Category Archives: HR Technology

T3 – @Betterific

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This week on T3 I’m taking a look at the innovation management platform, Betterific!  Betterific is a crowdsourcing, communication platform that allows employees to present and share ideas, and those within the company to communicate on each others ideas.  It can also be used as an idea generation tool for those in your organization looking for new ideas and innovation to what you already do.

Let me give you an example of how this could be giant!

I worked at Applebee’s (which is true, but the rest is for example purposes!).  We had thousands of restaurants world-wide.  In a franchise environment, the more consistency and continuity you can get from location to location, the more profitable your company will be. When you go into an Applebee’s in Time Square, you expect the same great burger, hot fries and cold beer, as you would get in Albuquerque. If it’s not, it hurts the whole brand, because people don’t know what to expect.

Applebee’s isn’t selling mastery cuisine.  They’re selling great burgers, hot fries and cold beer. They’re selling safe, middle of the road, we know what to expect, it’s going to be a good meal at a decent price.  What you find when you have two thousand restaurants is that some locations find better ways of doing things that the corporate office didn’t know.  The problem is their is no good way to share these ideas and innovations in a franchise environment, or even over so many locations.

Then comes a technology like Betterific.  Betterific’s platform allows locations, employees, the corporate office, etc. to share ideas amongst each other, and it also allows a manager, a certain location, the corporate headquarters to go out in search of the best way to do current stuff, or even new ideas they’re thinking about doing.  Now, instead of leveraging some data from a handful of ‘test’ locations, you get to leverage the knowledge of your entire company!

To me, this is what Betterific is all about, Best Practice sharing at it’s finest, in real time!  When I was at Applebee’s we encouraged best practice sharing, but many times it would take months or years before we could spread this across two thousand locations. What if we could have done it in a week or hours!?

Betterific also employees some gamification aspects which rewards the users for being active in the platform, the quality of ideas, etc. Let’s encourage everyone to use it, but also let’s encourage quality usage as well.  Many times in communication platforms like this, you’ll see a few people hog the conversation. The gamification component rewards those super-users, but also encourages them to share quality information, not just everything.

There is also a follow up mechanism which shows all those using the system what is happening with the knowledge and advice being share. Is the thread closed? Is it something we are considering in the future? Is it something we are going to act on now?  This feedback loop is critical to keep your employees involved and sharing on an ongoing basis.

It’s quick and simple to get started.  You don’t have get IT involved. This is something HR can roll out and test pretty easily with your operations team, or start a leadership exchange, etc. You could even test it within your own department to see how it works. Take a look and give it a quick demo, might be something to really help you energize your employees into sharing great ideas and feedback with each other.

T3 – @Glassdoor Employer Center

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Okay, I get it you know who Glassdoor is.  They’re that site where employees go to complain about how crappy a company is, right!?  Well, maybe Glassdoor of about 5 years ago.  In the past five years Glassdoor has built itself into one of the best Employer Branding tools on the market!

How so?

Glassdoor did what LinkedIn did in a way, but opposite. LinkedIn tricked employers into thinking it was great to have your employees all get this one site and upload their resume profile and call it “professional networking”. Oh! You got us, LinkedIn. That’s really going to hurt when all of our employees get recruited! I give LI full credit. They did something no other HR/Talent vendor has ever been able to do. Monster, CareerBuilder and Dice all wish they could have did what LI did.

Glassdoor opened up their site and let everyone and anyone comment on your work environment, and we thought ‘how evil!’. Why would a company let our disgruntled employees tell their story? Ugh! But, low and behold, the longtail prevails and we find out that Glassdoor actually gave us a way to respond to those few who are disgruntled and show people what your true brand is all about, in a way that is transparent and fresh – aka the Tripadvisor of Employers!

LinkedIn? They became a job board.  Funny how tables get turned.

Glassdoor just launched its newly designed Employer Center, which is basically a dashboard for Employers to manage and monitor their Glassdoor presence (i.e., your Employment Brand).  Most of what is in the Employer Center is actually free and any employer can claim theirs by just signing up. Interesting that Glassdoor has over 400,000 companies indexed, but only about 10% have actually claimed their brand! 90% of Employers have no idea and/or control of their Brand on Glassdoor and it’s free!

In the Employer Center Glassdoor gives you the tools to post jobs, run your own companies content stream, look a ton of various analytics and review and manage your Glassdoor user responses, all in one place. The new Employer Center also allows you to grant additional access to others in your organization. Let Marketing upload new content and look at analytics, allow operations to respond to a user response, etc.

5 Things I Really Like About Glassdoor for Employers: 

1. There’s a ton of just free stuff Glassdoor gives you to use and monitor that you’re silly for not taking advantage of, but one paid thing that I LOVE is your ability to post your jobs on your competitors page (if they are not a paid Glassdoor client -which most aren’t). People going to look at their page, many of them candidates, will see your jobs instead!

2. Candidate Activity stats. Glassdoor’s analytics show you which competitor jobs candidates are clicking. This allows you to do some very specific sourcing, and also see some possible candidates pools you weren’t aware of.

3. User Review Management. From the employer center you can now in one place read user reviews and respond, but you can also ‘feature’ one review that will be shown at the top of all reviews on your page. Basically, you can pick which of your reviews you want to feature. This is a paid service, but one I think is worth the ROI as it’s the first impression all candidates will read.

4. Running your own content stream on your Glassdoor page (free service). Glassdoor allows you place employment branding updates on your page and set up a live stream so that anytime something new is posted, it automatically shows up on your Glassdoor employer page.

5. Analytics. Some paid, some free.  Total activity and compare to competitors, candidate demographics, Rating and Interview trends, ratings by locations, competitor analysis, etc.  I can’t even tell you how robust the analytics are!  This alone is worth the demo.

I’m a big fan of what Glassdoor is doing and how they’ve evolved over the years.  If you haven’t checked them out lately, you need to. If  you haven’t claimed your free employer page, you’re an idiot. If you think you don’t have a brand, you’re wrong, you’re just not controlling it!

T3 – Talent Tech Tuesday – is a weekly series here at The Project to educate and inform everyone who stops by on a daily/weekly basis on some great recruiting and sourcing technologies that are on the market.  None of the companies who I highlight are paying me for this promotion.  There are so many really cool things going on in the space and I wanted to educate myself and share what I find.  If you want to be on T3 – send me a note.

T3 – The HR Tech Conference

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For T3 today I’m talking about the HR Tech Conference, not an individual piece of HR or Talent Technology.  The HR Tech Conference is held each year in Vegas in October. This year it’s October 18-21 at the Mandalay Bay.  I love this conference!

This year I’ll be attending HR Tech as an HR Tech Insider.  I’m not sure what this means except I’ll be blogging and talking about great HR Tech like I usually do, but maybe I’ll get access to some inside information like thirteen seconds before you get privy to the information as well! Yay, me!

HR Tech is one of the conferences I look forward to each year.  All the big HR and Talent Tech players launch all their new stuff.  All the up and coming HR tech comings come out and unveil what they are working on, and last year HR Tech even added a Startup area so I got introduced to about dozen companies that no one has heard of, that are working on stuff you’ll be using in five years!

It’s like Comic Con for HR nerds that love technology!

Here’s the other thing that HR Tech offers that you won’t get at conferences like SHRM.  You get a ton of of sessions where real HR pros and companies get on stage and talk about their secret sauce!  They talk about what they are using, how they are using it and all the good, bad and ugly it took to get them to this point.  It’s a brilliant format that I think teaches HR leaders what they really need to know.

I will caution HR and Talent Pros.  This conference isn’t for everyone.  I recommend HR Tech to everyone, and last year had some folks attend, on my recommendation and they weren’t very impressed. Why? It’s not SHRM.  They were expecting SHRM and HR Tech is not SHRM.  HR Tech is like the anti-SHRM.  I’m not knocking SHRM. I also like SHRM National, but for different reasons.

The audience at HR Tech is different from SHRM.  HR Tech gets more HR leaders, HRIS pros and organizational IT pros, basically buyers of HR and Talent technology.   The conversations and sessions that take place at HR Tech are definitely more strategic in nature than you’ll get in normal conversations at SHRM.  The other big difference is attendees of HR Tech seem more engaged and excited about HR as a function.

So, I’m again excited to be attending and blogging the latest and greatest HR and Talent Tech that I see.  If you want to go, I have a discount code you can use to receive $150 off your registration: Promo Code: SACKETT  (www.hrtechconference.com/register.html).  The code is good until October 15th!

Hope to see you at the conference!

SHRM National Speaker Feedback!

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Got my/our SHRM National Speaker Evaluation back last week.  It’s always fun to get and look at the comments and how you rated as compared the average.  Kris Dunn and I co-presented at SHRM this year. The session was titled: We’re Bringing Techy Back, and it focused on how to buy HR technology.

Here were are ratings, based on 152 responses:

Item Rated Our Average Rating  All Session Average Ratings
Quality of Information 4.41 4.27
Presenters 4.58 4.32
Too Basic 16 14
About Right 78 82
Too Advanced 1 1
Didn’t notice 4 4
Did They Sell – Yes 2 5
No 98 95

All that is cool.  Pretty good ratings. KD and I were happy with the presentation. Great turnout and high participation.

The great part of the SHRM Presentation evaluation are the Real comments that people leave you.

We got a lot like this (95%): 

– “Love these guys! Fresh, from the heart, solid content. Fun.” 

– “HR Pros need to have this presentation.” 

– “Most informative session I’ve attended. Best presentation so far!” 

– “Best session I’ve been to in years! Tons of practical advice. Very engaging!” 

We got a few like this (1%): 

– “Offensive towards vendors and sales people.”

– “The corny jokes at the beginning could be done without. Humility is a good thing.”

– “Very disappointed – a topic of great interest and the deliver ruined the presentation.”

We got some that made us laugh! 

– “Kris interrupts Tim a lot.” (thanks, to my one fan!)

– “Found that the tech session has paper evaluation forms!” (well…)

– “The guys attempt at being funny affected credibility.” (You’re telling us!)

One of the biggest takeaways was a lot of comments about what people were hoping we would have done more of, namely, tell them exactly what vendor to use, for certain situations. It’s the “what ATS should I buy?” dilemma. Kris and I addressed this because we knew this would be stuff people would want.  The problem is, a great technology for one organization, might be the exact wrong technology for another organization.

With such a diverse crowd at SHRM, it is almost impossible to recommend one HR and Talent vendor over another, if we are being honest about what is the best choice for your organization specifically.

This does bring up a great issue, though, across all the SHRM attendees.

People commented on this because they truly want an unbiased and trustworthy opinion on who they should be looking at, and what they should be buying.  They don’t trust vendors, for the obvious reason the vendor is trying to sell you.  They don’t trust industry analysts because they are all in bed with someone.  They don’t want to pay for consultants.

The HR and Talent industry doesn’t have a Consumer’s Report or Trip Advisor to give HR Pros unbiased advice.  So, they look at people, like Kris and I, as someone who will tell them the truth.  Which we would, and did, for many who stayed after and we had one on one conversations with about their specific issue.

I think SHRM could fill this void with some kind of behind the member wall “Trip Advisor” like site that allows all of us to give our own feedback on all HR and Talent technology.  This community share would be invaluable for all of us trying to make that next buying decision.

Get Your Employees to Stop Sleepwalking Through Open Enrollment

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Hey gang! I’m doing another SHRM Webinar to help you get your employees more involved in this year’s Open Enrollment, and give you some of the background to what frustrates them the most, along with some tips on waking them up!

Do way too many of your employees default into exactly the same plan they chose the year before…just because it’s easier? Is their reluctance to even consider making changes to their benefits costing them — and your company — serious money?

If so, you’re going to love the advice I have to offer about waking up your benefits sleepwalkers in this lively one-hour webinar.

Specifically, you’ll learn:

  • Why the same old, same old is so appealing to people, and how to make change seem less intimidating
  • Smart ways to deal with the blowback you might get if you take away a plan option
  • Why employees find making benefits decisions so dang hard – and how you can help alleviate their stress
  • What you can do to jolt your benefits sleepwalking employees awake once and for all

In short: if you’ve ever struggled to get employees to embrace a new plan or to take any action at all during open enrollment, this is the webinar for you!

August 20th at 2pm EST – just in time for your afternoon nap on the East Coast, and your lunch nap on the West Coast!

Free Webinar (Sponsored by SHRM and ALEX) –  How to Get Your Employees to Stop Sleepwalking Through Open Enrollment—And Help Them Make Better Decisions! 

REGISTER HERE! 

T3 – @HyphenApp

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This week on T3 I review the employee community/communication/engagement/feedback tool Hyphen.  Hyphen is a mobile app that allows employees to communicate anonymously, but within a company parameter.  Only those with an organizational email can sign into and message within the Hyphen app for that company. The organization controls who gets in and taken out through this email feature. Although, any employee, with an organizational email, can start using Hyphen.

Employees, at all levels, can use Hyphen at anytime, anywhere, through their mobile device.  Everything they post is anonymous.  This keeps the conversation open from free of retribution of what is said.  It’s community moderated, so users can flag inappropriate content, and once you get flagged three times, you get put in a penalty box.  Any flagged material gets taken down.

Too often, as companies get larger, the real opinions get lost. With Hyphen, that will no longer be the case. Also, an individual can easily ask for timely, anonymous, unbiased feedback.

The 5 Things I really like about Hyphen: 

1. It’s free to users, but if the organization or HR wants to use a dashboard that will get them data analytics and some more control, that cost per user.  It doesn’t give HR access to which user posted what, or who they actual users are, but it will give them so fairly robust analytics.

2.  Executives can easily use Hyphen to get real time feedback on anything.  Hyphen can configure the app to have your executives or leadership, show up differently, so your workforce knows that a question or feedback is coming from someone on the executive team.  I love this!  Most executives complain about the filtering of information that makes it to them. It’s so vanilla and politically correct by the time they hear it, they don’t know what to really believe.

3. Hyphen can break out groups within your workforce, allowing team leaders to ask questions to their group only, or give feedback that way as well, without the rest of the company seeing the stream.

4. Hyphen can be used by individual employees to build 360 groups and gather feedback about their performance, or ask questions on virtually anything.

5. I like the community moderation and the organization’s ability to shut off employees who leave the organization.  Every company would love to have a communication tool like this, but fear where it might go because of the anonymous feature. Hyphen has found a way to make both worlds happy.

Check it out. Your employees might already have, and be using it.

T3 – Talent Tech Tuesday – is a weekly series here at The Project to educate and inform everyone who stops by on a daily/weekly basis on some great recruiting and sourcing technologies that are on the market.  None of the companies who I highlight are paying me for this promotion.  There are so many really cool things going on in the space and I wanted to educate myself and share what I find.  If you want to be on T3 – send me a note.

The 19 Types of HR & Talent Software You Need

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I’m a virgin when it comes to HR Technology.  When I first got into really studying the industry I probably put HR technology into about three buckets: HR system of record, applicant tracking systems and payroll.  If you had those three types of software you had what you basically needed to run HR.

My friends, William and John, over at Key Interval Research recently released their latest study called “The Optimal Technical Stack”. The goal being let’s figure out what pieces of HR and Talent Technology you really need to run a ‘complete’ HR shop, and ideal HR shop.  If money was no object, what technology solutions should you have to be great?

Here’s the list. I’m going to put in order to what I think you should invest in first to last. The guys at Key Interval did not do this. They do real research, this ranking is just my opinion:

1. Human Resource Information System (HRIS)

2. Payroll

3. Recruiting/Talent Acquisition (Applicant Tracking Systems & Recruiting Automation)

4. Benefits Management

5. OnBoarding

6. Total Rewards (Recognition)

7. Performance Management

8.  Time & Attendance/Scheduling (Key broke T&A and Scheduling out separately, I think they go together)

9. Learning Management

10. HR Analytics

11. Succession Management

12. Engagement Tools

13. Recruiting Tools (Interviewing tools and Assessments – Key broke these out as two separate categories)

14. Wellness Management

15. Compensation Management

16. Employment Websites (CareerBuilder, LinkedIn, Glassdoor, etc.)

17. Collaboration/Communication Tools (Tools that help your employees communicate with each other: Yammer, TINYPulse, Chatter, etc.)

18. Case Management (Employee hotlines, tracking calls and issues brought into HR, etc.)

19. Workforce Planning & Workforce Management (Key had these broken out, but I think they actually probably fall into one of the 18 categories I have listed above somewhere)

You might rank this list differently depending on the situation you find yourself in with your current organization.  If I had my HR shop locked in and running down the tracks smoothly, maybe I would move up Wellness. If I had a crunch on hiring, maybe I move up some of the recruiting, interviewing talent attraction types of technology.

I think most people would look at this list and believe that their HR ‘suite’ is providing them with most, if not all of this stuff.  The reality is, most suites are good with about three of these, touch another three, and try to make you believe they have another three. That makes nine pieces they might cover, which leaves a ton of technology you just don’t have.

If you were to listen to any HR or Talent technology vendor in 2015, you would be led to believe that the only piece of technology you really need is HR Analytics!  That’s all we hear in the marketplace right now.

Another fascinating piece from the Key Interval research was that Succession Technology is ranked as the most desired need of organizations. Yet, has one of the lowest market penetrations. Also, it was clear to me, that organizations don’t really see any leader in this space. Most respondents used one of three tools for Succession: Some in-house/home grown (like an Excel spreadsheet), relied on what their HRIS suite offered (which is probably very weak) or relied on what their Learning Management system offered (probably weaker yet!).

No real players in Succession Technology!  Sounds like an opportunity…

Fascinating research and data from Key Interval.  Check them out. I love receiving their reports!

 

T3 – @Learnkit

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This week on T3 I’m reviewing elearning company Learnkit.  Learnkit is a custom elearning agency that, through our unique Learn-cycle pedagogy, produces engaging and enjoyable learning experiences to help organizations and individuals get better, everyday.

What does that mean?  They take your old and tired corporate learning materials and make them innovative, cool and fresh.  Learnkit is an extension of your Learning and Organization Development team.

They offer similar benefits reaped by an internal marketing department that outsources their creative work to a high-end agency.  Bringing this same level of expertise and experience in-house can be very expensive, and often internal teams don’t have the resources to develop elearning at the pace their organization needs. A company like Learnkit has the ability and specialized digital learning experts to rapidly produce tailor-made learning solutions that will match your brand and take advantage of the most cutting edge learning experiences on the market.

5 Things I really like about Learnkit: 

1. Measurable data. Learnkit builds on an elearning platform that provides you with great data, real-time. LOD teams are being pushed to innovate and prove ROI. You only do this by having the data available.

2. Standardize experiences. Learnkit provides a standardized experience across all those you are developing in your organization.

3. On demand access. Our organizations, leaders and employees expect training and development differently today, than ten years ago.  We can no longer wait until the training course is offered again, next month.  On demand elearning systems are a must for large organizations today.

4. Learnkit was impressive in their understanding that in every learning situation in an organization, it’s not just about delivering content, it’s also about having an opportunity to engage and aspire your workforce to be better. Better as individuals, but also better as a whole. This is unique.

5. Learnkit doesn’t offer a cookie cutter, one-size fits all approach.  You see this a lot in elearning solutions. We built something, we throw your content into it, it will work. Maybe, maybe not. I saw multiple client elearning sites that Learnkit put together and none were the same, and all fit the culture and brand of the client they were working with.

Here’s what I know.  In every organization I worked for on the corporate HR side, we had great LOD folks.  The problem was they never had the resources, time and creativity to produce great training and development materials. They were good, but they weren’t great.  We are beginning a time in HR where organizations are going to have to put money into training and development.  For my money, I’m shopping out the design and digital work to experts, and letting my internal team build the content.

 

T3 – Talent Tech Tuesday – is a weekly series here at The Project to educate and inform everyone who stops by on a daily/weekly basis on some great recruiting and sourcing technologies that are on the market.  None of the companies who I highlight are paying me for this promotion.  There are so many really cool things going on in the space and I wanted to educate myself and share what I find.  If you want to be on T3 – send me a note.

T3- @HRCloud

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This week on T3 I’m reviewing the HRMS system of record technology HRCloud. HRCloud is a HR system of record technology designed for the SMB market.  They compete in the same space as BambooHR.  Companies that are probably looking at their first complete HR system, or updating from a home-grown solution to their integrated suite.

HRCloud has a super clean User Interface and a very modern look and feel.  It’s HR software like you expect HR software to be.  Easy to use. Adaptable to how you want to work, and thought out in a way that makes sense for everyday HR and Talent Acquisition processes.

HRCloud has three main modules: Core HR, Onboarding and Directory.  Core HR is what you think it is. Employee file information, employee position tracking, compensation basics, data analytics, etc.  Onboarding is what you should have in today modern age or giving new employees the forms and access to information they need, before they even show up on their first day.

Directory is a new module for HRCloud which is basically an App that all of your employees can access from any device.  Directory allows employees to find contact information on anyone in your company (company contact, not personal!).  Connect their social feeds, put a face to a name, share information about yourself, etc. This fosters a higher level of connectivity amongst your employees, and allows employees to find others with similar interests, raising engagement.

5 Things I really like about HRCloud:

1. I’m kind of a design snob when it comes to software, I’m finding. HRCloud kills it! I like simple and clean, and their inhouse design team flat out gets it, far more than most HR software design teams.

2. HRCloud doesn’t view themselves as an ‘entry level’ HRIS system, although their price point is in that range. They want to be your system for as big as you grow and they are building out their software to be that vendor.

3. They really have positioned themselves to be the Core HR system for technology companies. They built their processes around organizations that embrace technology and believe in technology, as can be seen in both their Onboarding and Directory products.

4. I really like how HRCloud tries to build in interaction and collaboration amongst your employees wherever possible within the system. I’m a big believer that if your employees are engaged with each other, they’ll be more engaged with their work.  Your organization ultimately benefits from this. This goes way beyond where most core HR systems are.

5. HRCloud recently added a bunch of new stuff including time off tracking, off-boarding (which most of don’t really think about!), benefit tracking and even asset management (what stuff your employees have – iPhone, iPad, Mac, etc. – all that stuff adds up!).

If you are in the market for a Core HR system, HRCloud is definitely one you need to take a look at.

T3 – Talent Tech Tuesday – is a weekly series here at The Project to educate and inform everyone who stops by on a daily/weekly basis on some great recruiting and sourcing technologies that are on the market.  None of the companies who I highlight are paying me for this promotion.  There are so many really cool things going on in the space and I wanted to educate myself and share what I find.  If you want to be on T3 – send me a note.

Checking Work Email, Isn’t Working!

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For most of their careers, my parents could never check their work email at home.  It did mean that they probably stopped working when they got home, unlike most professional employees today.  My parents also rarely made it home at 5pm, and worked in the office many Saturdays and Sundays when the work needed to get done.

When did we start defining work as sitting in the bathroom at home and replying to email in five minutes as work?

Let’s face it, most people aren’t really working when they are home.  They like to believe that what they’re doing is real work, but if can also wait to be done the next morning when you arrive at the office, you’re not doing real work, you’re just narcissistic.  Oh, I better immediately get back to John and tell him I can definitely do that interview at 8am, next week Friday…

We act like checking work email at home is like we’re donating a kidney, or something.

CareerBuilder released a new survey today that shows that 59% of males and 42% of females respond to emails when out of the office.  Those numbers actually sound low to me. The survey also shows that younger workers are more likely to think about work when going to bed and when waking. Just wait! Pretty soon thinking about work will be the same as work!

Are we losing our minds!?

Seriously! I want to know.  Having the ability to check and respond to emails outside of the office increase your work-life flexibility, but we talk about it like it’s an anchor.  That iPhone is only an anchor if you make it an anchor!  Tomorrow I’m taking a half day to go watch my son play baseball.  In between innings I always check my email and respond if necessary.

Making the decision to take a half a day to watch my son play baseball is easy, because I know I can balance both jobs I have, running a company and being a Dad.  Does my son care that I’m checking email while he’s warming up in between innings?  No. He doesn’t even notice.  It’s not like I’m behind the backstop giving a performance review over the phone while he’s up to bat! I’m just checking and following up on some emails.

If you decide you want to stay connected to your job and organization while you are out of the office, that is a personal decision. Don’t act like you’re going above and beyond by keeping up on your emails.

If keeping up on your emails is the real work you’re doing, you’re way overpaid!