Top 10 HR Transformation Articles in July

Here is our pick of the HR Transformation articles in July, many thanks to all the writers, analysts and bloggers included.

The World Cup is over and congratulations to our Spanish friends! In the duller moments of the World Cup, some of us started to extrapolate wildly from sport to matters of leadership, talent and the nations’ emotions. AON bought Hewitt, a significant move in the rapidly developing HR Outsourcing Monopoly Board as the industry continues its consolidation. In HR Technology, find out who is the 800lb Gorilla in the corner and when will it start swinging it’s weight around? The Chief Financial Officer (CFO) is a key relationship for HR, and Charlie Judy outlines useful tips for maintaining and nurturing this relationship. And making a tenuous link from Finance to Math(s), the analyst, Thomas Otter, provides a career tip and calls for more maths skills in HR. And finally, we always like to look into our HR crystal ball, and Graeme Codrington outlines 9 workforce trends for the coming decade.

Thanks to everyone who has sent their Top 10 ideas, this is much appreciated - @AndySpence on Twitter.

1. HRO’s Summer Gets Hotter – Aon to Acquire Hewitt - from Linda Merritt, Nelson Hall

There has been further movement in the HR Outsourcing and HR Consulting industries with AON buying Hewitt. The industry analysts have been busy, but we don’t believe this is ”a sad, bad day for HR Outsourcing?”, as Horses for Sources report. Linda Merritt at Nelson Hall reports this deal is about growth, at Glass Bead Consulting we also see this market growing in the coming years.

The global HRO market now has five major global HRO providers – IBM, Northgate Arinso, Xerox/ACS, ADP and Accenture. We also expect to see some of the Indian based providers up there in the next couple of years (HCL, Wipro, TCS, Infosys and Caliber Point)

So all is not lost, this market is developing and this should ultimately be good news for buyers – watch this space as the HRO Monopoly game continues….

2. The Care and Feeding of Your CFO – from Charlie Judy, at HR Fishbowl

According to Charlie, if there’s one position in the organisation that most HR leaders have trouble connecting with, it’s the Chief Finance Officer (CFO).

Charlie outlines some useful suggestions for maintaining a good relationship with the Finance community. One of our favourites is to create an “HR Dashboard” that you share with the CFO and their team monthly. Include turnover, headcount, FTEs, cost of benefits, payroll, hiring statistics.

3. Reading Oracle's tea leaves from Bill Kutik, HR Executive Online

In HR Technology,

“The 800-lb. gorilla of HR technology sits where it wants to, talks when it wants to and, certainly, only to whom it wants to. “

Find out more about Oracle’s Fusion plans from the man in the know, Bill Kutik. Bill also gathers the opinions of other leading industry analysts.

4. Nine key workforce trends for the next decade – from Graeme Codrington, Tomorrows Today Blog

Working out future workforce trends is important in designing HR Operating Models and HR Strategies. Graeme Codrington outlines some key changes including more older workers, more women in the workplace, unprecedented youth unemployment and generational conflict.

5. Talent Management systems – Market update – from Josh Bersin

This is a useful overview of developments in the Talent Management Systems from Josh Bersin. This includes ADP’s acquisition of Workscape. Taleo introduces its Talent Intelligence Strategy and Saba introduces Saba Live.

6. Bring on the math(s) and stats – from Thomas Otter, Gartner

Some Math(s) love in HR from Thomas Otter and Evil HR Lady.

“One of my suggestions to HR is to hire a good numbers person, someone with strong undergraduate or preferably graduate statistics.”

We couldn’t agree more, HR needs more number crunchers and not just to keep in with the CFO. HR Analytics is essential as our businesses, workforce and economies change.

7. When is a strategy not a strategy? – from Jocelyn R. Davis, Edwin H. Boswell and Henry M. Frechetter, Jr. at TLNT.com

Even as the business environment has become increasingly complex, many strategies have become increasingly simplistic. Some have become so abbreviated that they’re little more than catchy phrases.

This is an interesting article, which poses the questions, is it time to review the HR Strategy?

By the way, check out TLNT.com – the business of HR – a useful source of HR related articles.

8. Beginners guide to using social media for HR – Guest post from Natasha Stone on Steve Boese's excellent HR Technology Blog

Some useful and relevant advice from Natasha from Silicon Beach Training which covers Recruitment, Communications & Social media policy.

On the subject of Social Media, see our article “Are you a HR Twitter Virgin?”, and for those who are not, (ahem) see also our “HR Transformers on Twitter”.

9. World Cup Leadership Lessons – Rosabeth Moss Kanter – Harvard Business Review

As well as Leadership Lessons, the World Cup also stimulated some thinking about slightly less important matters, such as :-

· Are there any Talent Management Insights from Football? – from the HR Transformer Blog

· Why Sport is crucial for managing the nations’ emotions - with Professor Cary Cooper quoting the great Bill Shankly.

If you think we were getting carried away making some wild extrapolations from kicking a ball around a pitch, then Laurie Ruettiman, from Punk Rock HR, brings us back down to earth,

“I don’t mean to break the hearts of HR and career bloggers out there, but the World Cup has nothing to do with work.”

So back to work it is, unless that is, you do actually work in Football.

10. Government Cuts: A view from the inside – from Karen Wise's HR Blog

Karen writes about HR in the NHS, and gives some interesting perspectives from the inside. The UK Government is planning to make up to 40% cuts to budgets. Karen outlines some of the challenges including demographics of the workforce and attitudes of the senior team.

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This entry was posted on Sunday, August 1st, 2010 at 8:48 pm and is filed under ERP, HR Blogs, HR Careers, HR News, HR Operating Models, HR Outsourcing, HR Strategy, HR Technology, HR Tools, HR Transformation, HR in the UK Public Sector, Latest News, Leadership, Talent Management, Top 10 HR Transformation Articles, Twitter. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can trackback from your own site.

Top 10 HR Transformation Articles in June

Here are 10 of the best HR Transformation articles from June, we hope you enjoy.

We have “Naomi in a box” and DIY HR Outsourcing – if these ideas do take off we are in trouble!

We peer into the 'crystal ball' and the search for the Holy Grail (but no mention of Monty Python) from Dr John Sullivan, Naomi Bloom, J. Keith Dunbar and Jon Ingham with a HR 2.0 case study.

The last 3 articles deal with HR in the UK Public Sector – is there an appetite to establish a huge HR back office, and if not, is HR equipped to deliver the proposed 25% cost savings? We also have the views of the Head of HR for the police in London – a warning to politicians – never mess with the cops – particularly with their HR ratios.

We hope you enjoy the articles, and get in touch with any Top 10 articles ideas @AndySpence on Twitter.

1. “The Future of HR” from a shareholders’ perspective - from Dr John Sullivan

What would HR look like if it were redesigned by shareholders? This is a really interesting perspective on the role of HR from Dr John Sullivan.

2. The Future Of HRM Software: Embedded Intelligence - from Naomi Bloom, at the In Full Bloom blog

“Meet Naomi, your friendly and very knowledgeable HRM/HRMDS consultant “in a box”.

The very thought of capturing Naomi Bloom’s knowledge in this way is enough to give MIT sleepless nights for years.

This provides some great insights into the future of HRM software from one of the most knowledgeable experts in the industry.

3. DIY for HRO – from Mark Stelzner, at Infexion Advisor

For organisations thinking of HR Outsourcing, Mark Stelzner, from Infexion Advisors gives some counter-intuitive advice (from a consultant). "Don’t use a HRO advisor, just do-it-yourself."

We agree with Mark in some situations, but think some conditions need to apply if you are going to try DIY HRO, including :-

- You have good up to date knowledge of all the relevant vendors

- Your organisation is good at managing outsourcing contracts

- You have a clear HR Transformation roadmap with buy-in from business stakeholders

- Your procurement team is comfortable running a vendor evaluation for a contract which usually involves technology, business, change

- You can tap into experience of the HRO lifecycle from conception, contract, transition to ongoing service delivery

The very useful DIY HRO deck illustrates the HRO journey, some great questions and is a good starter pack for those thinking of HRO, but don’t underestimate the complexity. Maybe we need a “HRO Advisor” in a box?

4. 10 Lessons Learned in the Quest to Become Strategic in HR- from Cathy Missildine Martin at the Profitability Through Human Capital Blog

Here are some of Cathy’s lessons learned over the last several years working with HR Departments that chose to go through a dramatic change by moving to a strategic "Business Partner" approach to HR. This includes, “You can't be strategic if HR is not intimately involved with the organizational strategy.”

Great learnings expressed clearly and without jargon.

5. The Holy Grail…Human Capital Development Aligned to Strategy - from J. Keith Dunbar at the DNA of Human Capital

It’s always great to hear how the US Defence Intelligence Agency deals with people management challenges, and Keith is our man. We particularly enjoyed this article as it highlighted the results of a very useful tool, assessing the differences between the perceptions of importance vs. effectiveness in people management.

They found a significant gap in Importance vs. Effectiveness (48%) in "knowledge, skills and capability requirements to execute business strategy." This indicates that this category is very important to the organisation, but not as effective as it needs to be. This can be useful information in helping to work out where to focus your efforts.

If you are interested in Importance vs Effectiveness tools, check our HR Effectiveness Survey as well as the excellent IBM paper on Workforce Analytics which is downloadable from Keith’s article.

6. Lynda Tyler Cagni, ex Ermenegildo Zegno on HR 2.0 – from Jon Ingham's Strategic HCM Blog

What is HR 2.0 exactly? Nobody explains the vision and the practicalities as passionately as Jon Ingham. Here is a case study, which always helps, from the retail group, Ermengegildo Zegno. “It’s about building collaborative enterprises and HR can play a big role in enabling this, and it’s a train that’s already left the station – HR needs to get on board quick.”

This is a great case study providing useful insights.

7. HR Technology Trends for 2010 – from John Sumser on HR Examiner

This is a useful presentation on HR Technology Trends from John Sumser. But what on earth is the “Sumser Curve”?

8. Government sets up efficiency hit squad – and warns HR to prepare for a storm – from Rick at Flip Chart Fairy Tales

Governments are planning to transform public services to reduce their cost of delivery to cope with the structural deficits.

Sir Peter Gershon is now advising the UK Government and says “HR functions will need to be on top form to prepare departments for the ‘shock wave’ of the government’s cost-reduction scheme”.

With the public-sector pay bill standing at £174 billion in 2008, and procurement costs totalling £220 billion, HR skills will be very much at the forefront of reducing “unsustainable” spending. This task will be all the tougher as HR functions themselves needing to be simplified, just when their skills are most needed, Gershon said.

Rick, from Flip Chart Fairy Tales sees problems ahead and outlines how HR will have to put their own house in order by shifting transactional activities into shared service functions and reducing the ratios of HR staff to employees.

9. Could the Whitehall reshuffle lead to one massive government back office? – from Inside Outsourcing at Computer Weekly

Can the government realise the potential of government back office sharing? If all the government business processing capabilities were brought together you would have a resource bigger and more efficient than any supplier.

Any move of this nature would probably require a large amount of consulting and supplier support.

Is there any ambition to creating a world class HR Services in the UK? Does the Government have the appetite to deliver standardised policies and processes, using common platforms and asking managers to manage their teams?

I am not sure there is much appetite for huge Government investment programmes – but some intriguing questions all the same…

10. Met chief: HR could be “priced out as an expensive overhead” – interview with Martin Tiplady, HR Review

During the UK election, David Cameron , now the UK Prime Minister, in a live TV debate mentioned that there were too many police officers working as “form fillers” in HR in London’s police force, the Met. Read the subsequent debate in Xpert HR "David Cameron Hits out at Metropolitan "HR Waste" and also see our article about HR ratios "HR Benchmarks : A government health warning".

This article from Martin Tiplady provides some clarification on HR ratios at the Met and his openness is respected. His message to others in the UK Public Sector is that “HR could be priced out as an expensive overhead". So HR be warned – you have had your collar felt by the long arm of the Met!

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