The necessity of learning is essential for every organization to realize the full potential of the workforce. But many organizations treat learning like training or academic instruction to ensure policy or compliance to a minimum level of work performance, instead of continuing career education and improving skills in the operational workflow. The context for where and how workers work is critical to ensure that on-the-job learning is possible. While traditional learning management systems (LMS) have advanced the authoring and curriculum for formalized training in a digital learning environment, the need to adapt learning to the operational requirements is essential for every organization. This context provides the opportunity for continuous skills development, which is essential to building organizational readiness and workforce resilience critical for everyday operations and business continuity. We assert that by 2024, learning management systems and learning experience platforms with embedded skill and job ontologies that recommend optimal learning paths will guide one-half of organizations to elevate employee engagement, retention and productivity.
Inkling Advances Digital Learning for Operational Effectiveness
Topics: Human Capital Management, Learning, LMS, Digital Business, inkling, LXP
The Business Continuity Imperative: The Work Experience and Workforce Engagement Agenda
The workforce is the center of any organization, no matter if the workforce consists of employees, contractors or what we call gig workers. It stands to reason that a black-swan event has an immediate impact on a workforce and thus an organization’s overall business health. In challenging times, a “family-first” mentality tends to take hold — a reality that, far too often, business leaders and HR organizations underestimate. But organizational readiness is essential for sustainability and operational effectiveness.
Topics: Sales, Human Capital Management, Learning, Office of Finance, Voice of the Customer, Analytics, Digital Technology, Digital Marketing, Operations & Supply Chain, Workforce Optimization, AI and Machine Learning
Maximizing the performance and value of people in the workforce should be a primary focus for any business these days. It is a complex task, especially for larger organizations, and chances for success can be increased by investment in human capital management (HCM) applications. In this competitive software market SAP is making a strong push, aided by acquisitions in the last three years of SuccessFactors for talent management and more recently Fieldglass for contingent labor management. Recently I attended the SAP HCM analyst summit to hear about its direction and plans to grow its market share. The company has made progress since our last analyst perspective on it. Mike Ettling, SAP’s president for the HR line of business, discussed its newly refined strategy and organizational structure; the company has added executives from around the globe to emphasize its commitment to helping human resources organizations.
Topics: SAP, HCM, Human Capital Management, Learning, Performance, Recruiting, SuccessFactors, Operational Performance, Analytics, Business Analytics, Business Performance, Cloud Computing, Financial Performance, Compensation, HRMS, Vendor Management Systems, Workforce Analytics, Workforce Management, Workforce Planning
Cornerstone Making Talent Management Simpler to Use
Improving how employees and managers can improve talent management activities through changes in process, technology and better access to information is both a theme of my research agenda this year. It is also what the key technology vendors in this space have been focused on developing products to do. Cornerstone OnDemand is one of those vendors that has been in the talent management space since 1999, when it launched its original CyberU learning management product, and now offers a broad range of talent management applications. It is growing at a strong rate relative to many of the other companies in the market. Cornerstone’s products now span learning management, learning extended enterprise (learning extended to partners and customers), performance management, compensation management, succession management and recruiting management. Cornerstone has always sold its products in a cloud-deployment-only model, a decision that has served it well. Today Cornerstone enjoys a strong customer base for a standalone talent management company, with a reported 1,237 customers and 10.5 million users across 189 countries.
Topics: Sales Performance, Salesforce.com, Social Media, HCM, Learning, Performance, Recruiting, Business Collaboration, Business Performance, Cloud Computing, Workforce Performance, Cornerstone OnDemand, HR
IBM Provokes Social Collaboration and Smarter Workforce Revolution
IBM held its 20th annual IBM Connect conference (previously known as Lotusphere) as part of its IBM Social Business efforts at the end of January. The conference focuses on business and social collaboration technology, which our business technology innovation research found to be the second-ranked priority for business innovation. At the conference IBM made a series of significant announcements, including a new version of its social collaboration suite, IBM Connections, and the ability to use the software on a cloud computing platform.
Topics: Sales Performance, Social Media, Supply Chain Performance, Human Capital Management, Kenexa, Learning, Performance, Recruiting, Smarter Analytics, Smarter Workforce, Social Business, Social Collaboration, Operational Performance, Business Analytics, Business Collaboration, Business Intelligence, Business Performance, Cloud Computing, Customer & Contact Center, Financial Performance, IBM, Workforce Performance, Compensation
The Rationale and Agenda for Why Human Capital Management in 2013
Human capital is most organizations’ largest investment and one of their largest differentiators against the competition. So it follows that those that take advantage of the compelling, game-changing technology now available in human capital management (HCM) will place themselves at a competitive advantage.
Topics: Big Data, Social Media, HCM, Human Capital Management, Learning, Office of Finance, Social Collaboration, Analytics, Business Analytics, Business Collaboration, Business Intelligence, Business Performance, Cloud Computing, Information Applications, Information Management, Workforce Performance, CFO, Compensation, finance, HR, Talent Management, Workforce Management
Acquisitions and new product releases continue to make the market for human capital management a hotbed of activity, as organizations attempt to fully utilize and increase the value of their workforces as I have outlined in my research agenda. ADP, with more than $10 billion in revenues and more than 570,000 customers, is aiming for the top spot in this market.
Topics: Mobile, Social Media, HCM, Human Capital Management, Learning, LMS, Performance, Operational Performance, Business Analytics, Business Performance, Cloud Computing, Financial Performance, Workforce Performance, Compensation, HR, TCM
Investing wisely in sales-related people and processes is a key to business success. In 2012, helping sales staff perform at their highest levels should be a top priority for management. That may take some effort, according to our benchmark research, which indicates that only 14 percent of sales organizations operate at the highest level of innovation and competitiveness. In recent years, most organizations merely discussed moving beyond using only their sales force automation application and Microsoft Office for improving sales efficiency. Now sales organizations can move beyond systems that were designed decades ago, thanks to the availability of a broad range of applications to support sales activities and processes. In fact dozens of new types of sales applications are available to help sales focus on selling, which creates another issue. Where should sales organizations focus their limited resources and budgets?
Topics: Big Data, Mobile, Planning, Sales, Sales Performance, Social Media, assets, Learning, Office of Finance, Performance, Reporting, Sales Compensation, Sales Force Automation, Operational Performance, Analytics, Business Analytics, Business Collaboration, Business Mobility, Business Performance, Cloud Computing, Collaboration, Customer & Contact Center, Financial Performance, Workforce Performance, channel, coaching, commission, CRM, Sales Performance Management, SFA
SuccessFactors Finds Learning Management System and More with Plateau Acquisition
Consolidation in the human capital management software market is in full swing. Recently Peopleclick Authoria acquired Aquire Solutions, and just this week Golden Gate Capital and Infor agreed to buy Lawson Software for about $2 billion, which my colleague Robert Kugel commented.
Topics: Performance Management, Sales Performance, Human Capital Management, Learning, Learning Management System, Operational Performance, Business Analytics, Business Collaboration, Business Mobility, Business Performance, Cloud Computing, Customer & Contact Center, Financial Performance, Workforce Performance, Compensation, Talent Management, Workforce Planning
Peopleclick Authoria Elevates Workforce Analytics by Acquiring Aquire
Human resources professionals must deal with volumes of workforce data that resides in disparate software systems, including individual spreadsheets. But although the data is accessible to them, many organizations don’t have technology to aggregate, synthesize and analyze it, and so cannot easily use it to make efficient and effective decisions about talent acquisition and talent management.
Topics: Learning, Performance, Recruiting, Operational Performance, Business Analytics, Business Mobility, Business Performance, Cloud Computing, Mobility, Workforce Performance, Compensation, Hiring, Talent Management, Workforce Analytics
New Recruiting Technology Humanizes Talent Acquisition
Humanize every step of the employee experience. That was the grand theme of this year’s opening keynote just over a week ago at ERE Expo 2011 Spring by Matthew Jeffery, global director of talent brand for Electronic Arts, titled “Recruitment 3.0: Why traditional recruiters will be replaced by ‘emotional marketers.’” His speech emphasized the importance of emotionally connecting with candidates and employees alike and creating talent communities via social, mobile, cloud and collaboration technology and activities.
Topics: Sales Performance, Learning, Performance, Recruiting, Operational Performance, Business Analytics, Business Mobility, Business Performance, Cloud Computing, Mobility, Workforce Performance, Compensation, Hiring, Talent Management, Workforce Analytics
Reimagining Talent Management and Technology in 2011
When I entered the human capital management space over a decade ago, the Internet had just started to transform the way companies recruit, hire and manage their workforces. Since then the technological transformations have been astounding: Social media, mobile devices and cloud computing are just a few. And although every talent acquisition and talent management system available today is about getting users to the short list of qualified applicants faster and more accurately and managing all the employee life-cycle data faster and more accurately as well, both of these goals are impeded by disparate technology systems and workforce data. Our workforce analytics benchmark research shows that nearly two-thirds of organizations are less than satisfied with the technology they have now, while only 9 percent are very satisfied with it.
Topics: Sales Performance, Learning, Performance, Operational Performance, Business Analytics, Business Mobility, Business Performance, Cloud Computing, Mobility, Workforce Performance, Compensation, Talent Management, Workforce Analytics
Business Collaboration Brings Together People and Technology
In today’s competitive environment, people working in collaboration can make the difference between a company’s success or failure. But hitting “reply to all” on an e-mail chain isn’t the kind of collaboration I’m talking about. Neither is managing your employee and business communications with cups connected by string and Ouija boards.
Topics: Sales Performance, Learning, Performance, Business Analytics, Business Collaboration, Business Mobility, Business Performance, Cloud Computing, Collaboration, Mobility, Operational Intelligence, Workforce Performance, Compensation, Talent Management, Workforce Analytics
Aquire Brings Fresh Face to Workforce Analytics
The state of the economy has intensified scrutiny of organizations’ people assets, and so we’re seeing new dialogues about human capital management. Deriving full value from the people in a workforce requires more than just HR managing annual performance reviews or occasional scrutiny of the compensation processes for increases to merit pay or incremental incentives. Investing wisely in workforce-related processes requires assessment and optimization using analytics that can provide a lens on the past but more importantly can provide visibility into forward-looking results. This renewed focus on improving the workforce analytics fits with the findings of our recent benchmark on workforce analytics, which shows that workforce analytics are important to 89 percent of organizations. But using them efficiently and effectively is no easy task since spreadsheets are used in 62 percent of organizations.
Topics: Sales Performance, Learning, Performance, Operational Performance, Business Analytics, Business Mobility, Business Performance, Cloud Computing, Mobility, Workforce Performance, Compensation, Talent Management, Workforce Analytics
Hello there! Starting this week, I’m part of the best independent research team in the business – the Ventana Research team – and I couldn’t be more thrilled. As the song goes, “What a long, strange trip it’s been” to get here.
Topics: Human Capital Management, Learning, Performance, Recruiting, Onboarding, Operational Performance, Analytics, Business Performance, Workforce Performance, Compensation, Hiring, Talent Management, Workforce Performance Management
Human Concepts Brings Workforce Analytics and Mobility to the Cloud
Recently Human Concepts sold its personal organizational structure software OrgPlus to Administaff . Since it retains other products with the OrgPlus name, this step might seem puzzling, but it makes sense in terms of the company’s developing product strategy. The sale also frees Human Concepts to focus on organizations with more than 1,000 employees, where growth is more readily available. Human Concepts is experienced in the workforce management market; its customer and partner Zentiva Group won our firm’s 2010 Leadership Award in HR and Workforce Management. Late last year Human Concepts unveiled a new workforce analytics technology tool called Workforce Monitor. It uses the organizational chart as an analytical tool for more than display or monitoring of information – it can provide workforce analytics and planning to serve the needs not only of HR but of line-of-business management and analysts. The product does not just retrofit the limited capabilities of spreadsheets and presentations widely used for analytics, planning and publishing of workforce information. This is a valuable advance; our benchmark research in workforce analytics found that spreadsheets are used universally or regularly in 96 percent of HR organizations but that 39 percent of organizations are not satisfied with their technology and information is not actionable in more than half of organizations.
Topics: Learning, Performance, Business Performance, Cloud Computing, Mobility, Operational Intelligence, Workforce Performance, Compensation, Talent Management, Workforce Analytics
Talent Technology Makes Generating Talent Efficient and Social
The talent management software market has and continues to consolidate dramatically through acquisitions. The trend is to bring together processes and applications for hiring, onboarding, performance assessment, compensation, succession planning and analytics. As the race continues to attract customers and users by presenting the most integrated suite of applications, a new market segment has evolved in the shadows and is now taking the stage in talent management. Talent Technology, a vendor in this space, calls it talent generation; its function is to help companies identify the talent they require across all sources, broadcast job openings and promote the organization as an attractive workplace for the best talent. It relies on social media and Internet sites where jobs are posted. Doing this manually for one open position is easy, but Talent Technology’s just announced Talemetry Suite offers a unified and consistent method for recruiters and hiring managers to seek talent for any opening.
Topics: Human Capital Management, Learning, Performance, Recruiting, Operational Performance, Business Performance, Cloud Computing, Workforce Performance, Compensation, Hiring, Talent Generation, Talent Management, Workforce Analytics
The new year started off with a bang in the human capital management software market as SumTotal Systems acquired GeoLearning, a leading learning management system (LMS) software vendor.
Topics: Learning, Performance, Operational Performance, Business Performance, Cloud Computing, Financial Performance, Workforce Performance, Compensation, SumTotal Systems, Talent Management, Workforce Analytics
At its annual user conference in Boston, Saba provided insights to industry analysts on its progress over the last year and its direction for 2011. Best known for its learning management system (LMS), collaboration and more recently its talent management applications, Saba now has more than 19 million users in 1,400 customer organizations that are mostly in the public sector, have 5,000 or more employees and are based in North America, although it operates in 28 languages in 195 countries. Now the company is refining its mission. I analyzed the first indication of this shift in focus to business social networking in 2008 (See: “Saba to Innovate Workforces with Business Social Networking”); that started a movement that Saba communicated more clearly this year in describing its focus on providing “people systems.” That term means it wants to enable businesses to have people collaborate through open dialogue and its collaboration software and human capital management applications.
Topics: Human Capital, Human Resources Management, Learning, Mobile Applications, Performance, Business Performance, Cloud Computing, Workforce Performance, Compensation, Saba, Talent Management, Workforce Analytics
Plateau Brings Mobility to Talent Management and Simplifies Applications
At its 2010 user conference in Miami, Plateau Systems reviewed for analysts its progress in the market for talent management software. Plateau has a unified platform and suite of applications that cover learning, compensation, job performance and analytics. The company’s financials have been steadily growing as more customers adopt its platform and show good year-to-year growth in its applications that are rented through software as a service (SaaS). Plateau claims that its SaaS business has customer retention of 99 percent. The conference itself grew 40 percent from the previous year, with about 500 people in attendance, and Plateau has started a European conference that provided a local event for the first time.
Topics: Learning, Performance, Plateau, Business Performance, Cloud Computing, Workforce Performance, Compensation, Talent Management, Workforce Analytics
At its annual user conference in Boston, Saba provided insights to industry analysts on its progress over the last year and its direction for 2011. Best known for its learning management system (LMS), collaboration and more recently its talent management applications, Saba now has more than 19 million users in 1,400 customer organizations that are mostly in the public sector, have 5,000 or more employees and are based in North America, although it operates in 28 languages in 195 countries. Now the company is refining its mission. I analyzed the first indication of this shift in focus to business social networking in 2008 (See: “Saba to Innovate Workforces with Business Social Networking”); that started a movement that Saba communicated more clearly this year in describing its focus on providing “people systems.” That term means it wants to enable businesses to have people collaborate through open dialogue and its collaboration software and human capital management applications.
Topics: Human Capital, Human Resources Management, Learning, Mobile Applications, Performance, Business Performance, Cloud Computing, Workforce Performance, Compensation, Saba, Talent Management, Workforce Analytics
Plateau Brings Mobility to Talent Management and Simplifies Applications
At its 2010 user conference in Miami, Plateau Systems reviewed for analysts its progress in the market for talent management software. Plateau has a unified platform and suite of applications that cover learning, compensation, job performance and analytics. The company’s financials have been steadily growing as more customers adopt its platform and show good year-to-year growth in its applications that are rented through software as a service (SaaS). Plateau claims that its SaaS business has customer retention of 99 percent. The conference itself grew 40 percent from the previous year, with about 500 people in attendance, and Plateau has started a European conference that provided a local event for the first time.
Topics: Learning, Performance, Plateau, Business Performance, Cloud Computing, Workforce Performance, Compensation, Talent Management, Workforce Analytics
