess is they would select someone internally. 

However, we’d all like to see Dungy lead the Colts onto the field at the new Lucas Oil Stadium next season.  So we hope that he will be able to find a way to balance both his family and the Colts as he has brought excellent leadership to the organization. 

 

Did you know that at Achievant we don’t just have a technology solution, but we do a great deal of consulting as well on a wide variety of topics? 

Over my next few blogs, I will talk about what some of these topics are.  One of the things we are often engaged to consult on are human resources vulnerability assessments.  

 

What is an HR Vulnerability Assessment?

HR vulnerability assessments are designed to assess company policies and practices, identify areas of non-compliance or weakness, uncover issues, and determine how to strategically align HR practices with business objectives. 

According to Watson Wyatt's landmark Human Capital Index research study, "companies that adopt and combine superior HR practices can increase shareholder value by up to 47 percent".  HR and its related practices should therefore be a key strategic factor in a company's plan for success and growth.

 

Objectives of an HR Vulnerability Assessment

• Keep the HR department’s mission and goals in sync with the organization’s needs and business strategy.

• Ensure legal compliance (which should decrease settlement expenses and legal fees).

• Identify and prioritize opportunities for improvement, as well as areas of potential future risk.

• Improve efficiency and productivity so that the department can better serve employees and customers.

• Identify “root” problem areas and fix them before they become more widespread.

• Find cost reduction opportunities.

• Improve employee communications and morale and establish better credibility.

• Implement and stay current with world-class practices by comparing results with other businesses.

• Measure and improve performance across the organization.

• Identify and correct any gaps between what is intended and what is actually being delivered.

• Increase the commitment of professionals within the HR department to seek change and focus on continuous improvement in all aspects of their work.

Types of Assessments Offered

HR General —These audits focus on an assessment of the general areas of  the HR function  with  an eye toward court decisions that are being used to determine law or administrative systems that reduce errors and omissions, such as hiring and termination processes, training and development of employees, performance evaluation processes, sexual harassment policies, compensation practices, disciplinary process and documentation, and litigation or investigation issues.

 

Strategic—These types of audits focus on strengths and weaknesses of systems and processes to determine whether or not they are in line with the strategic plan of the HR department and/or the company as a whole (e.g., diversity, employee turnover, length of time to fill an open position, number of employee complaints to assess the employee relations climate, communication with employees, etc.).

 

Affirmative Action —These types of audits focus on the OFCCP regulations requiring specific recordkeeping of job jackets, review of affirmative action plan and statistics, notifications and exhibits.  

 

If you are interested in this type of assessment, please contact me. 

The HR department is working frantically to finish all of the various requirements to close out 2007 and piled on top of those tasks are items that need to be initiated for 2008.   Already the department starts out in the hole or behind.  Analyzing or identifying trends from 2007 is always a want or goal but as usual it now becomes a distant wish or priority as the basic tactical day to day demands are all consuming.  Sorting through the various piles that are coming in from multiple departments from previous year need to be checked and rechecked then submitted for final report and formatted to fit the homegrown excel report.  If one could look across the department as a whole, you see this process repeated again and again.  Regardless of the project; W-2’s for the year, Open Enrollment, Merit/Salary Increases, Vacation Plans, Performance Reviews, Succession Management, Applicant Tracking etc, etc, the list seems endless and the process is antiquated.

This same HR department swore that this year would be different.  In those brief moments, last year when they had a chance to breathe, to see beyond the task at hand, they saw and discussed how much better things could be.  The group talked about getting out in front, becoming proactive, earning a seat at the leadership table.  For the HR group, as it is for so many others it is not about working harder it’s about working smarter.  But for now to them it feels like the movie “Ground Hog Day,” same thing over and over and over again.   

Joe Barrett
Vice President Sales
Achievant