HR technology – Page 11

April 16, 2019June 29, 2023

How HIPAA-Compliant Are Digital Health Apps?

I recently received a pitch about how Amazon’s Alexa now has a “HIPAA-compliant upgrade” through which people can book appointments, ask health care questions and check on the status of prescription deliveries. The immediate reaction of my editor and me was, “How can this possibly be HIPAA-compliant?”

I bring this up because I’ve also recently read a Washington Post article about a pregnancy tracking app that claims to be HIPAA-compliant. And there was a lot to unpack here. From a patient advocacy perspective, a lot of scary things to unpack.

Before I get into that, a quick anecdote from my high school years. My dad gave me some job advice I’ve never forgotten. Watch out for yourself and if you want to quit, don’t feel guilty about leaving a company you don’t want to be working at anymore. If the tables were turned and the company had to sack a bunch of people, it’d feel no guilt about letting you go. It would make a non-emotional business decision. Employers mostly watch out for themselves, and employees should too. Loyalty can only go so far.

I know that many employers tout a “culture of health” nowadays and make broad claims about how much they care about the health of their employees. As a benefits and health writer, I don’t buy that. Not for nefarious reasons, but because I know that at the end of the day, it’s all about the business. That’s their No. 1 priority. Just like my career should be my No. 1 priority. To believe otherwise is naïve.

Also read: Trendy Digital Health Firms Seek Solutions to Questions It Never Thought to Ask

I’d argue that this self-interest extends to health plans. As this Washington Post article stated, “The real benefit of self-tracking is always the company. People are being asked to do this at a time when they’re incredibly vulnerable and may not have any sense where that data is being passed.”

How can employers benefit from self-tracking? Through digital health apps that employees sign up for, employers could access aggregate data of employee health; the data is “de-identified,” which means it’s stripped of information like name, social security number and email addresses that could be used to identify the patient. Employers who don’t pry into these anonymous identities can still use this data to understand the overall health of its organization and identify issues that afflict many employees, which could help inform and shape its health strategy.

As for sneakier employers, the article notes that it’s “relatively easy” for companies to identify patients (in this case, women using the pregnancy app) “based on information relayed in confidence, particularly in workplaces where few women are pregnant at a time.” Someone could, for example, cross-reference the app’s data with other data. This potentially could impact people’s health care costs or coverage.

An excerpt:

The apps, [health and privacy experts] say, are designed largely not to benefit the women but their employers and insurers, who gain a sweeping new benchmark on which to assess their workers as they consider the next steps for their family and careers. … Experts worry that companies could use the data to bump up the cost or scale back the coverage of health care benefits, or that women’s intimate information could be exposed in data breaches or security risks.

This is why I’m skeptical about digital health apps. I’ve heard arguments on both sides, but if it’s possible for someone’s private medical information to be used against them, how is that OK? Why aren’t there more protections for patients? And how could current patient protection rules be up to date with the digital age?

To quote an informative article from The Verge: “In 1996, the year Congress passed its landmark health privacy law [HIPAA], there was no Apple Watch, no Fitbit, no Facebook support groups or patients tweeting about their medical care. … [It] is still a key piece of legislation protecting our medical privacy, despite being woefully inadequate for dealing with the heath-related data we constantly generate outside the health care system.”

The Post article brought up something else noteworthy: the app’s 6,000 word “terms of use” agreement that women must consent to. A lot of us in the health space have probably heard the statistic of how few people know how to define basic health care terms like “deductible” and “premium,” suggesting low health literacy rates among people. So how is a person supposed to understand the legal and health care jargon in a 6,000-word “terms of use” agreement? Is that realistic? Do people really know what could happen with that data?

Further, according to the article, while a spokeswoman said the company doesn’t sell aggregate data for advertising purposes, the “terms of agreement” tell a different story. The company has a “royalty-free, perpetual, and irrevocable license, throughout the universe” to “utilize and exploit” de-identified personal information for scientific research and “external and internal marketing purposes.”

Digital health companies are a relatively new thing. And in any communications they make — whether it’s a press release, an executive’s quote in the media or the employee they pick to make a statement to the press — they’re marketing themselves. Of course the focus will be on the positive.

That’s why it’s healthy to be critical of these new institutions that have the potential to greatly impact people’s lives, health and security. If nobody pushes forward to seek change that could protect people’s health privacy, then the future health care environment is not going to be a safe place for patients. Patient advocacy groups should have a greater say in how these digital health companies operate. Insurance companies and employers can easily benefit from the wide array of data in these apps, but what about patients?

One final thought comes from an interview I had about six months ago with Candice Sherman, the CEO of the Northeast Business Group on Health. The NEBGH released a fascinating guide about genomic medicine and employers that came from a roundtable including many key stakeholders, including employers, clinical experts, benefits consultants and genomic vendors. The missing stakeholder was a patient.

Also read: New Wellness Bill HR 1313 Gets Flak for Genetic Privacy Concerns

I asked Sherman about that, and she explained how health privacy concerns would stop patients from participating in a discussion like this. I do understand this, logically — and I am by no means trying to criticize Sherman or the NEBGH roundtable, since I love that they met up to have a discussion on a health-related topic that’s only going to become more prominent.

That said, I think it would be valuable for businesses or business groups to find a way to include the patient stakeholder in conversations like this. Maybe through an advocacy group or an expert who can make sure to represent the patients’ interests without experiencing the same privacy concerns. There are options.

This is a lot of information, but this topic is important now and it’s not going anywhere anytime soon. In summation, de-identified, aggregate data doesn’t always stay anonymous; just because a digital solution is HIPAA-compliant doesn’t mean it’s necessarily harmless to a patient; and patients deserve to have their voice represented in health care conversations.

I understand the power of data for organizations to understand big picture trends, but if this data could easily be used against an employee, it’s not worth it.

Health data privacy is important. I’m curious what discussions we all must have and how laws should be rethought to represent patients — your employees.

March 29, 2019June 29, 2023

Q&A With John Bunch: Holacracy Helps Zappos Swing From Job Ladder to Job Jungle Gym

John Bunch began his career with online retailer Zappos in 2009 as a software developer. Since then, he has become the lead organizational designer and technical adviser to Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh. Bunch was the key leader in the company’s shift from a traditional business hierarchy to a self-organizational structure called holacracy. Workforce Editorial Associate Bethany Tomasian spoke with Bunch about Zappos’ journey away from the more traditional business structure and how holacracy has changed the workplace environment.

Workforce: In your own words, can you describe the concept of holacracy?

John Bunch: There are several different elements that holacracy brings to an organization. Traditional organizations’ hierarchy are positions from entry level to CEO and an employee resides in one place along that ladder. One of the ways that holacracy is different is that it’s a hierarchy of work, not people. That means that within holacracy there are different circles of work and an employee can reside in different circles. A circle is just another name for a team, and an employee holds a certain role in that circle. A single employee could hold different roles throughout several circles in the organization. In that sense, holacracy breaks down the one-person, one-team ideology.

Along with that element, there is distributed authority. In a traditional hierarchy you get the authority from a person higher than you in the organization, your boss. In holacracy there is a governance process which determines what roles have the authority to take which actions. The goal should be to unleash people’s creative power, let them be autonomous and only implement restrictions when there is a good reason. There are processes for distributing authority and for limiting that authority within a circle or throughout the company.

In holacracy there is also the concept of evolution. Within holacracy, you are constantly evaluating if those roles and circles in the company need to change. Anybody in the organization can propose a change to what work is being done. I think in traditional organizations, restructuring work is a big deal that could take months to unpack and it might happen infrequently. In holacracy those restructures of work can happen on a weekly basis.

Workforce: What have been the greatest challenges to overcome in a self-managing workplace that is very adaptive?

Bunch: In self-managing workplaces there is more autonomy and there also tends to be more opportunity. One of the things that we talk about is how traditional workplaces run on a job ladder where your progression at a company eventually leads you to your boss’ position. In our workplace, there are so many roles throughout the organization, and if an employee is interested they can pitch themselves for any role. Our mental model is that we are moving away from the job ladder and to the job jungle gym.

However, with more autonomy, opportunity and self-lead progression comes its challenges. Some people thrive in the holacratic environment while other people need more defined direction in terms of their day-to-day work and overall career. It can be a challenge for those people to learn and grow in the new environment. We’ve done things to help those people adapt such as offering a mentorship through the process of professional development and life-training.

Workforce: What have been the greatest successes since introducing holacracy?

Bunch: The biggest successes are the ideas that get off the ground that probably wouldn’t have happened if not for holacracy. In this new environment, your job doesn’t have to be contained to a specific team as you can move across these different circles which enables people to offer ideas that can benefit the whole company. Whereas at a traditional company, your job might be in finance and finance is all you do.

One example of this was when we launched our initiative Zappos Adaptive. This initiative focused on customers that might have adaptive or special needs in terms of their clothes and shoes. Zappos Adaptive was done through employees whose traditional job did not include this focus. These employees had a passion and a vision for helping people in that community.

Workforce: What lessons have you learned along the way with perfecting this method of organization?

Bunch: Whenever you have a change within your organization, you have to be patient with every team and individual’s journey through that change. Especially with a change as fundamental as holacracy. It could take months or even years to become efficient. Zappos, as an organization, had to be very patient in order to make this change. That is a person-to-person connection and we had to monitor where each employee was during their journey. We preach to not only be patient with yourself but also with others. That went a long way.

We also had to be open to trying new things with no guarantee that they would work. If those didn’t work, then we would have to learn and adapt. A good example of that process was when we were transitioning to holacracy. We were thinking about resource allocation and how that would work in the new environment. We realized that this was causing some big challenges in our business metrics. Our fundamental customer service metrics were being degraded based upon the way that we were operating at the time. That was a big deal to us because it went against out ideology, which is, “To live and deliver WOW.”

We tried something as an organization that ultimately wasn’t working and so we had to shift, learn and adapt. We created systems that righted the shift in our resource allocation and our metrics normalized, perhaps better than they were before. You have to be willing to learn from those mistakes and adapt.

Workforce: How has the self-management of holacracy impacted employee work-ethic and sense of personal value in the company?

Bunch: I think that the ability for different people to get involved with ideas across the company has allowed more self-direction. People can be passion-forward and get involved in things that they are passionate about. That can really help employees see the personal value that they create. This isn’t a part of holacracy specifically, but some of the other systems that are scaffolded on top of holacracy speak to this.

For example, we are working on internal market-based dynamics, which essentially means that each circle in the organization would be run like a micro-business. In this system, each micro-enterprise would be funded by the customers. These can be internal customers or external customers. Instead of a top-down funding model, we are shifting our funding as being derived from the customer of whatever work you do. In a traditional company, employees might not see the value that they are creating. This change is relevant to the employee’s personal value because employees won’t think of themselves as a cost to an organization. By creating these internal customers through these micro-business interactions, employees can really see the value that they add to the company.

Workforce: How can innovation in leadership and organization such as holacracy shape the future of how companies operate?

Bunch: As we grew at Zappos, there was this sense we got from our leaders that the things which worked very quickly as a startup were not happening as fast anymore. If you’ve ever been frustrated by how long it takes you to get something done then you might resonate with this. As we started examining that challenge, we were really inspired by this research that had been done about cities. The research found that every time a city doubled in size, productivity per resident grew by 15 percent. As cities grow, they become more productive on a per-resident basic. However, the exact opposite happens when organizations grow larger. As the size of an organization doubles, productivity per employee goes down. I think we sense this as employees at large organizations when we become frustrated by how long things can take.

What if we could structure our companies in ways that cities are structured? Could we see the same exponential relationship between growth and productivity? That is the vision of where we want to go at Zappos. We want to show that with holacracy we can make more productive and happier employees.

Workforce: What advice would you offer other companies and even startups that are thinking about evolving the workplace hierarchy dynamic?

Bunch: It is easier to start when you are small. At Zappos, we started on this journey when had around 1,500 employees. Some of the challenges that we went through were due to our size. Those were challenges that we might not have had if we started these changes when we were a five-person company. If we started when we were small, some of these changes would have grown in scale with the organization.

I would also tell companies to think small. Think about small ways that you can make your workplace more dynamic and give those a try. If you see positive change, then keep going.

It is easy to go with the status quo and the traditional methods of organization. However, there is a growing amount of evidence of the fundamental flaws with that line of thinking. If you want to have an organization that is inspiring and resilient then it is important to think about these changes.

February 27, 2019February 27, 2019

Reskilling: The New Trend in Recruiting

It doesn’t matter how talented your new hires are, or what stellar technology training they’ve received.

Chances are within a few years those skills will be obsolete.

Technology evolves so quickly that it is no longer enough to hire for the skills needed today. To stay relevant, companies need to hire people who have the ability to constantly learn new skills that may not yet exist. This focus on reskilling as a talent management strategy is already taking place, said Art Mazor, principal of Deloitte’s human capital management consulting practice, in Atlanta. “Most big companies today are focused on reskilling, and for good reason: The half-life of skills is two to five years,” he said. “That has huge implications for recruiting.”

With demand for talent at an all-time high, companies can’t expect to pluck these skills ready-made from the talent pool. They will have to create them in-house by providing employees with constant access to training, and incentives to continuously reskill.

Research from McKinsey found 82 percent of executives at large organizations believe retraining and reskilling must be at least half of the answer to addressing their skills gap, with 27 percent calling it a top five priority. And 74 percent of global recruiting firms say reskilling workers represents an effective strategy to combat the perennial skills shortage, according to Bullhorn’s 2019 “Staffing and Recruiting Trends” report.

“Reskilling is an important solution to the talent shortage,” said Vinda Souza, vice president of marketing for Bullhorn. She said that as long as there is low unemployment, companies need to consider what training they can provide to new and existing talent to constantly close new skill gaps.

To reskill someone, look for people with “adjacent skills,” said Jesper Bendtsen, head of recruiting for Thomson Reuters in Toronto. “Don’t just look for people who know blockchain or AI,” he said. “Look for people who work with related technologies that will lend themselves to your future needs.”

That talent pool may already be on staff. Bendtsen noted that employees who have been with the company for years may not have the exact skills you are looking for, but they know your culture, your customers and your way of doing business. “Start by looking internally at who might be interested and able to transition to a new role through retraining,” he said. An internal upskilling program can help companies close talent gaps while reinforcing their commitment to the existing workforce.

When recruiting externally, companies need to consider what skills they are looking for and how that impacts the recruiting process. New hires need to be willing and able to learn new skills and to tackle nebulous workplace challenges. Identifying these skills requires more thoughtful assessments of candidates’ soft skills and personality, not just their past history, Mazor said.

Some organizations are adding virtual reality, automated simulations and gaming tools to the recruiting process to observe how candidates handle unknown situations and learn new information to solve problems.

“These tools test their predisposition for handling challenges while creating a compelling candidate experience,” Mazor said.

Companies are also integrating hiring managers into this assessment process. At Thomson Reuters, for example, software engineers oversee candidates as they complete coding challenges, while asking questions about their process.

“The goal isn’t to see if they get the right answers, but to see how they tackle problems and use information,” Bendtsen said. “It’s an objective way to assess a candidate’s skills and ability to learn.”

This new approach to recruiting could make it easier for companies to look further afield for candidates who show an aptitude and interest in learning, even if they don’t follow a traditional academic or career path, said Tara Cassady, senior vice president at Cielo, a global recruitment process outsourcing provider in Milwaukee. “You want people who are curious, have an aptitude to troubleshoot, and who use technology to solve problems,” she said. These lifelong learners could just as easily come from tech schools, boot camps and online universities as from traditional college campuses.

Once they do find or retain these candidates, they are also investing more effort into retaining them, she said. From ensuring that interns have a clear path to employment, to making sure newly trained talent are given new assignments and competitive salaries, engagement and retention must be part of the reskilling trend, she said. “If you are going to invest in training talent, you don’t want to lose them to a competing firm.”

February 27, 2019June 29, 2023

Globoforce Renames Itself as Workhuman

This year, Globoforce celebrates 20 years of providing employee rewards and recognition solutions.

And 2019 also marks another milestone as co-founder and CEO Eric Mosley said that Globoforce is renaming itself Workhuman.

Headquartered in Framingham, Massachusetts, and Dublin, Ireland, Workhuman also is the name of Globoforce’s annual conference, which this year is scheduled March 18-21 in Nashville. The conference features actors George Clooney and Viola Davis as keynote speakers.

“I’m thrilled to announce that our company name now clearly reflects the power of bringing gratitude into the workplace,” Mosly said in a Feb. 27 press statement. “We are Workhuman. This evolution acknowledges both the traction and effectiveness of our Workhuman Cloud platform and the demand from progressive global organizations who want to motivate and empower their people to do the best work of their lives.”

Some 4 million people in more than 160 countries access Workhuman Cloud, according to the press statement.

“Great leaders instinctively know that the more gratitude in a company, the better it performs,” Mosly said in the press statement. “Turnover is cut in half for employees who receive a moment of gratitude from a fellow employee at least once every 60 days. And safety records are more than 80 percent better for teams that express gratitude.”

In December 2017, Globoforce named veteran human resources leader Steve Pemberton as its chief human resources officer.

Pemberton, the former chief diversity officer for Walgreens Boots Alliance, the well-being enterprise of the drug-store giant, was brought on to work with Globoforce HR leaders and senior management executives worldwide to help them create relationships with their employees so they feel recognized, respected and appreciated, according to a statement from the company. Pemberton also was assigned to manage Globoforce’s WorkHuman movement.

Companies including JetBlue, the Hershey Co. and Procter & Gamble Co. utilize Workhuman’s recognition programs, according to the annual Workforce magazine Hot List of Rewards and Recognition Providers.

Along with a new name, Workhuman also announced their newly expanded $4.5 million headquarters expansion in Dublin along with the creation of 150 new jobs, the press release stated.

February 26, 2019June 29, 2023

Why SMBs Are Buying — But Not Using — HR Tech

Small and midsized businesses may be investing in more HR technology, but they aren’t making good use of it, and that’s a shame.

A new survey from HRIS provider BerniePortal found that while 64 percent of small and midsized businesses use HR software, few are using technology to manage the full scope of HR. “SMBs are definitely familiar with HR software, but they are not using it,” said Alex Tolbert, founder and CEO of BerniePortal.

Tolbert attributes the lag in uptake to the fact that HR leaders in smaller companies are time-strapped and over-worked. More than half of the companies surveyed have just one HR person on staff, and many of them report that HR is not their sole responsibility.

This creates a Catch-22 for tech adoption. Sole HR leaders know they can benefit from automation delivered through HR software, but they don’t have the time, budget or expertise to choose products, vet vendors and deploy new applications. “The survey tells us that HR administrators are time-challenged, and that they recognize the opportunity to streamline their workload through automation,” Tolbert said. They just need to find the time and resources to leverage them.

SMBs Spend Big

This transition does appear to be occurring. Sierra-Cedar’s 2018-19 HR systems report found that the fastest growing segment of new HR technology buyers is small businesses, with 38 percent reporting plans to spend more on HR tech in the next three years.

“By the time a business reaches 20 to 50 employees, they are starting to see the value of core HR technology,” said George LaRocque, founder and principal HCM market analyst for LaRocque LLC in New York. His research found small companies use an average of seven to eight HR related apps at this point in their growth cycle. “It’s not hard to get to that point even in a small firm.”

Also read: AI Is Coming, and HR Is Not Prepared

Usually they start with payroll, though demand for talent is causing a shift toward talent management systems. The Sierra-Cedar survey found small businesses were more likely to increase spending in talent management applications than any other category.

“Across industries, everyone has a talent problem,” LaRocque said. “They are competing with each other for a limited talent pool, and they have to get creative in the way they source.” That is spurring them to adopt applicant tracking systems and recruiting apps, as well as in-house tools to engage workers and manage succession planning faster than they might have in the past. “HR is being pushed to find more innovative ways to address the talent issue,” LaRocque said. “It is driving the adoption of more HR applications in small businesses.”

Though even if small companies are eager to adopt new tech, they are cautious about where to spend money, and how to generate the most value from limited budgets.

For very small companies just beginning the HR software journey, LaRocque encouraged them to start with core HR solutions. “You want to get payroll, benefits, time and attendance, and paid time off in order, and there are a lot of platforms designed to help small companies do all that,” he said. “Then you can start looking at purpose-built solutions to meet your specific workforce needs.”

The HR problems a company faces will determine the kinds of tools they should deploy — but they shouldn’t delay. “If you think you don’t have time for technology you’ve got your head in the sand,” he said. The time savings that HR leaders achieve by automating laborious HR tasks make these tools immediately worth the investment, especially for small companies with under-staffed HR teams.

February 11, 2019June 29, 2023

Emojis Are Starting to Pop Up in Discrimination and Harassment Cases

Law.com recently pronounced, “The Emojis are Coming!”

That article got me thinking, are they coming to workplace litigation, too? After all, emojis are a form of communication, and work is all about communication. Which would suggest that we would start seeing them in harassment and discrimination cases.

According to Bloomberg Law, mentions of emojis in federal discrimination lawsuits doubled from 2016 to 2017. Let’s not get crazy. The doubling went from six cases to 12 cases. But, a trend is a trend.

While harassment cases dominate these filings, it’s not just employees who are using 🍆 to establish a hostile work environment. Employers are using employees’ use of emojis to respond to alleged acts of harassment (such as 😄, or 😉, or 😉) to help establish that the alleged hostile work environment was either welcomed or subjectively not offensive.

For example, in Murdoch v. Medjet Assistance (N.D. Ala. 2018), the court held that the plaintiff’s use of a smiley face emoji in a text message to her accused harasser helped establish an absence of a hostile work environment. Similarly, see Bellue v. East Baton Rouge Sheriff (M.D. La 2018) (😉) Stewart v. Durham (S.D. Miss. 2017) (😘 and 😉); and Arnold v. Reliant Bank (M.D. Tenn. 2013) (😊).

On the flip side, consider the salacious sexual harassment lawsuit filed against celebrity chef Mike Isabella. According that lawsuit, Isabella referred to attractive female customers as “corn” after one of his chef’s commented that one woman was “so hot, [he’d] eat the corn out of her shit.” The lawsuit alleges further acts of harassment via text messages with with corn emojis 🌽.

Also read: Harassment By Emojis

These cases all beg the questions, “Do you need a workplace emoji policy?” I answered this question in 2017 with an emphatic “NO.”

Most employers already have an emoji policy. It’’s called your harassment policy. You do not need a separate policy to forbid your employees from using what is becoming an acceptable form of communication … .

We can have a healthy debate over the professionalism of emoji use in business communications (like this one). Indeed, according to one recent survey, “nearly half (41%) of workers use emojis in professional communications. And among the senior managers polled, 61% said it’s fine, at least in some situations.” My sense is that your view of this issue will depend on a combination of your age, your comfort with technology, and the age of your kids.

As for me, I use emojis all the time, even at work. Email is notoriously tone deaf. It’s easier for me to drop a 😊 into an email to convey intent than to tone down my sarcasm.

In other words, 😁. Emojis are 👌, and it’s perfectly fine to ❤️ them at work 👍.

February 5, 2019June 29, 2023

How to Recover a Stolen Computer From an Ex-employee in 7 Easy Steps

As many as 60 percent of employees who are laid off, fired or quit admit to stealing company data.

Sometimes they download information on their way out the door. Sometimes they email information to a personal email account. And sometimes they simply fail to return a company laptop or other device that contains the data. In the latter case, according to the Ponemon Institute, it costs an average of $50,000 for an employer to replace a stolen computer, with 80 percent of that cost coming from the recovery of sensitive, confidential and proprietary information.

When you put this data together, it becomes increasingly apparent that businesses must take proactive steps to protect their technology and data.

In light of these stats, let me suggest a seven-step plan to recover your devices and the crucial information stored on them after an employee leaves your organization.

1. Institute a strong electronic communication and technology policy, making clear that all data and equipment belong to the company, and must immediately be forfeited upon the end of employment. Or, better yet, have employee signed an agreement affirming their obligations regarding the confidentiality of your data and confirming the obligation to return everything at the end of employment.
2. Cut off an employee’s e-access to your network as soon as you have notice that an employee has departed.
3. Remind employees upon termination or resignation of their absolute duty to return all data and equipment, including laptops, mobile devices and removable storage devices.
4. To the extent you have the capability, and you have confidence that you have your own backups of the employee’s data, remote wipe any unreturned devices.
5. If any data or equipment is missing, enlist the aid of an attorney to send a clear message that unless everything is returned immediately, the company will litigate to get it back.
6. Enlist the aid of a computer forensics expert to determine if, when, and how any data was stolen, and, if so, of what that data consisted.
7. Sue.

Notice that a lawsuit against the employee is step seven, not step one. In most cases, going to court is the last resort. It is expensive and time consuming.

Yet in many instances it is unavoidable. And depending on the scope of the suspected theft and the data at issue, it may quickly move up the list.

January 11, 2019June 29, 2023

Public Sector Workplaces Turning to the Cloud

When Alex Smith was hired as the chief human resources officer for the city of Memphis in 2016, she had never previously held a public sector job — one of the reasons she was selected.

City leaders wanted to bring fresh eyes to the team to address the ongoing problem of how to attract and retain the best talent to city jobs. Smith found that many of the city’s human resources processes were still paper-based and data was stored in siloed databases, which added time and confusion to hiring and talent management.

“I knew we needed to automate some of these processes,” said Smith, who previously held private-sector HR jobs with Brightstar Corp. and Target Corp. One of her first suggestions was to implement a cloud-based HR technology system that would streamline hiring and better manage candidates and employee data. After some negotiating, the chief information officer and head of finance agreed, and they adopted a cloud-based human capital management system from workplace software giant Oracle.

“It was a huge win,” Smith said.

The technology eliminated many of the manual tasks like copying addresses into multiple databases and producing monthly trend reports.

“Now I can focus on tasks that matter the most and I can track hiring data in real time,” she said. It also streamlined the candidate experience and helped her expand the city’s social recruiting and brand recognition. “It is helping us to be more proactive in attracting talent,” she said.

A few years ago, this kind of story — of a public sector agency investing in cloud-based HR technology and social recruiting platforms — would have been unusual. The public sector has a reputation for being slow to adopt HR technology to empower workers and streamline HR tasks, said Sean Morris, a principal at Deloitte covering human capital trends in the public sector. “There is a history of under-investing in human capital by government due to limited budgets.”

Public sector HR people also don’t have a seat at the funding table, which means there is no one to champion their cause, said Sean Osborne, vice president of product management for public companies for Acendre, a cloud-based talent management software company that serves the public sector. “We often find that HR doesn’t have the budget or authority to effect real change.”

Even when these agencies have funding for technology upgrades, the siloed nature of government agencies and opposing funding priorities can quickly push HR investments to the end of the line, Smith added. “If HR is competing with the police or fire departments for project funding, police and fire will always win.”

This lag effect is about more than just money. There is also a change management challenge. In government, many senior leaders and IT staff have been in those roles for years and they have a set way of doing their jobs and making decisions. Moving to the cloud is a completely different way of managing technology and data, and there is a lot of resistance to change, especially from employees who fear their jobs will be at risk.

Technology and Talent Are Getting Old

These delays have had a long-term impact on recruiting talent management trends across the public sector. Many public sector agencies still rely on paper-based recruiting and onboarding steps, which are cumbersome and can add weeks to the hiring process. “Millennials and Gen Z don’t understand why it would take that long,” Morris said, noting that the negative experience may cause them to look elsewhere for work. These organizations also lack tools and transparency to effectively support career development, or to use people analytics as part of business and talent decisions. All of this is making it difficult for public sector agencies to attract and retain talent, said Morris. “That has put them in the situation they are in now.”

That situation is a rapidly aging workforce and a recruiting environment that makes it difficult to attract and retain young talent. Data from the Office of Personnel Management shows that less than 7 percent of the federal workforce is millennials, even though they make up 35 percent of the workforce nationwide; and 44 percent of federal workers are over the age of 50, which means they are inching ever closer to retirement with few younger staff ready to take their place.

“If HR is competing with the police or fire departments for project funding, police and fire will always win.”

— Alex Smith, CHRO, City of Memphis

This combination of aging talent and outdated technology is making it difficult for them to compete for young talent, said Daniel Torrens, global public sector HCM strategist for SAP SuccessFactors. “Candidates have a lot of choices today, and public sector organizations haven’t been building their brand or engagement strategies.”

These pressures are forcing public sector agencies to shift their attitude about cloud-based HR technology and to prioritize these transitions as they consider their future talent development and workforce management needs.

“Government CIOs no longer question whether they should move to the cloud, it’s all about, ‘How do we get there,’ ” Torrens said.

That’s good news for vendors. Torrens noted that four years ago, these agencies were still paying off their on-premise solutions and wouldn’t even consider a move to the cloud. But in the past 18 months that has changed. “We are having a lot more conversations about how to build a business case and get funding to adopt the cloud.”

Talent Needs Force the Issue

Fully 81 percent of public sector respondents now consider the cloud to be one of the top three technologies for ROI potential, according to the 2018 SolarWinds “IT Trends Report.” Almost as many (79 percent) see cloud as a top three solution to achieve productivity and efficiency benefits.

To support these interests, many public sector organizations, including government, education and health care, have adopted a cloud-first policy to replace legacy systems and design new more agile service-based solutions, said Sherry Amos, director of market development for education and government at Workday.

HR is also gaining more visibility in decision-making as public organizations acknowledge that talent management is a strategic issue that needs to be addressed. “In the past, finance drove all of these acquisitions,” Amos said. “But HR now has a seat at the table.” This is giving public sector HR leaders an opportunity to shape the future of workforce management and the technologies their organizations will use to support them.

This is where the challenge of moving public sector HR into the cloud shifts to the vendors, Morris said. The decision to move to the cloud is only the first in many steps for public sector clients. “If a vendor wants to support customers in the government cloud space, they have to federalize their tool.”

FedRAMP and Title 5

The majority of government organizations have to meet a very unique set of rules and requirements for adopting any cloud-based solutions, and they rely on vendors to adapt their systems accordingly. These include ensuring all data centers meet FedRAMP, the Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program requirements, which include an extensive list of rules for security assessment, authorization and continuous monitoring of cloud products and services.

“Meeting FedRAMP is a high barrier to entry in this space,” Osborne said. Vendors also have to adapt their platforms to meet Title 5 rules regarding administrative personnel, which cover issues such as pay schedules, job titles and priority hiring for veterans and people with disabilities. It can take months and a significant financial investment to adapt current HR platforms for a public sector workplace environment.

The majority of civil government organizations have to meet a unique set of rules and requirements for adopting cloud-based solutions.

Vendors also face a ton of pressure to get it right — because if they screw up things like data security it could result in national security risks. “Any time you move a large swath of data to a new environment you have to do your research because no system is foolproof,” Morris said.

The challenges are significant, but the effort to meet regulations and cater to this clientele is clearly worth it. “The federal government is the largest employer in the country,” Osborne said. And since most of these agencies are only just now considering cloud-based HR technology solutions, the commercial opportunities are bountiful. “The time is ripe right now for public sector organizations to move to the cloud,” said Eva Woo, global vice president of solutions management for SAP SuccessFactors.

Public Sector Tipping Point

The enormous sales potential is causing vendors across the HR technology industry to pay closer attention to the needs of public sector clients and to prioritize meeting regulatory requirements and adapting their customer management processes for a public sector environment. That includes adapting their sales and marketing strategies for longer procurement cycles.

“It can take two years just to secure funding and execute procurement,” Amos said. Public sector clients also tend to pursue a phased approach to their transition to the cloud, starting with low-risk systems to demonstrate safety and performance before moving to more mission critical systems that support HR and finance.

Morris noted that SAP and Oracle were among the first HR cloud-based solution providers to embrace public sector clients and their regulatory and procurement needs, though other vendors have been quickly following suit. He believes that the next three to five years will see a flurry of cloud-based HR projects across the public sector, including local and federal government, education, health care, and other agencies that need a better, faster and more transparent HR solution to deal with their recruiting and talent management needs.

Morris encourages vendors to make the continued investments in meeting regulations and to hire people with experience in public sector HR and IT who can help them navigate the complex procurement process. “The public sector is a massive market, but you have to play the long game,” he said. These agencies know they have to make investments in cloud-based HR solutions, but they will need vendors who can help them get there.

Vendors may also need to provide more IT support and education. City of Memphis’ Smith noted that many public agencies don’t have the head count or expertise to manage a cloud transformation on their own, so they will rely on vendors to fill gaps. “Having partners who will support training and change management needed on these projects is very important.”

These clients may have more needs than private sector companies, but the vendors who can support them and prove they understand how the public sector environment works will be will be best positioned to win these clients in the future.

November 7, 2018June 29, 2023

Hyatt Taps Into Virtual Reality to Hire 10,000 Young Workers

The unemployment rate may be at a record low, but there are still vast pockets of workers in the United States struggling to find jobs.

Global hotel chain Hyatt Corp. is tapping into one of these talent pools with RiseHY, its new community-hiring program, which uses virtual reality and gaming to introduce young people looking for career opportunities to the hospitality industry.

As part of the initiative, Hyatt hotels around the world have committed to hiring 10,000 “opportunity youth” — people ages 18 to 24 who are neither in school nor working — by 2025. According to data from Brookings Institute, 4.7 million young people fall into this category.

“This program is a labor of love,” says Jessica Schultz, Hyatt’s senior manager of community engagement. Part philanthropy and part talent development, RiseHY was designed to support the community while helping Hyatt fill its talent pipeline. “This is a pool of untapped talent who have skills and ambition,” said Audrey Williams-Lee, vice president of corporate HR and philosophy. “They could be a great fit for our organization.”

Immersive Hotel Tours

However, RiseHY is more than just a targeted recruiting effort.

Opportunity youth often come from disadvantaged neighborhoods and have limited work experience and education. “Hospitality jobs aren’t even on their radar,” Schultz said. When Schultz and Williams-Lee began designing the project, they knew they would need to close that gap and find a way to help young people imagine building a career in hospitality.

To give them a sense of what life would be like working in a hotel, they worked with a vendor to build a virtual reality app, called YouVisit, where candidates can take a virtual guided tour of a hotel, see what workers do and learn what’s required of different roles including room attendants, hostesses, wait staff and concierge. “The virtual reality lets them see what their career path could be, and to think about whether this is a good fit for them,” Williams-Lee said.

Gaming the System

Priyanka Jain

Interested candidates are also invited to complete an online assessment, built by Pymetrics, that uses artificial intelligence to assess a candidate’s skills and attitudes through a series of games and reasoning exercises. The games use neuroscience and reviews of past assessments to measure things like how well candidates multi-task, whether they can filter distractions, and their willingness to take risks, explained Priyanka Jain, head of growth and lead product manager for Pymetrics.

The system then determines where a candidate would be a good fit. “There are no good or bad responses,” Jain said. Rather, it helps the candidates and Hyatt understand where candidates are likely to thrive in the absence of a resume or past job experience.

The virtual reality app and game-based assessments are meant to ease these young people through the early recruiting process, but it is also expected to help increase retention and job satisfaction by ensuring the right people are put into the right roles, said Schultz. “It will create a better flow for our talent funnel.”

Once candidates are selected, they are either hired directly and given a mentor to support them as they ease into the role, or they are placed in a three- to six-month training program developed in partnership with community groups to give them the skills they will need on the job.

Once the training is complete, they may be hired by Hyatt or referred to other hospitality employers. “We aren’t just doing this for Hyatt,” Schultz said. “It’s about helping these kids find careers in hospitality.”

Expanding the program ensures every interested youth has an opportunity to find a job and that Hyatt doesn’t have to slow the program down during low hiring seasons, she added. “We expect to hire at least 10,000 youth, but this program will impact so many more.”

September 12, 2018June 29, 2023

Enterprise Human Resources Technology Enters a New Era

In most jobs, employees are likely responsible for a lot of different things, no matter what the job description says.

They must communicate certain information and manage certain tasks and resources. Workers definitely have to manage their time and stress levels and measure their responses to requests.

Their job is not to complete a goal plan or fill out a self-evaluation of their performance, engage in learning and development courses, complete an engagement survey or any of the other HR-type tasks employees are frequently asked to do. But to many employees it probably feels like HR thinks that is their job.

And the frustration of being taken out of productivity to complete these tasks is just part of the workload.

The truth is, human resources has struggled for a long time to figure out how to embed these kinds of tasks in day-to-day work of employees so that productivity is uninterrupted. But they have a mountain directly in their way in the form of the HR technology used by many of today’s organizations.

This technology may comprehensively meet the needs of HR, giving them one automated place to track employee goals, completion rates of performance forms and report on employee data. But when it comes to meeting the needs of the people using the technology to get things done, it almost always falls short.

Here’s a secret human resources technology vendors won’t typically tell you: It’s because we purposely built it that way. For a long time, human resources technology was designed to automate processes, enabling users to get from point A to point B. It was designed to be deployed across an entire workforce, driving consistency and scale across departments and teams. And it was designed to meet the needs of one group: human resources.

So, what happened? Over time the workforce changed, the nature of work changed, and the role of technology in our lives became unrecognizable from one year to the next.

Now solutions that focus on processes instead of people, force consistency instead of choice and meet the needs of one stakeholder while remaining disconnected from the rest of the business are quickly becoming obsolete. Consider today’s employee who can get directions from their phone just by asking, or use a voice command to learn about the weather.

Then they come to work and break away from job-related tasks to edit a performance goal in a clunky, outdated system through a series of clicks and menu options that get them there — but without much of a sense as to how or why. Is this sounding familiar?

The focus of enterprise technology is going from business process automation to delivering exceptional employee experiences that connect them to the business in new and meaningful ways. Where the human resources technology of the past was process-centric, rigid and disconnected, it must now become people-centric, flexible and holistic.

As the owners of employee experience and the ultimate stakeholders in whether the workforce is engaged, performing and thriving, business leaders must give their people tools that help not only processes, but people in doing their jobs — wherever their jobs take them, and whatever it is they’re working on.

This is the guiding principle influencing how human resources technology should be designed. An efficient tool must be built to be people-centric, focused on supporting and enhancing how people think, work, and connect. Solutions should also be flexible, with intelligent, adaptable tools that know who individual people are and what they need most in order to be successful.

Above all, they must be holistic and connected, with multiple channels of access, embedded analytics and emerging technologies like machine learning. By creating a comprehensive ecosystem of business solutions and extensions, organizations can ensure alignment with, and visibility to, the business.

The days of human resources as a hindrance to doing great work are over. The new era of HR technology and tools in the hands of employees and leaders is here.

If HR solutions are designed to be truly people-centric, flexible and holistic, businesses can ensure their employees are getting superior experiences and are connected with the business in meaningful ways.

Gabby Burlacu is a human capital management researcher at human resources technology firm SAP SuccessFactors. Comment below or email editors@ workforce.com.