What is HR talking about?

Perhaps because I have just entered my 42nd year I am feeling nostalgic about my past, hence my reference to Arnold and Willis. The reason I am referring to these 80’s TV stars in this post is because CEO’s and other C suite folks much like Arnold did to Willis, are asking the question; what [...]

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An Initial Look into HR Process

In the day to day world of HR transactions, it can be hard to take a step back and look at HR processes as a whole to determine if they are as productive and efficient as possible.  In a perfect world, if we had time, we could assign resources to this task on a regular [...]

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Do HR and Marketing really go hand in hand?

April 2nd, 2012 Kimberley Snage No Comments »

Over the past few weeks, we have seen interesting articles about the integration of HR and marketing.

A recent visit with a prominent HR leader showed surprise at the correlation. We have always believed that marketing to employees and potential candidates is just as important as marketing to the end customer and at Adequasys we have spoken about this relationship for some time. Companies have become really strong at promoting their brands to external customers; knowing that the customer brand is essential to loyalty with consumers. Millions of dollars each year are spent trying to promote the brand in a highly competitive environment with the end goal to increase customer retention and satisfaction rates to increase sales.

Do we invest the same efforts for our employees and potential candidates? A colleague of mine was recently interviewing with a Fortune 500 company that has an exceptional reputation in the global community with literally hundreds of applications sent to the organization monthly. Yet, after my colleague went through the interview process, they were absolutely dismayed at not only how poorly it was handled, but how poor their process, communication and employment brand displayed. Imagine if this particular company invested the same amount of effort that they do to market their brand to the end customer to potential candidates? I could imagine that the highest potential candidates certainly would be more inclined to apply and would not become as disengaged in the process.

On the other hand, I have seen many organizations market their brand to potential candidates to attract the best of the best, but they don’t continue to market to their existing employees. Employee engagement is about so much more than employees programs, career pathing and opportunities for growth. Employees want to know that they are working for not only a winning end customer environment, but also a stellar employment brand.

Take a look at some of the 50 Best employers. Overall they have a good idea of how to market themselves to their employees. After all, every employee wants to work for a best of breed employer! Let your marketing initiatives start to take you there.

HR Technology Requirements…..Mandatory or Nice to have?

February 15th, 2012 Kimberley Snage No Comments »
A few months ago, we wrote about the importance of business requirements and how important they are when looking at any form of new technology.  Any organization that is considering new HR technology needs to truly understand how the technology will allow them to achieve their business objectives. Very often, we all get caught up in functionality that might be nice to have but at the current point in time, does not meet a specific business requirement.  Identifying your business objectives will allow you to match up functional requirements to meet those objectives and in essence differentiate your mandatory requirements from your “nice to haves.”
Why is this important?  If you review your current HR processes, what you will likely find is that many of them will be simplified by new technology and in some cases, greatly reduced.  That does not mean that EVERY process in HR needs to be changed immediately with the new technology.  Nor does it mean that every process should be enhanced with technology.  When implementing a new technology solution, HR processes should be migrated over utilizing technology at an even pace, in small increments or phases.  This ensures early adoption and acceptance of new processes and procedures associated with the technology.  Change is inevitable, but we need to start small.  Changing all processes at one time and expecting everyone to adapt to these changes at the same rate simply creates an environment where the technology can be doomed to fail to meet the desired outcome.
How do you determine what functional areas within HR to implement first with new technology?  They key is identifying what is most important to your business – which again ties back to business objectives.  Which processes touch the employee, candidates and potential customers the most?  Processes that can have a direct impact on your bottom line for the long term are areas where you will have the quickest wins and are the ones that should be addressed first.  Additional areas within HR should be rolled out next based on priority.
Involve your HR staff and other stakeholders in the process of identifying what areas new technology should address first. Rank requirements as a team to gain consensus as priorities and go to market looking for a solution that meets both your immediate and future needs.
At Adequasys, we believe a phased approach to implementation based on meeting the needs of your core business objectives is one of the keys and foundations to a successful implementation.  For a detailed discussion around your business priorities within HR, please contact us and we will share with you our best practices.

Tracking the Service Delivery of HR

February 9th, 2012 Kimberley Snage No Comments »
In a consumer driven and competitive environment, we are very quick to track our external perception, service levels and satisfaction scores.  We all know that in HR, our employee brand is just as important, but do we track employee perception, service levels and satisfaction scores as good as we should?
We know that highly engaged staff tend to produce exceptional business results which is good for both a company’s employer and consumer brand, but how diligent are we?  Many organizations will keep track of the pulse of its employees via satisfaction surveys, but how easy is to take the insight from the surveys and action it?  Do your survey results point to a specific area and allow you to action it to achieve better scores in the future?
At Adequasys, we often suggest tying employee satisfaction scores to service delivery results.  HR is a service department – we serve the needs of employees on a daily basis.  How effective are we at delivering on employee requests and needs in a timely and efficient manner?  If an employee makes a request, are they immediately acknowledged?  If they have a concern, are they immediately addressed or is a plan put into to action to meet with the employee at a later date?  If they have an idea to save the company money or be more efficient in a workflow, how quick are HR and the management team to respond?
We have seen a few organizations that have claimed to have exceptional long service award programs, only to see that staff received their award one to two months late.  Not only is this poor service, it sets the stage for poor engagement. We would not do this to our external customers, so why would we do this to our employees who are the lifeblood of our company and the closest to external customers?
Knowing the above, how do we measure our delivery to our internal customer base?  HRMS software such as Allegro easily tracks all employee requests from the moment it is requested. HR’s response time to complete any request is tracked.  Over time and in aggregate, HR can easily see their response times for a variety of employee requests and tasks and put actions into place to address any shortfalls.
HR has many roles in the company from planning the strategic direction of the workforce, to managing the operational needs of our employees day to day.  Companies that have exceptional employee brands engage their staff and treat them with the same dedication and respect as their external customers.  Can you track your service delivery times as an HR Department?
Do you have the right tools to act on your service delivery strategy?  If not, please ask us how Allegro can help.

Recruitment 3.0 – with your new best friend: HRMS

February 7th, 2012 Kimberley Snage No Comments »
Our team attended the HRPA Convention & Trade-Show last week in Toronto and we had the tremendous opportunity to exchange and share ideas with many talented and knowledgeable HR experts.  One of the topics that caught our attention was Recruitment because of the presence of many Recruiting firms at the trade-show.
At Adequasys, we look at Recruiting from a different angle; recruitment needs to be a long term vision.   Companies should not recruit based solely on immediate needs, but rather they must anticipate growth, turnover, and what impact recruitment costs will have on the hiring process while also anticipating the company’s future staffing needs. This requires establishing a real global recruitment policy that is in-line with strategic objectives with the help of an HRMS.
The first step is to define the positions and the establishment of candidate pools. By using a robust & global solution, organizations can use workforce planning modules to plan for future needs, review contract expirations, anticipate retirement and more. Moving forward, HR can use the Recruiting module to automate the recruitment process, by ranking candidates, creating robust candidate profiles and by managing the entire recruitment process online. Within a comprehensive HRMS such as Allegro, HR  has the ability to transfer candidate files to employee records seamlessly without the need to double key employee records from the recruitment application into the HRMS as the two modules share a single database These organizations can manage the entire talent portfolio of an employee through their lifecycle with the company.
Make no mistake: a complete HRMS will make HR more efficient and more accountable for their responsibilities.  The days where HR was confined to the obscure part of the office and were responsible for parking passes, Christmas parties and endless HR administrative paperwork are long gone – HR is a vital part of an organization and with a robust HRMS, they will work hand-to-hand with the  entire C-level suite strategically.

HR Priorities – Where do you start?

February 1st, 2012 Kimberley Snage 1 Comment »

Every functional area within business has competing priorities, but what we have found in our own personal experiences is that HR not only has competing priorities at the task level but also competing priorities in the broader sense.  Senior leaders in HR are challenged with priorities in recruitment, training and development, compensation, employee relations and technology – not to mention other facets within HR.  

Where do you start? How do you define which is more important to your employee base, your leadership team or the company overall?  To illustrate this point we know that:

1) Putting recruitment on the backburner can lead to an empty candidate pipeline leading to top employee prospects not engaging with your company;
2) Not investing in technology can make you less competitive and efficient leading to costly errors and increased resource requirements;
3) Inadequate employee relations programs can create a sense of disengagement among employees;
4) Poor training programs do not necessarily retain the best talent and can put employees at risk;

Knowing all of the things that can go wrong can make anyone ask where to start?  Many people might suggest to start with the greatest pain in HR, but this is not always the case.  Prioritizing needs to be done based on the strategic goals of the organization and by what would impact current and future employees and the business the most.  

If one of the company’s strategic goals is to hire the best talent while ensuing a highly successful onboarding experience, then investing in a solid recruitment program will become a key priority along with technology to facilitate the process.

Remember, priorities should be ranked by strategic objectives that the organization is trying to achieve.  These are the most critical and deserve the most attention as strategic objectives will generally affect the bottom line in a positive way.  

Keeping this in mind when HR begins to start planning for upcoming initiatives should paint a good roadmap to achieve the results the organization is intending to reach.

What Is Your Contribution- Do your employees Get It?

January 30th, 2012 Kimberley Snage 1 Comment »
A prominent Business Magazine in the US posted an article highlighting a disturbing fact, a significant number of employees in for profit organizations have a difficult time articulating why they get paid.  They were not able to draw the relationship between what they were doing on a daily basis and how that resulted in money in their bank account.
At Allegro HR, every day our efforts are directed to the bottom line and every member of the team understands how their contribution earns them their salary. Whether it is answering the phone as a support person or helping to keep the communal work areas organized and clean, the team understands that our collective efforts will make a difference to the profitability and longevity of Allegro HR. Therefore the fact that many people, in other organizations do not clearly understand their contribution is perplexing.
As a business professional, does this concern you? If it does and we suspect that it does, how can you help those people that don’t really understand the pay for work connection?
Let us start by looking at the work that we know best, how do HR professionals contribute? Think about how you contribute to revenue generation.  In our experience there is a clear connection between the effective and efficient management of the Performance process and better customer experiences.  I would like to emphasize this point; your education and knowledge directly affect the customer experience because of the positive environment you create. Employees that feel valued will be better ambassadors and representatives of the organization and that translates into better customer experiences.
Your work is not necessarily directly seen by the customer, but each positive customer experience has a direct tie back to the performance and engagement framework that you and your team have put in place.  It is  a logical conclusion that better customer experiences will result in repeat business or larger orders for your product and services.
If this HR specific example connects the dots as to how HR helps to increase business activity, it might be a good exercise for managers to do something similar for their direct reports. If managers take a few minutes to detail how their direct reports make a positive contribution to the bottom line and they will better understand their role and with that understand perhaps concentrate more on the tasks that have been identified as being of the greatest value to the organization.  At least they will know why they get paid.
Finally, an online and living Performance Management solution, like the one offered by Allegro can go a long way to elevating the issue of employees being disconnected from the larger strategy of the organization.
Contact Allegro HR and a representative will engage in a conversation with you to help in your employee engagement efforts.

Business Continuity – Are you ready?

January 25th, 2012 Kimberley Snage 1 Comment »
In the wake of what appears to be an influx of natural disasters, and other unforeseen events, it is becoming more pressing for businesses to create contingency and business continuity plans.
Generally, this process has been managed by Information technology knowing that business systems need to continue to run should a business be vulnerable to a catastrophic event.  In fact, Greenview Data based in Michigan, one of the best data hosting company in the USA stated that 1 in 4 businesses never re-open their doors after a disaster…
In a consumer driven environment, simply having systems continue to run is not enough, pertinent staff need to be able to continue to manage their functions to keep the business moving forward even in the wake of disaster.

Can you easily identify who those people are?  Do you have their contact information readily available?
Like succession planning, being able to easily identify key staff within the organization is essential.  Many organizations are starting to create business continuity plans simply based on the type of event – tornado, earthquake, fire, etc.  They can be simplistic in nature depending on the size and scope of the organization or complex and comprehensive consisting of hundreds of pages.  In essence, being able to quickly identify functions and the staff involved in keeping critical roles of the organization functioning in the wake of disaster is imperative to business.
Customers will still demand service and will move onto to your competition if they have to wait.
Generally, HR’s role in the business continuity process is to be certain to have real-time contact and asset information of all those involved in within the contingency plan at a moment’s notice.  It is imperative that it is current and up-to-date. This data typically includes basic employee data, home address, cellular and personal numbers, e-mail addresses etc.  In the case of an emergency, it is important to know multiple channels to reach an employee.
The right HRMS is the perfect channel to maintain such information and with the proper back-up and printed copies in channels of distribution,
HR is in a good position to react in the case of disaster.

Are you using protection? We mean HRMS protection….

January 18th, 2012 Kimberley Snage No Comments »
Recently we were chatting with the VP of HR of a very large Canadian organization with close to 15,000 employees.  As our conversation progressed, the many ways in which HR can be legally liable came up, both from an employee standpoint (wrongful dismissal, discrimination, sexual harassment, etc.) and from regulatory agencies (OHSA, WSIB, CSST or HRDC etc.).
At that point she looked a little sheepish; she looked to her right and then to her left and then leaned in and shared with us that they were non-compliant when it came to pay equity. They did not have a formal job evaluation process or any real mechanism to support why someone was getting paid what they were getting paid which of course is required in both the US and Canada.  Given the size of the organization, if they were ever audited and consequently fined it would be in the $100,000’s of dollars. Although this rarely happens, it is a dark cloud needlessly hanging over organization’s and constitutes a potential revenue hit.
Generally speaking there is some accommodation provided when it comes to what we would describe as administrative compliance. However Health and Safety issues are different.  If an organization is found liable in this area the costs are very high and what is even worse that cost could probably have been avoided.  As an example, if there is no clear and reliable record of an individual having been trained, sorry let us re-phrase that, properly trained and if that individual is in a workplace incident or accident then the organization is liable and will be fined regardless if it was worker error, which is all too often the case.
Although wrongful dismissal is generally more complex an issue and rarely black and white, at minimum an organization needs to prove that the followed the proper steps in dismissing an employee. Whether that is for job abandonment, disciplinary matters or any of the other accepted reasons for dismissal, there are clear steps that have to be followed.  It is imperative that HR demonstrate that those steps were followed.
In this regard, if you need to learn more about wrongful dismissal, we strongly recommend that you read “You’re Fired! Just Cause for Dismissal in Canada” by Stuart E. Rudner from Miller Thomson - Mr Rudner is an expert in Employment Law and his book is already The main reference in this subject in Canada.
How does this relate to HR systems? HR systems are not a panacea and will not solve all of HR’s ills. However, what a good and robust system does do is foster a culture of compliance. Onboarding processes ensure that position specific training is done prior to the individual being on the job. Performance management programs provide the ability for organizations to have a culture of continuous improvement.  Termination workflow will ensure that once a process is started the system will be able to red flag any steps that were not taken or that must be taken before the next step in the process is taken.
A good HR system like Allegro is like a task master that either scolds or rewards you to do the right thing at the right time to ensure compliance with internal policies but also with external legal requirements.  Finally a robust audit trail of all the changes made in the system ensure that you can prove that something was done, by whom, at what time and on what date.
To be clear, an HR system by its very nature forces a more disciplined approach to data management.  This change in standards will have the beneficial effect of making compliance a secondary benefit to better people management.
If you would like to have a more detailed conversation regarding HR Compliance and HRMS please contact Adequasys at 1-800-811-1877.

A little PM can go a long way – Part deux (2)

January 17th, 2012 Kimberley Snage No Comments »
Last week we discussed how to incorporate project management principles, such as a work breakdown structure to make many HR initiatives more efficient and effective.  In addition to a WBS, there are many additional tools that a formal project management methodology relies upon to ensure successful projects.  Another key planning tool that is beneficial across many business domains is rolling wave planning.
In HR, there have been many times I have been faced with what seemed to be either an astronomical task or project that left me wondering where to start and how I was going to complete all of the perceived requirements.  How long would I need resources? How can I estimate costs so far in advance with so many unknowns?  With over 60 tasks, where do I start?
I recall the first time I managed the annual review process in compensation for the first time; I was overwhelmed with the process for over 1500 employees and complex approval processes.  Rolling wave planning is an excellent project management tool that allows you to manage a project in smaller components. For instance, there were many components of the annual compensation program that I was simply not certain of at the start of the annual review.  In fact, many of the initial tasks that I needed to complete would actually dictate the amount of work to be done in later phases.
Rolling wave planning allows you to map out deliverables at the highest level for the entire project without necessarily identifying all the tasks involved, knowing that as the project progresses, the tasks might change. This is an excellent bird’s eye view of the total project.  As the project components are completed, and additional information is known, a more comprehensive WBS can be created, costs associated with task completion can be clearer, resources needed and schedule requirements become obvious which is also known as progressive elaboration.
Why is this beneficial for HR?  HR can be in a much better position to quantify resources, costs and schedule for completion.  How many times in HR have you been able to specifically quantify how much it costs to complete a task or specifically for how long?  How about being able to benchmark year over year if your processes are improving or declining in terms of cost effectiveness and timely delivery?  With this type of information, HR can become much more strategic and effective as a service provider by benchmarking its own level of service to the employees it provides services to.
By incorporating even small project management tools, over the course of time, HR will be better able to manage complex projects and tasks with greater efficiency which in turn increases overall service effectiveness.
Contact us to discover more.

HRPA 2012 Annual Conference & Trade Show ~ What’s for 2012 ?

January 12th, 2012 Kimberley Snage No Comments »
After close to 10 years of attendance at the HRPA show there is a lot that we can say about the conference, some good, some bad but the themes of the show have generally been excellent in that they are both provocative and thought provoking.
This year the theme is the future of HR in relation to Demographic, Social and Technological forces that will work to shape the role and influence that HR will have in the coming year.
HRMS Roundtable offers the following observations as to how those three forces will shape HR
Demographic- Freedom 55 anybody? Perhaps not; but 2012 will mark the beginning of an executive exit.  There are many professionals that have worked hard and are now in a position to retire at 65 or even earlier.
These are highly skilled individuals with a depth of experience and institutional knowledge. Their skill set will be very hard to replace and there will be many people that will be left without the knowledge and experience of their senior Leadership.  Hopefully, this recognition will help organizations prepare for the fact that 9 million baby boomers will retire between now and 2025.
Social-How many times have we heard a combination of Facebook, LinkedIn and Employee referral programs will change recruitment forever? Many times actually; the reality is that it already has fundamentally and permanently changed the hiring and sourcing landscape.  Is there still a role for Monster/ Workopolis and Career Builder? Perhaps, but at a different pricing structure and if the traditional recruitment portals are smart, they will work in partnership with social media to provide a combination of free and paid services to find and hire the right people at the right time, and at the right price. However, it is still entirely possible that fee for service providers will in fact disappear completely or become so niche as to be unrecognizable from what exists today.
Technological- Surely this is the year that HR will finally eliminate once and for all Microsoft as the defacto HRMS.  It is astonishing that HR organizations of 1000 plus employees still rely on multiple repositories of data that do not share information and cannot guarantee accurate and verifiable data.  Additionally, given the regulatory scrutiny associated with compensation, an audit trail with fact based reasoning behind pay structure is crucial for publicly traded companies and yet many do not have systems in place to accomplish this.  The value of an HR system for simple data management will finally be so compelling that no serious organization will continue to do business without one.
This is what is in our Crystal Ball for 2012. What is in yours?  Please share your comments below…

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    Damon LovettDamon Lovett
    HR Technology and Service Delivery guru with 15+ years of diversified leadership experience, including roles as HRMS Director, Professional Services Director, and HR Systems Consultant. Well versed in implementation, integration, and process improvement for all HR specialties. Experienced HR Management consultant, metrics designer, LEAN process improvement consultant, and change management driver. Extensive experience in simplifying and streamlining business processes while maximizing impact, opportunity, and visibility of technology investment.
    Kimberley SnageKimberley Snage
    Ms. Snage has over 15 years’ experience in progressive process improvement, project management, human resources and people development. Her strong background in Business Analysis and Project Management has greatly enabled Ms. Snage to truly understand the depth of each of her clients’ business needs.

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