A Solution's Evolution
A Solution's Evolution | Human Resource Executive Online
An exclusive survey shows companies' talent-management strategies are still evolving, especially when it comes to social collaboration. Although more companies than ever are building talent-management strategies, measuring results and garnering enterprisewide adoption and employee buy-in remain problems.
By Jason Corsello
The last three years have been filled with hyper-growth in the talent-management technology market. The market has witnessed robust demand for stand-alone applications, such as recruitment, performance management and succession management, as well as increased interest in "suites," or buying multiple talent-management applications from the same vendor.
With economic uncertainty lingering, the question many are asking is where talent management goes from here. Talent-management strategies focused on "attract," "retain" and "develop" have been replaced with "survive."
At the same time, the promise of a fully integrated talent-management suite, unifying processes such as recruiting, performance management and learning -- centered around business goals -- has yet to be delivered by any single vendor, leaving many companies challenged to determine if they can meet and even deliver both short-term and long-term talent-management strategies.
The jointly conducted 2008 Knowledge Infusion and Human Resource Executive
®
Talent Management and Social Software Survey -- which polled 279 mostly HR practitioners online -- identified significant trends in HR-related technology spending from talent-management suites to the emergence of social-collaboration technology.
Although more companies than ever are building talent-management strategies, from 42 percent in 2007 to 51 percent in 2008, many of those companies are experiencing lackluster success measuring their talent-management initiatives. As a result, many companies are finding it difficult to garner enterprisewide adoption and employee buy-in.
Changing Landscape
Based on our recent survey, approaches to talent management continue to vary among enterprise buyers, from recruiting-centric talent management to pay-for-performance and career-driven talent programs. Talent management remains complex and diverse among all enterprises, making a one-size-fits-all approach difficult for a single vendor to fulfill.
From a technology perspective, best-of-breed vendors still dominate technology decisions in talent management, up nearly 15 percent from 2007 to nearly 60 percent in 2008.
Knowledge Infusion, the Minneapolis-based consultant for human resources and talent-management solutions, attributes this trend to deeper functionality, better usability, more rapid configurability and lower cost of ownership.
Preference for talent-management applications supported from enterprise-resource-planning vendors dropped 4.5 percent, down to 13.5 percent, suggesting the ERP vendors are not innovating as rapidly as the best-of-breed vendors when it comes to functionality and service delivery.
The migration toward a single-vendor "suite" for all talent-management processes is receiving lackluster support. Today, companies are taking multiple paths to talent management supported by varying technology approaches (
Exhibit 1
).
As the survey indicates, most buyers support fewer talent-management applications that meet specific business objectives and requirements instead of a fully integrated suite across all talent-management functions that may not meet all requirements.
Ironically, more companies want technology vendors that meet their specific, specialized needs but perform relatively simplified tasks, such as identifying internal and external talent simultaneously, executing a simple search on talent suitable to a business need or identifying future gaps in talent supply and demand.
More and more companies are increasingly building talent strategies around company initiatives such as talent segmentation, talent mobility and talent planning, requiring a certain flexibility of the technology to meet business needs. Lastly, although integration among disparate talent-management applications is typically a key requirement, many companies are unable to leverage the data and information across shared applications to facilitate decisions.
Social Skills
Social collaboration, also known as Web 2.0, has emerged as one of the greatest areas of interest within corporate America today. Knowledge Infusion defines social collaboration as an enabling strategy that enhances collaboration, productivity, engagement and performance at all levels of the workforce.
The underlying technology allows enterprise users to connect, interact, share and collaborate within their organization. Social collaboration includes technologies for blogging, real-time document collaboration, social networking, discussion forums, tagging, ratings and reviews.
Based on the recent Knowledge Infusion and HRE survey, only one in five companies have a clear strategy to drive social collaboration within their organization (
Exhibit 2
).
Knowledge Infusion attributes undeveloped social strategies to a lack of clear understanding about the ways in which new emergent social technology can impact business strategies. On the contrary, many companies have taken an information-technology-centric approach focused on the capabilities of the technology instead of identifying how the technology can have a significant impact on employee engagement, collaboration and productivity.
HR's role in social collaboration is still undetermined in most organizations. Although HR's (or, more specifically, talent management's) role in shaping social collaboration is critical, the knowledge, business alignment and understanding of technology is deeply lacking. Most organizations are ill-prepared to support, implement and govern enterprisewide social-collaboration initiatives.
Based on survey results, HR leaders have a unique opportunity to design a talent-management strategy leveraging social-collaboration technologies (
Exhibit 3
). HR should play a critical role in social collaboration -- not necessarily to lead a strategy, but to assemble the necessary stakeholders and drive governance and compliance of an enterprise's social strategy. Such strategies would include the fostering of collaboration and knowledge sharing through the use of new emergent technologies such as social networking.
Concern is still very pervasive regarding the uncontrollable factors, fears and risks associated with social software. Significant concerns identified in the survey include sensitive data and information becoming exposed or getting outside the company (57 percent), a nascent market of technology vendors that are still unproven and immature (38 percent) and concerns of employees wasting time and/or not doing their jobs (36 percent).
What the Future Holds
As talent management continues to evolve, organizations must not lose focus on what is most important -- creating effective results beneficial to the organization and its employees. Talent-management initiatives should still remain a priority, but should be focused on meeting the specialized needs and business strategies in the organization.
Over the next two years, social collaboration will overtake talent management as a key initiative within all enterprises. Those that adopt a comprehensive and well-driven approach, driven by business goals instead of IT constraints, will thrive. Social collaboration is not only being demanded in today's organizations; it is happening.
Every organization must quickly prepare a strategy to support and enable social collaboration before employees define it themselves.
May 16, 2009 Copyright 2009© LRP Publications
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