Who will own the corporate (social) desktop?

The enterprise social software market continues to grow and expand as vendors look to become the primary interface of collaboration, conversations, and content between employees, customers, partners, and suppliers to drive workforce productivity and business outcomes – the new corporate desktop.

As the market for social computing matures, organizations continue to struggle with understanding where and how to start, and how these companies can create a sustainable and integrated strategy versus tactical investments that while offering short-term business value, are not integrated into the business or IT infrastructure.

Literally every business software vendor continues to add and expand the portfolio of social capabilities across business functions in varying degrees, which begs the question of how organizations should approach the selection and introduction of these tools and processes.

The following two schools of thought currently dominate how vendors and the market approach both the benefits and value proposition around social tools and capabilities –

Enterprise Wide Social Computing

Vendors including Jive Software, Microsoft Sharepoint, and IBM Lotus Connections to name just a few endorse the value of enterprise-wide collaboration, both internally and externally, driving a new generation of social business. Jive as an example, promotes the integration of not only internal workforce collaboration, but the intersection of employees with customers, partners, and suppliers that drive real business value and how companies actually work and operate to drive business outcomes.

In one example, a customer comment derived from an external community is socialized internally within an internal community, a response generated between the groups, and then published externally as appropriate.

Another argument for enterprise wide social computing is that business software today including ERP, CRM, and even Talent Management solutions are primarily transactional in nature, not used by the majority of the workforce, and even when deployed to the majority of employees, are only used a few times in a year (performance reviews as an example). Moreover, business software today is fragmented and was not developed to enable collaboration or engagement.

Again with the example of Jive Software, Jive states the social business revolution is changing “how work gets done”, and fully intends to be the main destination point for the corporate desktop (or worker) – along with customer, partner etc. Building on this premise, Jive recently introduced the Jive Apps Marketplace , with the intention to deliver integration with business and ERP platforms to “interact with legacy applications to drive business processes and produce results,” showing the example of integrating an SAP workflow approval transaction directly withing Jive without requiring the user to navigate into the SAP system.

One of the arguments alongside an enterprise wide social platform is that of yet another system or application destination, whereby social capabilities should not be disruptive to already entrenched business tools including email, instant messaging, and portals. At the same time, these business social software providers have started to deliver integration points with existing portal vendors, predominately Microsoft SharePoint, based simply on the vast number of organizations adopting SharePoint as the corporate standard for intranet or portal.

A similar discussion around the benefits of enterprise social platforms can be seen in the area of talent management, with specific reference to learning (training) systems. With the recognition today that upwards of 80% of learning is informal and social, the argument is made that corporate learning management systems (LMS), should not (are not) destination points for the workforce, but rather should be federated (integrated) into existing social computing platforms such as SharePoint and others. Or to put another way, why build distinct social capabilities into the LMS platform as a destination point for social learning, but instead provide integration into existing enterprise social platforms as the central destination point for social collaboration. Also reference – http://elearningtech.blogspot.com/2010/04/social-learning-tools-should-not-be.html

A final argument for enterprise social software (and against embedded social capabilities within existing business systems) is the argument that collaboration is not conveniently tied to any given business transaction, but rather a production of cross business unit, departmental and increasingly internal + external collaboration.

Embedded Social Capabilities

The concept of embedded social capabilities promote the concept that the simple ability to collaborate is alone not sufficient, but rather the integration with business systems and data are critical to achieving business outcomes, which at the end of they day is the desired outcome of collaboration.

Vendors including Salesforce.com with the introduction of Chatter, SuccessFactors’ recent acquisition of Cubetree, Saba Collaboration Suite, Cornerstone OnDemand, Jobs2Web, FinancialForce.com, IGLOO software, and many others continue to expand the introduction of social and collaborative capabilities within their respective product suites and by virtue of delivered business domain, are beginning to deliver targeted social functionality integrated and embedded within their over-all solution portfolio.

A few examples of embedded social and transactional functionality include:

FinancialForce.com (built on the Force.com platform and leveraging Salesforce.com’s recently released Chatter platform), offers the example of a solution called “Chatterbox”, whereby based on business rules such as outstanding debt over 90 days, can alert all business users attached to that event and create a collaboration instance for those users to collaborate (chat) on the steps to resolve.

IGLOO software, who works heavily with non-profit, charitable, and higher-education verticals, has delivered pre-built integration with various banking and merchant organizations to deliver an integrated social community with the added ability to manage memberships and donation transactions.

Saba’s Collaboration Suite includes delivered integration with learning content, web conferencing by way of Saba Centra, as well as twitter-like social performance feedback – integrated with Saba’s employee performance management solution.

Jobs2Web includes a number of social recruitment capabilities as part of their overall recruitment product including the ability to create talent communities and directly engage candidates in both current and future employment opportunities. Additionally, the ability to publish jobs directly to consumer social sites including Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter, with the ability to manage, develop and analyze the effectiveness of these social recruitment channels.

A contention from HR and talent management vendors introducing social capabilities is made from the fact that collaboration is really centered about people and who better to manage the social profile and interactions of your entire workforce than the vendors and tools that contain the majority of your employee information.

As can be seen from these vendors’ examples, embedded social capabilities can deliver much targeted benefits derived from specific line of business requirements, where this specific functionality will not be part of those vendors delivering enterprise social software suites, at least not in the short-term.

One of the main arguments against embedded social capabilities is around the potential for “islands of social tools” that have the potential to add to users’ frustration with disparate tools and destinations. This argument is currently compounded by the fact that a number of these vendors offering embedded capabilities are also promoting the applicability of these tools across the enterprise with the same or similar capabilities delivered with the enterprise social software vendors as discussed above. As leaders emerge in these respective domains, expect to see a rationalization of product and go-to-market strategies (as well as market consolidation) where vendors will concentrate on delivering social products and capabilities that align to their given customers and target markets.

Finally, expect to see the large ERP and platform vendors including SAP, Oracle, Microsoft, IBM, and Cisco to introduce and further expand on existing social and collaborative capabilities, with the value proposition of tight integration into existing business processes delivered with their respective product suites.

Moreover, for those organizations looking to create a longer term and sustainable infrastructure to support a more social and collaborative business, understanding the business outcomes you hope to achieve, both short and long term will assist in the creation of a sustainable roadmap as the market for social software continues to mature and expand.

For the foreseeable future, we will continue to see organizations successfully implement both enterprise wide as well as embedded social approaches, with the expectation that vendor consolidation and maturity will result in a shift where we will see clear leaders in those vendors delivering enterprise wide social platforms, and those remaining vendors delivering compelling and very targeted vertical solutions to specific business requirements.

HR – don’t waste an opportunity

Human resource and talent managers need to take a leadership position in defining employee communities & collaboration strategies before its too late. HINT: No one is going to ask you for a employee community and collaboration strategy.

Dear HR, your employees, customers, partners, and suppliers are already using social media to conduct business, build and strengthen relationships, and collaborate in real-time. Unfortunately, most of your workforce is doing this outside the workplace, on consumer social networks, or worse, at a competitor.

If your like most organizations, you are faced with numerous workforce and business challenges in 2010 including improving employee productivity, addressing leadership gaps, filling key positions, preparing for renewed growth, managing low engagement, and retaining top performers to name just a few examples.

If you hope to succeed at addressing the challenges I’ve outlined above, an employee community and collaboration strategy is urgent, not optional. Your workforce is increasingly multi-generational, global, mobile, connected, and internet savvy – do you really believe you can attract, develop, and retain talent without the tools they need to commuicate, collaborative and execute on your companies strategic business intiatives?

So we are in agreement? But wait, nobody is knocking on HR’s door asking for a social community and collaboration strategy, so it must not be a priority, right? Wrong.

Your business has defined strategic goals and objectives for 2010, what are they? What are the pressing business challenges or opportunities your company leadership and managers are focused on every day? What challenges do employees face in executing on the companies business priorities – or have they heard what these are from the leadership team?

I guarantee your company has a strategic business initiative that requires that the workforce fundamentally improve its ability to collaborate and communite to effectively deliver on your business goals, most likely many areas of needed improvement exist.

Who in your organization is responsible to ensure the workforce has the tools and resources to execute on your business priorities? If line managers have this responsibility in your organization, what do they have to say? How could improved collaboration help managers and employees better execute and work together?

How can you get started? Follow these simple steps as guidance in developing a workplace community and collaboration strategy that will provide your organization with the tools and resources your workforce requires to execute in 2010.

1. Start with the end in mind – pick a business objective or goal whereby improvements in collaboration will have a direct impact on the success of this initiative.

2. Get stakeholder(s) on board – identify the key stakeholders responsible based on your chosen business initiative, and work with them in defining needs and priorities. Most likely this will be a combination of line managers, leadership team, marketing, and IT.

3. Understand what will determine measurable success to the business and stakeholders and drive the entire strategy around these success criteria.

4. Provide continual guidance and communication to all stakeholders and people involved to ensure alignment to the measurable objectives and execution on the defined strategy.

5. Monitor and adjust your initiative as required. If the business or priorities change, quickly re-evaluate your strategy to determine if any changes are needed.

6. Share your successes based on the agreed upon success criteria and measurable objectives. Promote the business benefits to other areas of the organization and expand scope and influence.

Human resource and talent managers have a fantastic opportunity to provide the leadership necessary to improve workforce productivity and engagement with improvements in workplace collaboration and social communities – with real business benefits as a result. Don’t waste it.

The Era of Talent Communities and Collaboration

This month and for the first time, Facebook passed Google as the most viewed site in the U.S. While this lead in viewers may be short lived, it is evidence in the power of connections versus content, and confirmation of a new era powered by social networks and collaboration.

With the explosive growth of consumer social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, and Linked, almost all of us at today, across multi-generations, are aware in the power of connecting with people and expertise, and the value this inherently provides to us in enabling social connections, conversations, content, and collaboration.

The significance of connections and collaboration is also evident within business enterprises. The workforce and workplace has changed dramatically; the worker of today is highly educated, interconnected, global, multi-generational, and mobile. As a knowledge worker, the social connections you as an employee have formed, the collaboration and conversations among co-workers and teams, and the resources available to you, have formed the basis of expertise you have required and gained to successfully execute your business objectives and goals.

Leading organizations have recognized this new business era and the power these social business communities provide on managing workforce talent, collaboration, and productivity including:

• Recruiting and hiring top talent – using the power of social networks and talent communities to find, connect, and eventually hire talent into the organization. Talent communities have helped countless organizations reach hard to find passive candidates, extend the employer brand, and reduce costs by finding talent online.

• Learning and collaboration – with upwards of 70% of learning occuring informally verus formally, companies are turning to the power of communities and collaboration to provide real-time, continous, on-the-job training and knowledge-sharing, providing the expertise and business value your workforce requires on-demand.

• Talent & Expertise Location – Finding and connecting with talent across the organization is critical for organizations to effectively and efficiently respond to business initiatives. With the power of social talent profiles including tags and skills, expertise and interests, as well as talent content and connections, business social communities provide an invaluable environment for employees and organizations, resulting in increased workforce productivity and engagement.

• Leadership development – Social communities help in creating an environment of innovation and collaboration, motivating others to align to and execute business strategy, involving employees in enterprise strategy and collaborative decision-making, as well as supporting innovation and idea generation.

The growth in consumer social media has created an influx of expectations in the new workplace to provide these same collaborative solutions to employees in providing the tools and resources the workforce requires, remaining relevant in today’s business environment. Those organizations that leverage these new social and collaborative tools and technologies within the workplace will compete successfully for talent and develop the leaders required for continued business growth and competitiveness.

Five Talent Management Strategies for 2010

If 2009 was the year of economic recession, 2010 will mark the start of the “new economy”. This new economy is shaping up to provide organizations an unprecedented level of change driven by a number of factors including a sustained and slightly growing business environment in most sectors, a slow return to marginal job growth, new regulatory and compliance mandates, as well as a renewed focus on innovation and globalization as business growth and competitiveness intensifies.

As the global economic crisis recedes and these business trends move to the forefront, the management of talent and the readiness of a company’s workforce to adapt to this changing business environment will in large part determine the success or failure of companies to compete for business and talent in this new economy.

Human resources and talent organizations will continue to focus on cost containment and workforce productivity at least in the early part of 2010 as the business outlook slowly improves, but successful organizations will respond by immediately addressing the rapidly approaching new economy and the changing nature of work. The following represent five talent management strategies for actionable results in 2010:

Build Your Talent Plan

Talent and workforce strategies and initiatives remain isolated in most organizations today. Additionally, a lack of any real or substantial talent management plan that aligns and responds to an organizations business priorities is still commonplace in most companies. As the business environment improves, those organizations equipped with a holistic and integrated talent plan that address both short and longer term business strategies, as well as how the business is going to retain and compete for talent, will separate winners from losers in the new economy. Organizations should start by understanding business priorities and how talent and workforce initiatives align and drive to these strategies. Building a talent plan is not done in isolation; engage with key stakeholders including business leaders, line management, and employees to understand current and future priorities that are driving your company direction and investments. By understanding business priorities, your current organizational and workforce capabilities will determine your company’s talent and leadership readiness, where focus needs to be applied, and how success will be determined. As the economy improves the war for the acquisition and retention of talent will further escalate; an organizations talent plan must address the issues of how critical talent and high performers will be engaged and retained, how job roles should be re-defined to deliver on these business priorities, and how talent mobility and job specialization can drive business execution and talent management.

The ability to adapt to a future workforce will also play a critical role in shaping an organizations talent plan. Demographic shifts, globalization, the need for continuous innovation, and the pace of new technologies both at work and home are rapidly changing how people and organizations connect, collaborate, and work. We have already seen many organizations leveraging social and collaborative technologies and strategies as witness to changing organizational and work structures. Understanding how business gets done in your company, how people learn and collaborate, and how your workforce connects with each other and with customers, suppliers, and partners will further provide definition on your talent plan and how prioritized workforce initiatives can be implemented to exploit an opportunity to increase workforce effectiveness and productivity to drive business performance.

Evaluate Technology Investments

Technology is a critical enabler to how people work and interact within and between organizations today. Like talent plans, a large majority of workforce and talent management technology in place at companies today are isolated and not integrated, procured independently across various departments, and lack a vision of how these disparate technologies will deliver on workforce and business processes improvements and enhance workplace productivity. One of the first steps organizations can take in 2010 is to inventory and assess current workforce and talent technologies and create a technology roadmap and plan to align to your companies talent and business priorities, and how current business processes can be improved and provide opportunities for cost reduction and containment. A technology assessment and plan should answer the questions – are these technologies critical as an enabler of our talent and business priorities? How are current business process and technology enabling and improving workforce and talent productivity, engagement, development, and collaboration? Can the organization support technology change and at what level? How costly are these systems to maintain and are we achieving the anticipated value? A thorough examination of technology and vendor product integration points, delivered business process support, and the product user experience should be included as part of your technology assessment. Isolated or poorly integrated systems and business processes are often a key reason of user dissatisfaction with enabling technology. On the vendor side, a core component of your technology assessment and roadmap must include how your workforce and talent management vendors’ roadmap, strategy, and cost structure align to and facilitate your business priorities. Areas to include in a vendor assessment include the future development roadmap, how often releases will be made available, the vendors strategy on technology and integration architectures, plans on delivery models (cloud computing, on-premise, hybrid models, multi-tenancy, data center operations etc.), and over-all vendor profitability, growth, possible company acquisition or takeover realities, and the over-all vendor business strategy and how this aligns to your company and talent plans. Finally, an often over-looked but critical component of your technology assessment and roadmap should be focused on the outputs of technology enablement, or more specifically, how the data and information within these systems will be used for driving talent and business decisions. An information architecture assessment can be used to assess and determine how data, systems integration as well as reporting and business intelligence strategies will be enabled from workforce and talent technologies.

Measure

Measurement of the business and talent impact on workforce initiatives is a required competency for any human resource and talent practitioner, whereby not measuring is merely a choice company’s make for various reasons, not by lack of necessity. Measuring the impact and effectiveness of your company’s talent plans are critical to the sustained acceptance and financial support of continued investment in workforce led initiatives. At any company, there are a multitude of workforce initiatives that can be implemented as an enabler of your talent and business plan, choosing and continuing with the right strategy cannot be a mechanism of simple implementation by vote or approval without the understanding of how these initiatives are impacting your business. Furthermore, as witnessed from the economic meltdown over the last 24 months, a reactionary approach to workforce and talent management by way of companies initiating substantial headcount and pay reductions without any real understanding of the mid to long term business impact or workforce plan, spells only serious concern for these companies and ironically may end up costing organizations more in reduced productivity and increased costs of turnover in the long run as the economic outlook improves and top performers look elsewhere for employment opportunities. Similarly, many organizations that have invested in recent learning and talent management strategies or technology applications are still unclear as to the measurable business impact of these initiatives on employee engagement, productivity, and any improvement in organizational capabilities as a result. Workforce and talent intelligence and analysis can offer organizations a wealth of information on the impact of these initiatives and assist in developing workforce plans that offer predictive insight into the potential impact of talent strategies and decisions.

Educate

The pace of business and technological change will continue to increase and expand as we enter this new economy in 2010. This changing business environment, the changing nature of work, and the rapid introduction of new technologies will stretch the capabilities of human resource and talent professionals to educate, understand, and implement strategies and technologies to cope with a new and ever-adapting business environment. The impact of a new business environment will stretch across the entire organization – requiring new and upgraded skills, competencies, and specialization critical to navigating and succeeding in a changing workplace. The current digital age of social networks, global collaboration, mobile and messaging platforms to name a few, are fundamentally changing the way people work and business operates, requiring companies to educate and understand how a new workplace reality impacts your organizations business strategy, culture, leadership development, employee learning and development, and much more.

Human resource and talent leaders should focus on educating and understanding the impact of these macro-economic conditions, the changing landscape of labor and employment, and the effect and influence new technologies will have on the very nature of work. More importantly, this new world of work offers the opportunity for human resource and talent leaders to drive transformational change within organizations that can have extraordinary and lasting impact on business success.

Communicate

The one constant in 2010 will be change. Those companies that navigate and embrace the new economy and the challenges of change will succeed and flourish. In times of change in life or business, the ability to effectively and continuously communicate is critical to long term sustainability and achievement. As businesses react to a new economy, companies will be under tremendous pressure to adapt to a changing environment. Changing business priorities, new product or services, globalization, or new competitive threats all translate to the ability of organizations and their workforce to react and respond. Moreover, these business changes will translate to new or expanded priorities and strategies for human resource and talent leaders to prepare and take action. In times of change, people and therefore workforces by nature become concerned and apprehensive, which can result in lost productivity, attrition, or negative actions against the company that all can have dire consequences. In 2010, human resources and talent leaders must make continuous workforce communication a top priority if they are to successfully navigate in the new economy. A change readiness assessment of your workforce can provides details into the capabilities and assess the degree to which your organization is prepared to respond and embrace major change initiatives. Employee surveys offer an opportunity to gage and understand the current state of your workforce and where change efforts can and should concentrate for maximum benefit. Shifting business priorities and business outlook must be communicated as to continuously ensure the entire organizations is clear and aligned to how they can effectively execute on these new priorities. Providing an open and honest opportunity for employees to provide feedback and communication offer transparency and valuable insights into the state of your workforce and provide a chance to respond and further build strong relationships and trust during times of uncertainty and change.

Oracle Fusion HCM – A First Look

After more than two years of anticipation, Oracle officially announced Fusion Applications at the most recent Oracle OpenWorld Conference in San Francisco during Larry Ellison’s keynote.

The announcement and brief demonstration offered a first glimpse at the upcoming Fusion Application suite and offered insight into the planned functionality, user experience and availability, but also left many questions unanswered, and will continue to remain unanswered for the foreseeable future.

Larry Ellison started his introduction of Fusion applications by reiterating Oracle’s commitment to Applications Unlimited, or continued support and new release enhancements of existing applications including PeopleSoft, Oracle E-Business Suite, Siebel, and JD Edwards. Larry’s commitment extended to the next 10 years at the very least, with no forced migration to Oracle Fusion Applications when available.

According to Larry, Oracle Fusion Applications are now “code-complete” and currently in testing, with planned availability sometime in 2010. Looking at Ellison’s slide on customers involved in reviewing early versions of the Fusion Application code base, it certainly seems as though a large number of customers played an integral role in evaluating and scrutinizing the breadth and depth of functionality targeted for initial delivery.

The initial Fusion Application availability in 2010 will include a somewhat complete suite of ERP applications primary targeted to service industries (lacking both discrete and process manufacturing components) and include:

• Oracle Fusion Human Capital Management
• Oracle Fusion Financial Management
• Oracle Fusion Customer Relationship Management
• Oracle Fusion Procurement
• Oracle Fusion Supply Chain Management

Additionally, Oracle Fusion Applications will include both replacement ERP products such as Human Capital Management, as well as new Fusion Applications including the announced Talent Management and Incentive Compensation Management that can be deployed as stand-alone applications and co-exist with existing implementations of PeopleSoft and Oracle e-Business Suite as examples.

Of significant importance, Larry communicated that Oracle Fusion Applications are “SaaS” ready, implying the ability for Oracle applications to be deployed as a service in addition to an on-premise installation, although he fell short on details as to if Oracle will actually host and deliver Fusion Applications directly from Oracle or from the partner community.

The pace of product innovation will offer unique challenges with respect to product roadmap and new release availability. Oracle will need to manage new release availability based on both on-premise and hosted delivery models, where on-premise customers of Oracle Fusion will be less willing to invest time and resources to support in-house effort on a rolling 6 month incremental product upgrade schedule.

Component product availability of strategic applications including Talent Management and Incentive Management may offer opportunity for a more aggressive release schedule of these applications in comparison to transactional oriented applications such as benefits and payroll, resulting in a more consumable product release strategy for customers.

Summary highlights of Fusion Applications include:

• Built on open standards technology and developed with the Java programming language, Oracle Fusion Applications is completely developed on Oracle technology including Oracle Fusion Middleware and Oracle JDeveloper.

• A next-generation user interface and user experience blending transactional, actionable, and social content enabling task oriented business process management.

• Embedded analytics and management by exception insight offering real-time insight into key performance indicators and metrics, assisting organizations in making informed and forecasted decisions on key business initiatives and processes.

• Social media integration expanding social collaboration and interaction including instant messaging, profiles, connections, tagging, activity streams, and status updates.

• Component architecture offering the ability to license and implement stand-alone applications versus suite-wide requirements.

While the first look introduction of Oracle Fusion applications confirmed they are indeed real and tangible, a number of questions and customer concerns still remain unanswered, most likely to be address closer to the anticipated 2010 release date.

• Upgrade path – Oracle has spoken and presented over the past couple of years on their plan to offer a complete upgrade patch (upgrade scripts) for PeopleSoft, Oracle eBusiness Suite, and Siebel customers on various release levels. At the same time, a clear upgrade path and commitment is not readily available.

• A more clear and committed product roadmap and availability of functionality is still of critical importance to customers we speak with on a daily basis. While we can say with a good degree of confidence the availability of certain functionality including human resource, benefits, payroll, and talent management, lesser installed application modules (read smaller customer base) including Pension Administration, Time & Labour, Stock Administration, Workforce Scheduling, Services Procurement, and Campus Solutions to name a few, will determine customer uptake of Fusion.

• Product Swap – Oracle has stated in the past their intention to offer like-for-like product swaps (zero dollar license exchange of an existing application for the same functional module within Oracle Fusion), but again, a commitment and policy remain outstanding, but we anticipate will be made clear closer to product availability. Additionally, zero-dollar license exchange may not necessarily translate to the same support fee level when transitioning to Oracle Fusion Applications.

• An early question when Oracle first announced Fusion Applications was the committed database support, especially for this customers looking to remain with an on-premise installation of Oracle Fusion. Whereas Oracle e-Business suite only support the Oracle database, applications including PeopleSoft support a number of targeted databases whereby existing customers today have significant investments in database applications including IBM DB2 and Microsoft SQL Server.

Below represent a few screenshots of the Oracle Fusion HCM applications as demonstrated during the most recent Oracle OpenWorld Conference:

Oracle PeopleSoft Enterprise Human Capital Management 9.1 Enhancements

The upcoming release of Oracle PeopleSoft Human Capital Management 9.1 represents Oracles next immediate release of PeopleSoft HCM since release 9.0 in December 2006.

For those considering plans around an upgrade or a new implementation, Oracle PeopleSoft Enterprise HCM 9.1 offers a number of key enhancements across the entire suite of products that offer both opportunities and risk (upgrade planning) as it relates to new and enhanced features especially in the areas of talent management, workforce scheduling, and workforce service delivery.

Planned enhancements targeted for Oracle PeopleSoft Human Capital Management 9.1 include:

Core Workforce Management (Human Resource, Payroll, Time and Labor, Workforce Scheduling)

• Introduction of Global Payroll for Argentina, China, and Thailand

• Adoption of the PeopleSoft Approval Workflow Engine in Time and Labor

• New and improved Retro (Retro-active) Payroll Processing

• Integration with Oracle Workforce Scheduling (OWS), the acquired solution from TempoSoft. This includes bi-directional integration between OWS and Human Resources, Absence Management, as well as Time and Labor.

• Enhanced Chart field integration with PeopleSoft Financials

• A new Extended Leave Framework that will help optimizes extended and global requirements such as FMLA in the United States, ESA in Canada, Education Leave in Germany, and SSP/SMP in the UK.

Talent Management (Recruitment, Performance, Career and Succession Planning, Profile Management, Learning Management, Compensation)

• Ability to identify and visually display multiple levels of organizational goals in ePerformance, including the ability for employees to associate individual performance goals with organizational objectives from within their performance document.

• Manager and employee self service access to career planning functionality, including the ability to define and develop career paths

• The ability to develop more robust succession plans to identify, track, and manage key employees in talent pools

• Real-time hierarchical visualization of incumbents and successors, including relevant profile data and a configurable performance axis grids for rating performance and potential (9-box performance grid as an example)

• Recruitment Integration to Microsoft Outlook calendaring that will streamline the interview scheduling process by allowing recruiters and managers to schedule appointments in Microsoft Outlook 2007, with data synchronization back to the Recruiting Solutions application.

• Screening enhancements include the ability to filter out unqualified applicants by gathering and evaluating responses to online questions before the applicant is allowed to complete the application process. Online screening capability and more.

• Learning portfolio management functionality to automate and streamline the planning, tracking, and analysis phases for managing budgets, learning demand, resources, cost, and revenue.

• Much improved integration with PeopleSoft core workforce modules including: the ability to add learning directly to an employee’s development plan associated learning programs to talent pools in succession management, the creation of learning objectives from performance plans, and more.

• Talent Prospector is a new solution offering providing a recruitment candidate relationship management solution for building and maintaining candidate and prospect relationships and helping organizations find passive and active talent. In this first release, Talent Prospector is focused primarily on managing communications and events through rich text, HTML email campaigns.

Workforce Service Delivery (Self Service, Portal, Help Desk, Workforce Communications, Business Intelligence)

• Enhanced Employee and Manager Self Service capability in the areas of electronic signoff on performance documents, leave management, pay slips, recruitment job offer management, and manager compensation planning self service.

• A new release of the PeopleSoft Enterprise Portal, including key enhancements in the area of social collaboration and networking with features like Wikis, Blogs, Tagging, Feeds, Social Bookmarking, Polling, Discussion Forums, and Document Management

• A new release of PeopleSoft Help Desk for Human Resources including enhancements in the area of case management and multi-channel enablement.

• A new product, PeopleSoft Workforce Communications, a solution for planning and delivering HR programs and surveys to the workforce and analyzing and reporting the resulting trends and insight.

• A new release of Oracle Human Resource Analytics with new subject and analysis areas including talent management as well as continued additions to the available metrics, dimensions, and reporting dashboards.

If your organization is starting to understand and formulate plans around PeopleSoft HCM 9.1, we can help provide guidance on strategy, impact, and next steps. Please don’t hesitate to contact us at: info@vanaconsulting.com, or call us at: (905) 336-8952.

Announcing the Launch of VanaHRM®

As a provider of software, consulting, and outsourcing services dedicated to workforce and talent management, we are continuously listening to our customers and looking for new and innovative services and products we can deliver to clients to provide tangible, sustainable, and cost-effective solutions that drive business results.

Small and medium size business enterprises understand that attracting, developing, and retaining a talented and productive workforce is critical to their success and growth. At the same time, with resource and budgets continuously under pressure, this is a daunting task when asked to manage workforce costs and drive business performance from top talent with limited resources, manual paper processes, and a low appetite to install, manage, and maintain a growing list of software and hardware products. Moreover, feedback from our small and medium size enterprise clients was how they could deploy an integrated, easy to use, and affordable solution to manage their entire workforce.

At the same time, we have witnessed the success of vendors including Salesforce.com and Zoho among many others in delivering customer and sales management solutions to small and medium size businesses, where software-as-a-service (SaaS) and cloud computing have quickly moved to the standard model of delivering highly secure, low cost, integrated, and on-demand web based solutions to companies today. The value proposition of no installations, no upgrade and support hassles, embedded configurability to adapt to your unique business requirements, and 24/7 accessibility, have translated to real cost savings and business impact for thousands of organizations world-wide.

Today, we are very excited to announce the availability of VanaHRM®. VanaHRM® (Vana Human Resource Management) is an on-demand, software as a service (SaaS) enabled human resource and talent management solution for small to mid size businesses built on the Zoho® People Management platform. VanaHRM® offers organizations a completely integrated, feature-rich, and turn-key solution to managing your entire workforce.

With the introduction of VanaHRM®, our goal was to deliver this same value to organizations looking for an integrated workforce and talent management solution, at an affordable price, and where organizations could be up and running in hours, if not minutes. Additionally, as organizations continued to grow and expand operations, VanaHRM® delivers the flexibility and adaptability to respond to unique organizational and business requirements, without the worry of expensive system customizations or support issues.

VanaHRM® is specifically tailored to small and mediums size businesses that need to manage and develop a productive workforce, reduce administrative burden, and maximize the potential of their talent to deliver business results, all at a low cost of deployment and rapid time to benefit.

VanaHRM’s software-as-a-service (SaaS) enabled human resource and talent management solution helps companies deliver bottom-line results and process efficiencies with an integrated suite of applications to manage the entire workforce life cycle from attracting and hiring top talent, automating administrative processes including benefits and leave, developing leaders and managing employee performance, to compensating and rewarding your workforce.

VanaHRM® represents a key component of our continued success in our mission to deliver ground-breaking results and support to our customers by delivering tangible, sustainable and cost-effective workforce and talent management solutions that drive business results.

Software as a Service (SaaS) Benefits for Workforce and Talent Management

Software as a Service (SaaS) based technology solutions for managing talent and workforce business processes and initiatives is not a new concept for many human resource, payroll, and talent professionals. Since the definition of SaaS takes on many meanings, one could argue payroll vendors such as ADP and Ceridian have been delivering payroll software as a service for decades. Additionally, web-based software in the talent space delivered over the internet has been available for well over a decade in early areas including recruitment, learning, performance management, and most recently full fledged human resource management solutions from vendors including Workday and Ultimate Software.
What has changed and evolved in more recent years is the broad and wide-spread adoption of software as a service and cloud based computing models; based in large part to the rapidly expanding definition and inherent functional and technical progress these computing platforms and delivery models have introduced over the last few years.

Additionally, as software as a service based solutions have become more mainstream, the benefits of this paradigm shift have become evident and have quickly transitioned from one of theoretical discussion to actual benefit realization and success stories.

With rapid progression and evolution with software as a service and cloud based delivery models, comes increased confusion on what these models represent today, and what benefits they can provide human resource and talent organizations looking to take advantage of these delivery models in moving forward on key strategies and business process improvement initiatives.

The following represent 10 key benefits of software as a service (SaaS) based solutions to enabling talent and workforce management strategies and business processes.

1. Lower Initial Costs

One of the most discussed benefits of a software as a service model is the ability to pay in a subscription or utility based license model versus a one-time upfront license and annual maintenance and support cost for the application. Most SaaS based vendors offer both monthly and annual based subscription pricing, usually employee-based pricing (a dollar amount charged per employee per month as an example) in the case of workforce or talent based solutions, which is an all inclusive price that includes both the license of the application in addition to ongoing vendor support. The lack of a large initial license fee often provides organizations that ability to fund these initiatives based on operational or departmental budgets versus the process of requesting a capital expenditure for such initiatives, which of course can risk non-approval or delay based on competing business priorities.

Additionally, as the software solution is delivered as a service, primarily over the internet and accessible by a standard web browser, there exists no (or very limited) requirement for the procurement or installation of additional hardware or software as a prerequisite to the deployment of these solutions – again promoting the benefit of a lower initial cost structure.

2. Rapid time to deployment

Another key benefit of the software as a service delivery model is the opportunity to quickly deploy solutions to your workforce and business stakeholders. Historically, the requirements of on-premise based software solutions such as ERP based human resource and payroll applications are resource intensive in that they require the installation and configuration of corporate hardware, software, security infrastructure components, and a seemingly endless array of database back-ups, copies, environments, and system versions, which are both time and resource intensive. By eliminating the initial requirements on hardware and software installation and the commitment of IT and project based resources required to setup hardware and install software, organizations can benefit from reduced implementation timelines and start benefiting from your investment more quickly.

Additionally, many organizations are realizing the lack of upfront installation and database environment and replication requirements allows them more time to prototype the actual solution, providing the ability to quickly solicit feedback from key stakeholders and employees, and then make adjustments as needed before go-live. A good example is with performance review and appraisal software whereby employee and manager acceptance and education are critical to a successful deployment and adoption. Providing the ability for a pilot group of employees to provide real-world feedback on your new performance review system before go-live can offer critical insight and opportunity to adjust as required.

SaaS based solutions are forcing organizations to re-focus on strategy and business process as the availability of software is no longer an issue. Moreover, one of the inherent risks of implementing SaaS based solutions is to ignore strategy or business process and focus simply on celebrating the quickness and cost-effectiveness of replicating your current process with technology automation. If your performance management process needs a strategic review or business process fine tuning, simple automation alone will not produce the desired benefits of user adoption, employee engagement, or performance alignment, resulting in the anticipated benefits for the most part lost.

3. Adaptability and Configurability

Many SaaS providers discuss the delivered benefit of flexibility and configurability of their platforms to address unique client business requirements. Historically, legacy on-premise vendors have included a certain level of configurability within their software applications, but often resulting in the requirement to heavily modify (customize) the delivered application resulting in both support and upgrade issues over time.

It was only a few years ago that one of the main concerns with the adoption of SaaS based solutions was the inability to support client specific requirements by way of adaptability or customization. This has changed rapidly whereby most SaaS vendors today offer highly configurable applications providing the ability to tailor these solutions to client specific requirements without the need (or ability) to modify the underlying software code, thereby benefiting from both configurability and adaptability, but avoiding the costs of deploying and maintaining a custom coded solution that increases the cost of ownership overtime.

One of the main reasons software as a service based providers were able to respond quickly to configurability was based on the underlying architecture of these applications. For those vendors offering a multi-tenant architecture for customers, these providers were almost obligated to quickly adapt to meet the growing needs of customer business requirements or risk losing those customers altogether. In a multi-tenant architecture, all customers are on the same platform and usually software release level, which offers substantial benefits to both the customer and provider to which we will discuss in the next section. In regards to adaptability, this initially resulted in the inability of customers to heavily adapt the application, as without configurability, all customers on this multi-tenant architecture would have needed to agree to what customizations would be done by each other. Moreover, SaaS based providers have quickly responded by offering a large degree of adaptability and configurability in their solutions, offering the ability for clients to adapt the solution to meet their business requirements, at the same time, this adaptability is only relevant to them, and does not impact other customer implementations.

The performance review process is again a good example of the need for client adaptability and configurability. As almost every organizations has a unique performance appraisal document, performance review and approval process, as well as unique competencies and objectives that represent the clients business, the ability to configure the system to meet these requirements is mandatory and expected by the client.

Moreover, the ability of these vendors to offer client configurability and adaptability, without the need to customize the delivered application or code, therefore resulting in limited IT involvement or overhead, is yet another key benefit realized with Software as a Service based solutions

4. Seamless updates and upgrades

With traditional on-premise applications, companies were forced to budget and schedule for patch/fix updates and new release upgrades, often resulting in a substantial re-investment (based on the initial implementation) of time and resources.

For those familiar or have implemented ERP based HR and Payroll applications, most organizations have full-time resources dedicated to the implementation and maintenance of support fixes, as well as budget upgrades, usually completed once every 2-5 years based on complexity and cost. ERP (especially payroll) applications can be extremely time-consuming in downloading and installing quarterly tax changes, year end payroll filings, and ensuring all fixes and patches are up to date. Additionally, the management of code fixes can be a nightmare in itself with perquisites, bundles, testing, deployment, and so forth.

Additionally, the ability of organizations to take advantage of new release versions from vendors is also time and resource intensive as the client is responsible for the application, installation, and testing of this new version before moving to production. If a customer has implemented a large number of applications – e.g. human resource, benefits, payroll, self-service, time management, the upgrade process can involve a considerable cost factor.

Finally, the ability to take advantage of new functionality from on-premise vendors, such a talent management solutions, usually involves requirement to be on the latest release level. Moreover as discussed previously, the complexities and costs associated with in-premise upgrades often means organizations do not take advantage of these on-premise solutions

Alternatively, Software as Service providers manage all system updates and upgrades on behalf of the customer. Since the SaaS provider manages all updates and upgrades, there are no patches for customers to download or install.

For those vendors offering a multi-tenant architecture whereby all customers are on the same software deployment, the SaaS provider can make all patches, as well as new software updates available to all customers simultaneously.

Most SaaS most providers have quarterly or annual updates offering new functionality and services. An additional core benefit of the software as a service delivery model is the ability for all customers to be on the latest release at all times once distributed by the vendor, removing any barriers to taking advantage of new functionality when organizations are ready.

5. Reduced administrative burden

As we’ve already touched upon, the lack of requirement to purchase and install additional hardware of software reduces the administrative burden on IT and business users to implement and support these applications over time.

The benefits become even more compound and apparent when discussing the installation of support patches, and upgrades to new release levels. With on premise installations, each initiative usually requires the scheduled management of system back-up, database replication, new software environment creation, and more.

When evaluating SaaS based solutions, many organizations neglect to remember the additional servers, database, and operating systems licenses and versions that were required over time to sustain current applications in their environment. One of the most common requirements I’ve seen is organizations running on-premise applications on out-dated and unsupported operating systems and databases such a Windows NT and Microsoft SQL Server 2000, which still have not budgeted for these applications to be upgraded to a supported release level. With SaaS based solutions, these requirements disappear, immediately.

Finally, with respect to workforce and talent solutions, many organizations are looking to expand these applications from initial human resource deployments to company-wide deployments of applications such as employee self-service, and learning management. In this example, the number of users will usually increase dramatically from a handful to literally thousands. Is your on premise solution able to scale to meet this increase in users? Is additional hardware needed? With SaaS based solutions, the vendor maintains the scalability and accessibility of the solution, and adds more hardware and software as needed as their customer base grows. This vendor maintained scalability ensures that no matter how much your company grows, these solutions will be available with the performance expected.

6. Increased User Adoption

On-premise based solutions often were not designed and developed for the casual or self-service user, but rather for a small number of administrative or “power” users, with the expectation these users were well versed in IT and computer based programs. Furthermore, often times with on-premise software, self-service functionality has been retro-fitted into a legacy data model intended for core administrative users and hence lacks the understanding and user experience expected by these casual and non-experience users.
SaaS based applications have predominately grown up on the internet. Moreover, these applications have been built for all users, both casual and power users. Therefore, SaaS applications tend to have much higher adoption rates, with a lower learning curve.

Additionally, in the example of SaaS based talent and workforce solutions, these applications have been built for the entire workforce in mind, not just a limited subset of administrative users. Talent management solutions including recruitment, performance, learning, and succession management require a larger number of users – applicants, employees, managers, etc., resulting in the ability for these solutions to support a user experience and intuitiveness conducive to supporting a user community made up of various levels of technological prowess.

Finally, as most people of all ages are online today and part of growing online social communities, SaaS based applications, accessible over the internet and available any time and anywhere; tend to have much higher adoption rates.

7. Software Quality

Another benefit promoted by SaaS vendors (especially those offering a multi-tenant architecture) is that all customers benefit from each other, whereby the collective fixes and updates delivered to each customer is immediately available to all. Moreover, the example is that all customers are “banging” on the solution and working out any kinks, whereby everyone benefits when an issue is resolved by the vendor.

Moreover, SaaS vendors benefits from economies of scale, increasing the stability, security, and robustness of these solutions.

8. Security

A lot has been discussed previously on the security of SaaS based solutions, and any inherent risks associated with providing corporate today “outside the firewall” over the internet.
There will also be those organizations that refuse to make available certain corporate information outside the company firewall over the internet, regardless of the security mechanisms in place by SaaS vendors.

The goods news is that most SaaS based vendors have focused and delivered a compelling and comprehensive security implementation, that I will argue surpasses most organizations internal security protocols and implementation. (Even if your application is internal to your firewall, this doesn’t eliminate the threat of internal employee based security concerns).

Most SaaS providers today are what are referred to as “SAS 70 compliant”. SAS 70 stands for Statement on Auditing Standard Number 70 and is a widely adopted standard recognized by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) as an acceptable way for companies to verify a service organization’s controls without having to conduct separate audits.

Additionally, most SaaS vendors include all the technical security buzzwords that deliver a secure and monitored application environment including SSL, Role Based Security, LDAP authentication, back-up and replication, encryption of data, and a commitment to 99.9% software availability.

SaaS vendor today are also starting to deliver a completely encrypted environment for all data within the system (including the sending of data over the internet). Today, most human resource and payroll systems (including ERP systems) are encrypting deemed sensitive information including Social Security Numbers, Birth Date, Compensation Rate, and other identified fields, but the remaining information is not encrypted in the solution (database) and is therefore open to potential security breaches or viewing by personnel that are not intended (DBA).

9. Integration

One of the primary concerns with SaaS based solutions is the anticipated costs of integration with other client facing systems (where those are required). This concern really falls into two main issues, the accessibility to these SaaS based solutions to develop integrations, and the potential complexities and resources need to develop.

Most SaaS based vendors do not offer direct access to the database for integration development (for security and additional reasons), but rather offer integration ability on the form of pre-defined API’s and/or file import/export functionality. If these API’s are not well defined, this could limit the ability for clients to develop required integration points. Additionally, flat file integration has inherent limitations in scope and security (even though it remains today the primary method of integration by far). Finally, the learning curve on new SaaS based technologies including web services, SOA, Integration Brokers, can be steep and take time.

Fortunately, as SaaS vendors were quick to address concerns on security and adaptability, they are also moving extremely quickly on improving integration capabilities and therefore reducing costs and time in developing these integration points.

Additionally, as more and more software vendors move to a SaaS and Cloud Computing Model, providers are developing and releasing pre-built integration points to various third-party services and partner product offerings

Workday is an example whereby the Workday Benefits Network, part of their Human Capital Management offering, delivers pre-built integrations that connect to benefits providers, eliminating the need to client organizations to develop these integration points. The same can be said for talent management providers whom are delivering integration points to SaaS based complementary offerings including social media, learning content, competency libraries, back-ground check providers and more.

As more and more software providers move their solutions online, this is creating a network affect whereby these SaaS and Cloud based offerings are developing open and standards based integration protocols enabling organizations to select and eventually plug-and-play with various solutions by combining widgets and mashup environments to support various business initiatives. In the example of workforce and talent applications, integration points will become much more seamless with software and service providers, providing the ability to pick and choose from different offerings that best support your business needs and come together in a seamless and secure online environment. Where are not there yet, but the future is in the clouds.

10. Faster Innovation

We have already witnessed SaaS vendors delivering new functionality at a rapid pace of innovation, often times delivering new versions on a quarterly basis. While this might not be seen as a great advantage to some, many organizations are left at a stand-still with on-premise and ERP solutions whereby the solution functionality does not meet their client specific requirements, or is only available in a future release that requires the client to invest in a time and resource intensive system upgrade. When organizations do not proceed on key business priorities due to lack of system or technology availability, everyone in the organization suffers. Far too often, human resource and talent priorities are pushed to the back-burner waiting for the IT organization to plan an upgrade of the ERP or on-premise solution, sometimes scheduled for years in the future.

Finally, the most successful organizations look at strategy before technology, and have compelling and business-aligned workforce and talent priorities that are supported across the organization. When these are in place, organizations quickly turn their focus on how they can quickly and cost-effectively deliver on these workforce and talent priorities, and where the advantages of Software as a Service based solutions become crystal clear.

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Making the Business Case for Workforce Analytics

Guest Post by Bruce Johnson

The first step is often one of the hardest. HR executives seeking to develop a repeatable and reliable system for workforce analysis are faced with an internal competition for capital investments. Even in good times, CFOs and Boards and other executives may challenge the investment required to develop such a solution and question the potential benefits. In challenging economic times, the problem of developing a business case is simply greater. How should we answer the demand for measurable Return on Investment from Workforce Analytics and leap the hurdle rate for Internal Rate of Return on the necessary investment?

That dilemma is reflected in the gap noted in the introductory entry here between the aspirations of HR leaders for better alignment of HR metrics with business objectives and the limited adoption of workforce analytic systems: Getting Real About Workforce Analytics.
As a consultant, I’ve worked with many HR and HRIT executives over the years to craft a business case and value proposition for adoption of HR decision support and workforce analytic solutions. Methods have differed. Some have been very successful; others, not so much. But key to any attempt is to be honest about the challenges in developing a business case.

* Few organizations have a good baseline measure of their workforce reporting and analytics costs. In some, much of the analytic work for managing their workforce is done in individual or departmental systems that one client called ‘coping systems’ where even the direct costs of labor and office spreadsheets and data bases are deeply entangled with other costs and processes. Some reporting and analysis costs too are difficult to separate from overall costs of HRMS licensing and maintenance. Even when HRMS reporting and query inventories extend to thousands of reports, those costs are often viewed primarily as sunk costs that cannot be recovered and so provide their own justification for inertia.

* More fundamentally, from a cost management perspective, many costs associated with a lack of a workforce analytics or HR decision support system are opportunity costs – difficult to quantify and hard to guarantee. What is the cost associated with a poor decision in compensation, or with laying off critical workforce capacity and knowledge during a reduction in force? What costs are associated with continuing to ‘drill in a dry hole’ with a recruiting source that offers few or poor candidates? What costs are incurred when an unforeseen lack of workforce capacity due to terminations and retirements impact customer satisfaction or the delivery of critical products or services? What are the costs of hiring and training a new employee for a position that might have been filled by an employee just laid off from another position?

* Of course, some costs may be quantified and reduced or displaced by a robust decision support and analytic reporting system. One client maintained a stable of five contractors to meet demands for HR reporting with an ever-growing inventory of more than a thousand custom written reports and an ever-growing backlog. Another global client had five different data warehouses for HR reporting with considerable infrastructure cost but with a result that produced endless arguments about whose data and metric derivations were most correct. But none of these costs match the potential for benefits from a fully realized analytic solution.

* There is a related problem however in counting the benefits derived from any decision support system. Analytics provide insight that can guide decisions, but value is realized through the decisions and actions that may be taken to improve other processes and strategies. Without good communications and sponsorship, the value of those improvements may be assigned to the actions alone without credit (or learning the value of) the decision support system. By itself, analysis provides ‘fertilizer’ for robust growth in both efficiency and effectiveness. But as a labor economist once noted “fertilizer without soil is just a pile of….”

Without action, the insights provided by analytics are sterile. So it is important in implementing any decision support system to closely couple that system with real decision making, to position analytic capabilities and information with real empowered decision makers and to create the context for action.

So how do insightful HR leaders make the business case for workforce analytics? How answer the challenge ‘where is the ROI?’ For some executives, the value of moving to an analytics and metric based approach to Human Capital Management is intuitive and essential — decisions about who to hire, how to deploy and develop the workforce, how to compensate and retain critical employees, how to manage workforce capacity and capabilities against changing demand and new business initiatives – should be fact based. Investments and initiatives in workforce management and HR services should provide provable and reliable business results. But other old-school executives, especially in difficult economic times, may consider HR to be simply an overhead cost that should be reduced to the greatest possible extent.

How to get started then? The promise of an analytic approach is based on future value delivered rather than cutting current costs that may not be clearly visible anyway. The approach to get to initial investment in an organization will differ with the culture as well as the business environment. But some general lessons can be drawn from experience.

* Start small. Given the enormous potential we see for value delivered through an analytic approach, it is tempting for some to look for a big bang approach – integrating data and metrics from all potential HR systems, from Finance and Operations and Customer systems as well, and from external sources for benchmarks and labor market data all at once. But such an approach inevitably underestimates the challenges from unknowns in getting to such a solution while raising the stakes for investment. But even if it were possible to snap your fingers and put such a technical solution in place magically, doing so would not successfully create the capability envisioned. An incremental approach not only lowers the hurdle to achieve funding, it also allows for essential learning, skill and organizational development along the way.

* Keep and communicate a business focus. It is important to remember that the problem we are trying to solve is not the lack of a fully realized Workforce Analytics system – despite the advice of consultants and thought leaders and your own understanding of the general value of such a system. Analytics and decision support systems are best understood as capabilities helping to solve real business problems and support business objectives. Keeping that focus will not only help to win initial funding but also to manage stakeholders and sponsors throughout the development process.

* Serve disruptive changes in HR and in the Business. Moving to analytics based HR and workforce management may itself be a disruptive change for an organization, but many implementations of analytic capabilities have also begun and delivered value coupled with other disruptive changes in HR or in business operations. Programs launched under the banner of “HR Transformation” – moving to a shared services model and centers of excellence, implementing new HRMS, Web Portals and Talent Management systems – generate needs for improved and standardized visibility to workforce information and metrics. Well designed analytics systems and initiatives can help to meet those needs and also support, with metrics and information, a well managed transition. Similarly, major mergers and acquisitions generate needs for improved visibility and measured progress toward realizing the business benefits intended from a merger or acquisition; workforce information and decision support should be a key part of that process.

* Take some risks. Of course, any new system designed to change the way business operates involves risk. Because so many organizations lack baseline visibility to integrated HR data and information about their workforce, implementing a decision support system for managing people necessarily involves many unknowns and uncertainties. Without that visibility, it is a stretch to promise and deliver specific cost savings or improvements in productivity. Many know from experience as well as intuition that the benefits are there and essential, but realizing them requires that the risks be identified and managed as well along an incremental process.

Social Media and Strategic Workforce Planning

Strategic workforce planning is the process of analyzing and forecasting the talent a company will need to achieve its strategic business goals and objectives. The process of strategic workforce planning is both a continuous and highly interactive business strategy that lends itself very well to the incorporation of social media strategies to enable collaboration, communication, and conversation across the organization.

Social Media can play an effective role in the workforce planning process by bringing together people, process, and information that is critical to a successful talent management strategy.

Internal and External Demand Planning

The determination of the organizations strategic workforce needs (demand) and critical workforce segments involves a multitude of strategic conversations and collaboration on such topics including business strategies and outlook, culture and values, budget, service agreements, corporate initiatives, and more, that will impact the workforce demand planning and analysis process. By leveraging social media tools including wikis, forums, blogs, content management tools and more, an organization can continuously converse and collaborate with key business leaders and executives across the organization, ensuring leaders are aligned on focused demand strategies.

A key issue with the workforce planning process is keeping everyone informed and aligned as business conditions and strategies change over time. All too often, critical business decisions are not widely communicated nor reflected in business and workforce planning strategies. Social media offers the flexibility and agility of instant collaboration and social communication as business strategies change, whereby these can be reflected immediately in workforce plans as appropriate.

Another critical component of effective workforce demand planning is an understanding of the external environment and how this may impact key workforce and talent decisions. The economic outlook as we are witnessing today, changes in the regulatory and legislative environment, political, global, and environmental issues all may have significant impacts on the business and workforce strategy of your organization. The comprehensive and cumbersome process of understanding, validating, and prioritizing the external environment is another example that lends itself to the benefits of social media. By offering an internal social environment whereby key stakeholders in the workforce planning process can review, validate, and collaborate on potential external pressures to the business can result in an informed and aligned working group and governance team thereby substantially reducing any risk of future disagreement and misalignment on strategic planning assumptions that have been made.

Internal and External Supply Planning

Determining the required and available supply of workforce talent requires a sophisticated understanding of both the current internal workforce as well as the external labor market.

A critical component in understanding the current and future internal workforce supply is an analysis of the current and historical workforce including hires, attrition, retirements, transfers, skills and competencies, demographic trends, critical job segments, employee tenure, employee performance and much more. In a lot of organizations today, the availability and accuracy of this information is suspect and requires data-cleansing and validation before this information can provide the necessary analysis as part of the workforce planning process. Social media tools including wikis, social network analysis (SNA), social networking, and content facilitation tools can further augment workforce planning and analytical tools by offering the ability to further validate the data accuracy of workforce information, provide much-needed context to historical trends and patterns that may not be apparent by first glance at a graph or report, and offer the opportunity for stakeholders and line of business managers to validate the supply planning assumptions that have been taken into consideration.

The external supply of talent can also be critical to the validation of your strategic workforce plans. Changes and forecasts in the external labor environment including global workforce availability, demographic changes, and industry trends may impact your strategies and plans. The reality today is most executives and business managers don’t follow or understand the external workforce environment to the extent of the potential impact on workforce and business plans. Social Media tools such as RSS, blogs, forums, and others can again provide an opportunity to create an internal community of planners and associated stakeholders to better understand and remain informed on current and future external labor patterns that may impact strategic business and workforce plans.

Scenario Planning

Workforce Scenario Planning is the process of describing the potential future-state by exploring and analyzing the impact of supply and demand scenarios and their influence on the future workforce.

Here social media can play an active role in collaboration and feedback on scenario planning, conversation on what-if scenarios, and the validation of the future as-is state if nothing changed, often times resulting in eye-opening discussions around the future workforce and business outlook based on current workforce trends.

Social collaboration tools in this context also provide the mechanisms to starts conversations around how business strategies and supply and demand assumptions may be changed or revised as a result of the scenario planning process.

Actionable Strategies

Finally, your process should result in actionable workforce, talent, and business strategies that your organization will undertake to drive towards the strategic future state as outlined during your planning process. Actionable strategies can result in new and changing recruitment, employee development, performance, compensation, and quite often planned product or services strategies that involve and impact a number people across the organization.

The utilization of social media can play a decisive role in collaborating and interacting with business and operational leaders on a regular basis as to the changing impacts to their business, and how this may impact future workforce strategies.

Additionally, the collective wisdom of many versus few in the organization can be powerful in determining new strategies resulting from the creation of new and improved organizational capabilities that may change the course or direction within a business or workforce segment.

The success of any workforce planning process requires the collaboration, communication, and constant interaction of many key stakeholders and business leaders across the company. Especially as organizations are more globally integrated than ever before, the need for social collaboration and networking across lines of business and geographical borders will be critical to any strategic workforce plan.