Technology Archives - Page 13 of 26

June 1, 2017June 29, 2023

OMG! Ur Hired!

Millennials and their Gen Z successors have little time for thoughtfully crafted emails or telephone pleasantries.

These digital natives grew up texting and often consider other formats to be cumbersome and outdated. So it should come as no surprise that they think text messages are a completely appropriate way to communicate with recruiters and their future workplace peers.

A recent survey from Yello, the talent acquisition software company, shows 86 percent of millennials “feel positively about text messages being used during the interview period,” and a similar HeyWire Inc. survey shows 67 percent of employees are using text messaging for business-related communications.

While it may seem like an overly casual environment to connect with potential hires, texts offer a lot of benefits — especially in a recruiting setting, said Jason Weingarten, co-founder of the Chicago-based Yello. “Text is faster, it’s easier and it’s more personal,” he said. It can also solve many of problems that create a negative candidate experience, including delays in communication, lack of follow-up and overly generic form letters.

“There are many points in the recruiting process that are very stressful for candidates,” he said. “Getting a quick response or update can ease some of that anxiety.”

It can also be handy for recruits who have another job and don’t want to communicate via their company email or phone, said JoAnne Kruse, chief human resources officer at American Express Global Business Travel. “They are lot more responsive via text, and it’s an easy way to move the process forward.”

A Strange Bunch

Besides convenience, texting is a great way to get a sense of a candidate’s personality, said Jack Barmby, CEO of Gnatta, a customer service software company based in the U.K. His developers and support staff use text messaging to talk to each other and to potential new hires. “It is the underpinning of how we communicate,” he said.

The company uses Slack, a cloud-based team collaboration tool for its text platform, creating different conversations for different projects, teams and topics. Participants post project updates, questions and comments that others in the group can see and respond to.

“It’s more efficient than email because users can quickly scroll through posts, find those that are relevant, without getting bogged down in a bunch of ‘reply-all’ email chains,” he said. There are no formal rules for use, beyond the basics — don’t be a jerk, and don’t post comments that are not relevant to the topic. “Otherwise it’s very organic, and we encourage people to let their personalities flourish.”

Gnatta also uses it as a vetting tool for new hires. When a candidate makes the hiring short list, they are invited to join one of the casual Slack channels, where Gnatta employees talk about what’s going on in their lives. The recruits get a chance to see how the team communicates, and the team gets a sense of their personality, Barmby said. “The ‘shine’ of the interview comes off, and they have a chance to be themselves.”

Inviting candidates to engage via text helps his team determine who will be the best cultural fit for the organization, and it ultimately becomes an extension of the onboarding process. He admitted that some candidates are turned off by the process because it adds a week to the decision, but others love the opportunities to connect with potential peers. “Developers can be a strange bunch, and not everyone is a good fit,” he said. Spending a week chatting with the team is a great way to decide who will fit in.

For all its conveniences there also are risks to using texts in recruiting. Companies need to be thoughtful about the information they share via text and how those communications can be tracked, Weingarten said. “If you get audited, you need to be able to show the source of the texts, how they were sent, and what messaging you used.”

Recruiters shouldn’t put too many rules around how texting is used. Where recruiters are looking for better, faster and more personal ways to engage with talent, texting is a cheap and familiar solution that can add real value to the process.

“Text is the next iteration of how we communicate,” Kruse said. “It can be a hugely helpful way to quickly connect with people, is a style that they prefer, so why wouldn’t you take advantage of that?”

Sarah Fister Gale is a writer in the Chicago area. Comment below or email editors@workforce.com.

May 3, 2017June 29, 2023

10 Key Elements of Any Data Security Policy to Safeguard Your Company

I recently told you that small businesses (less than 250 employees) suffered 31 percent of last year’s cyberattacks. What can you do to best protect your business (of any size) to repel an attack? Let me introduce you to the data security policy, an essential component of any employee handbook now, and likely forever.

What should an effective data security policy contain? Consider 1) consulting with a knowledgeable cybersecurity attorney; and 2) including these 10 components (c/o me, Travelers, and the U.S. Small Business Association):

Safeguard Data Privacy: Employees must understand that your privacy policy is a pledge to your customers/vendors/etc. that you and they will protect their information. Employees should only use data in ways that will keep customer identity and the confidentiality of information secure.
Establish Password Management: A policy mandating complex passwords, changed regularly, is required for any workers who will access corporate resources.
Consider Two-Factor Authentication: Consider requiring multi-factor authentication that requires additional information (i.e., an additional pass-code delivered to a designated secondary device) beyond a password to gain entry.
Govern Internet Usage: Each organization must decide how employees can and should access the internet, which balances employee productivity against corporate security concerns.
Manage Email Usage: Many data breaches result from employee misuse of email, which results in the loss/theft of data or the accidental downloading of viruses, malware, or ransomware. You need standards on the use of emails, message content, encryption, and file retention. Moreover, do not forget to train your employees on how to detect and deflect phishing attempts.
Govern and Manage Company-Owned Mobile Devices: Organizations that provide mobile devices for employee use need a formal process to help ensure that any use is secure. A good starting point? Requiring the same password protection as non-mobile devices, and a mobile device management infrastructure that lets you remote wipe a device if it’s lost or stolen.
Establish an Approval Process for Employee-Owned Mobile Devices: Ownership of smartphones has reached a critical mass. A “Bring Your Own Device” program is no longer an option, but should be required. If employees are going to bring personal devices into the workplace, and use them to connect to your network, you need to deploy reasonable policies to govern their use and protect your network and security, instead of ignoring the issue or instituting prohibitions that employees will ignore anyway.
Govern Social Media: All users of social media need to be aware of the risks associated with social media. Social media presents a real risk of corporate breaches of confidentiality. It is easy to tell your employees, “Think before you click.” Yet, 76 percent of the Inc. 500 lack a social media policy for their employees, and 73 percent of all employers conduct no social media training. If you aren’t educating your employees about the risks and benefits of social media, both in and out of the workplace, you are not only missing a golden opportunity, but you also leaving yourself exposed to breaches of confidentiality and other snafus.
Oversee Software Copyright and Licensing: Software usage agreements oblige organizations to adhere to their terms, and you should make employees aware of any software use restrictions. Also, employees should not download and use software that has not been reviewed and approved by the company (some of which could expose the company to viruses, malware, or ransomware).
Report Security Incidents: Finally, all of the above goes out the window if your employees do not know and understand when and how to report a security breach, and how and when to report malicious viruses, malware, or ransomware in the event it is inadvertently imported. All employees must know how to report security incidents and what to do to mitigate any damage.

As is the case with any policy, a data security policy will not be worth the paper on which it’s written if you don’t train your employees on what it means and how it operates in practice. Data breaches are not an if issue, but a when issue. You will be breached; the only question is when it will occur. While you cannot prevent a data breach from occurring, you can and should train your employees to sure up any knowledge gaps that further opens the risk they inadvertently pose.

Jon Hyman is a partner at Meyers, Roman, Friedberg & Lewis in Cleveland. Comment below or email editors@workforce.com. Follow Hyman’s blog at Workforce.com/PracticalEmployer.

May 2, 2017June 29, 2023

If You Think Your Small Business Isn’t at Risk for Cybercrime, Think Again

If you’ve ever spoken or thought the words, “We’re too small to worry about a cyberattack,” you’d better think again.

According to a recent study, 31 percent of all cyberattacks in 2016 were directed at companies with less than 250 employees.

Do I now have your attention?

If you’re still on the fence, consider these other stats, courtesy of Dark Reading:

98 percent of all companies suffered a cyberattack in 2016.
The average company suffers a minimum of 11 cyberattacks per day, with some facing as many as 50 daily.
27 percent of all cyber incidents are caused by insiders due to malicious or accidental actions.
Individuals open 30 percent of phishing messages directed to them, with another 12 percent clicking the malicious attachment or link, enabling the attack to succeed.
40 percent of companies have no cyber incident response plan in place
70 percent of companies lack cyber insurance.
Over the lifespan of a mobile device, 22 percent of all such devices will disappear, with over 50 percent of those never to be recovered. With more and more internet traffic flowing via mobile over desktop, these missing devices (along with other security holes such as open and unsecured wifi) pose a huge risk to your data security.

I’ll soon discuss your first and best defense against a cyberattack, a data security policy, and the key elements that it must have to best shield your company.

Jon Hyman is a partner at Meyers, Roman, Friedberg & Lewis in Cleveland. Comment below or email editors@workforce.com. Follow Hyman’s blog at Workforce.com/PracticalEmployer.

April 26, 2017June 29, 2023

Structuring a Remote Working Program

Remote working has shifted from a trend to a strategy necessary in the war for talent. It’s not going anywhere. It’s a competitive advantage.

And with that comes many considerations. Employers must ask, if I am to adapt remote working as a benefit to employees, what do I need to know? What are all of those logistic, legal and management-related things that I can’t afford to ignore from the very start?

This was the theme of David Lewis’ lecture at the Society for Human Resource Management’s Talent Acquisition conference in Chicago. Lewis, president and CEO of HR consulting company Operations Inc., brought up several important points any employer considering a remote working option should remember. He was very pro-remote work — benefits include shorter commutes, a broader access to talent and less need for office spaces — but also realistic in pointing out the structure and rules for a successful remote working program.

One key message was that although remote working is an option employers should consider, it’s not an option for everybody. It’s not a universal employee right. Leaders should look at each position objectively and decide whether it’s a job that can be done remotely. Some jobs simply can’t.

On an individual level, good performers who have proven that they are productive and reliable are solid candidates, while bad performers are not. That guy who always needs somebody looking over his shoulder or holding his hand throughout the day? He would not be productive working from home.

For employees who have the green light to work remotely: It’s not all hunky-dory from there. Employers should know what kind of office space this employee is working in. Is it an environment conducive to household interruptions? How is this person’s internet speed? If this person needs a better internet connection, who pays for it? (Usually the company does, said Lewis.) Does workers’ comp cover the work-from-home injuries?

The type of office furniture an employee uses is a consideration as well, said Lewis. What if their chair causes back problems? What if their desk is at an awkward height and hastens other physical problem?

Many companies will provide certain amenities for a home office, like technological needs (computer, printer, potentially internet). This could also apply to furniture. Some companies provide an allowance for this, said Lewis; others may provide the same standard furniture to remain consistent to all employees.

Start the conversation with, What do you already have? If this employee already has an appropriate chair and desk, great, that’s one less furniture set to deal with.

One final takeaway was that some managers will naturally be paranoid that remote workers just can’t be as productive as working in-office. Don’t decide that remote working isn’t working and take away the option because of paranoia, said Lewis. Rely on metrics and hard data for something like that.

I spoke with a co-worker about this session later in the day. His consensus was that a lot of this sounded like way too much micromanaging. I don’t disagree; I wouldn’t want my employer measuring my at-home desk and scrutinizing my work-from-home environment with a fine-tooth comb. The desk I use is a giant rectangle of wood with four metal legs from an old Ikea table. I don’t know how tall it is. It’s covered with dried acrylic paint and to-do lists written in Sharpie. But it’s cleared off except for my lamp, essential oil diffuser and laptop when I work from home, and it’s never caused me any problems. Still, I don’t think it’d pass the test.

What I got out of this session was less about the micromanaging and more about the idea behind it: Remote working isn’t going anywhere. And having clear guidelines and rules from the very beginning isn’t a bad idea for employers who want a consistent working-from-home policy. Some sort of framework that deals with potential future legal issues like workers’ comp or OT would be helpful.

Ultimately, as long as the employee is hitting their deadlines and continuing to be productive even when working at home, I’d hope most companies would ignore some of the more nitpicky things in the remote-working guidebook, like chairs and desks.

Andie Burjek is a Workforce associate editor. Comment below, or email at editor@workforce.com. Follow Workforce on Twitter at @workforcenews.

April 17, 2017June 29, 2023

Offboarded by Zenefits, Parker Conrad’s on Board with New Project

It’s been barely a year since HR technology’s prodigal son, Parker Conrad, was forced to leave Zenefits over regulatory misdeeds after building the HRIS software company into Silicon Valley’s fastest growing startup ever.

He returned in March triumphant with the announcement that he’s launching new company called Rippling, an onboarding services firm that promises to eliminate the checklist from the onboarding process.

According to Conrad, Rippling is going eliminate the biggest problem that small and midsized companies face with onboarding: the endless task list. “A company with 100 employees might have 40 different places where employees need to get set up,” he said. That can require multiple people in several departments to complete different tasks just to get one new hire onboarded. “I felt like it was a problem that wasn’t being solved,” he said.

So he set out to solve it by automating the entire onboarding process, from setting up emails and filing paperwork to making sure employees have their key cards, office space and computers. Rippling even provides the computers preloaded with all the appropriate software, which the company will then update every two years. Conrad sees Rippling as a permanent layer of business software, supporting all of the administrative tasks related to employee changes during their tenure at a company, including promotions, change of office, or new managers. Companies pay $8 per month per employee for the service.

It’s an intriguing idea that has earned Conrad the admiration and financial backing of many of the same firms that supported his first foray into HR tech. He has already secured $7 million in venture capital, and it is likely the first of many rounds of funding if he can follow through on the business plan.

Though that’s a big if. Even Conrad admitted that automating onboarding is a lot harder than building a better checklist. And even if his team can engineer a solution, the onboarding space is crowded with competitors that have been around a lot longer. Onboarding has become the new darling of the HR tech space, noted Ray Wang, principal analyst for Constellation Research. “It is the natural next extension application.” The question now is whether they can win over enough customers. “That’s the challenge for any new software firm,” Wang said. “You have to get to volume to make it work.”

That means Rippling has to figure out how it will stand out when buyers are already overwhelmed by the number of options and features available, said Lilith Christiansen, vice president of organizational development for Kaiser Associates in Washington, D.C. “There are so many tech companies in this space, and they all focus on different aspects of onboarding.”

Rippling isn’t the only startup trying to differentiate itself by making onboarding faster and easier. “Lots of companies are focused on enhancing the experience for new hires and managers, and they are going beyond just automation,” she said. Christiansen pointed to MindTickle, which uses gamification to engage new hires; Appical, which offers an entirely mobile-enabled onboarding process; and Worktop, which focuses on motivating new hires and making sure they are prepared to work on day one.

“From a startup perspective it’s a great time to be in this space because there are a lot of opportunities for innovation,” Christiansen said. And she sees the entrance of Rippling as further proof that the space has room to grow. “Obviously, there are still a lot of problems with onboarding that haven’t been solved.”

For buyers of these tools, she encouraged HR leaders to think about their own onboarding pain points, then assess which tools are designed to specifically address those issues. For some, that might be dealing with paperwork, while others will want to focus on learning, engagement or time to productivity, she said. “When you start with a diagnostic, you can narrow your universe of options and find the right technology to meet your business goals.”

Sarah Fister Gale is a writer in the Chicago area. Comment below or email editors@workforce.com.

March 30, 2017June 29, 2023

Social Media May Distract Employees, but Should We Care?

Earlier this week, I asked when employees will learn that online comments can, and will, be used against them. There is another half to the workplace-social-media equation—employers, who have the task of regulating their employees’ use of social media, which happens more and more in the workplace.

Yesterday, Cleveland reporter Olivia Perkins discussed a recent survey, which found that nearly 90 percent of employees access personal social media accounts at work, to varying degrees of distraction.

The survey of 1,200 employees, at companies of varying size, found that 18 percent of respondents said they checked social media 10 times or more during the workday. On the other end of the spectrum were the 12 percent of respondents, who said they never checked social media at work.

The on-the-job social media habits of most employees fell somewhere in between. Sixty percent of respondents said they checked social media at work one to five times daily. Ten percent said they checked social media six to 10 times during the workday. The survey has a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percent.

The question is what to do about it? My answer? In most cases, absolutely nothing. As I’ve long argued:

Employers that try regulate personal social media use out of the workplace are fighting a Sisyphean battle. I call it the iPhone-ification of the American workforce. No matter your policy trying to regulate or outright ban social media in your workplace, if your employees can take their smartphones out of their pockets to circumvent the policy, how can you possibly police workplace social media access? Why have a policy you cannot police and enforce? And, don’t forget, the NLRB is watching, too.

Instead of regulating an issue you cannot hope to control, treat employees’ use of social media for what it is—a performance issue. If an employee is not performing up to standards because he or she is spending too much time on the internet, then address the performance problem. Counsel, discipline, and ultimately terminate if the performance does not improve. A slacking employee, however, will not become a star performer just because you limit his or her social media access; he or she will just find another way to slack off. Instead of wasting your resources to fight a battle you cannot win, reapportion them to win battles worth fighting.

We ask so much of our employees. The 9-to-5 is no longer relevant. If my employee, who is giving up nights and weekends for me, wants to spends a few minutes during the workday posting to Facebook or checking the score of last night’s game, or buying something on Amazon, I just don’t care (unless you are working in a safety-sensitive position, and then why the hell are you on your phone at all?), unless and until it reaches the level of distraction and impacts performance. Then, however, we are treating the performance problem, not the technology problem, which is the appropriate and practical solution.

Jon Hyman is a partner at Meyers, Roman, Friedberg & Lewis in Cleveland. To comment, email editors@workforce.com. Follow Hyman’s blog at Workforce.com/PracticalEmployer.

March 28, 2017July 30, 2018

When Will Employees Learn That Online Comments Can and Will Be Used Against Them?

I recently gave two different speeches discussing the balance between an employee’s privacy and an employer’s right to know. One of the themes is that social media has irreparably blurred the line between one’s personal persona and one’s professional persona, and employees best be careful with that they say online, because employers are watching and holding them accountable.

Case in point? Buker v. Howard County (4th Cir. 3/20/17) [pdf].

Buker concerns a fire department battalion chief fired because of series of posts (his spelling, not mine) to his personal Facebook page.

My aide had an outstanding idea . . lets all kill someone with a liberal . . . then maybe we can get them outlawed too! Think of the satisfaction of beating a liberal to death with another liberal . . . its almost poetic . . .

and

To prevent future butthurt and comply with a directive from my supervisor, a recent post (meant entirley in jest) has been deleted. So has the complaining party. If I offend you, feel free to delete me. Or converse with me. I’m not scared or ashamed of my opinions or political leaning, or religion. I’m happy to discuss any 8 of them with you. If you’re not man enough to do so, let me know, so I can delete you. That is all. Semper Fi! Carry On.

and

Unfortunately, not in the current political climate. Howard County, Maryland, and the Federal Government are all Liberal Democrat held at this point in time. Free speech only applies to the liberals, and then only if it is in line with the liberal socialist agenda. County Governement recently published a Social media policy, which the Department then published it’s own. It is suitably vague enough that any post is likely to result in disciplinary action, up to and including termination of employment, to include this one. All it took was one liberal to complain . . . sad day. To lose the First Ammendment rights I fought to ensure, unlike the WIDE majority of the Government I serve.

Additionally, Buker “liked” a photo, posted by a co-worker, of an elderly woman with her middle finger raised, captioned: “THIS PAGE, YEAH THE ONE YOU’RE LOOKING AT IT’S MINE[.] I’LL POST WHATEVER THE FUCK I WANT[.]”

He also “liked” a racist comment by a co-worker to his “beating a liberal to death” post, which suggested that Buker “pick a black one.”

Based on the totality of these posts, the department fired Buker.

The court had little problem affirming the lower court’s decision dismissing Buker’s claims.

For several reasons, we conclude that the Department’s interest in efficiency and preventing disruption outweighed Plaintiff’s interest in speaking in the manner he did regarding gun control and the Department’s social media policy. First, Plaintiff’s Facebook activity interfered with and impaired Department operations and discipline as well as working relationships within the Department. … Second, Plaintiff’s Facebook activity significantly conflicted with Plaintiff’s responsibilities as a battalion chief. … Third, Plaintiff’s speech frustrated the Department’s public safety mission and threatened “community trust” in the Department, which is “vitally important” to its function. … Fourth, Plaintiff’s speech—particularly his “like” of the image depicting a woman raising her middle finger—“expressly disrespect[ed] [his] superiors.” Lastly, we observe that the record is rife with observations of how Plaintiff’s Facebook activity … disregarded and upset the chain of command upon which the Department relies.

In sum, we conclude the Department’s interest in workplace efficiency and preventing disruption outweighed the public interest commentary contained in Plaintiff’s Facebook activity.

Let me put it a more practical way. Employees have not yet realized that anything they say online can impact their professional persona, and that every negative or offensive statement could lead to discipline or termination. Until people fully understand that social media has erased the line between the personal and the professional, these issues will continue to arise. It is our job as employers to help educate our employees about living in this new online world, because it is clear that not all employees have yet learned this lesson.

Jon Hyman is a partner at Meyers, Roman, Friedberg & Lewis in Cleveland. To comment, email editors@workforce.com. Follow Hyman’s blog at Workforce.com/PracticalEmployer.

March 20, 2017June 29, 2023

Diversity Should Be Selfish

What the h-e-double hockey sticks with this headline, right? Why on earth would I promote the idea that diversity should be selfish? What about inclusion? Unity? Collaboration? Equality? It all depends on who’s being selfish and why.

Earlier this month I found this article on Forbes.com. In it staffer Katheryn Thayer detailed the story of Dots, a 4-year-old mobile app gaming company helmed by co-founder and CEO Paul Murphy. According to the article, he built his company to “make something that would appeal to everyone, not just gamers.”

Since his primary customer base, or players are women, he hired a lot of them, building a 50-person company comprised mostly of women or racial or ethnic minorities. Unlike others in the tech industry, he said doing so wasn’t hard. He lured them in with a flexible work environment, opportunities for development, and deliberately reached out to anyone whose network included the female talent he was trying to acquire. Now, “at Dots, women hold leadership roles in the development, game design, product, marketing, operations and finance teams.”

After that initial wave of women was working, others followed, as like attracted like. Thayer wrote, “Dots also sought cultural diversity for what Murphy calls a ‘selfish reason.’ ”

A team-first attitude can help unify a diverse workplace.

“Our game is played globally. It’s got a hundred million people that have downloaded and played our products and we think it’s really important that we have a team that reflects in some way the diversity of our player base.” So they’ve made an effort to hire employees from across Asia, Europe and the Americas. “We wouldn’t have been able to build the company without them here.”

We can infer three things from Murphy’s actions:

If you look for and make them welcome, you can find female tech talent.
The quickest way to make a successful diversity strategy work is to ensure top executives take an active role in its creation and execution.
Being selfish is not always a bad thing.

This version of selfish is actually inclusive, unified, collaborative, and most importantly it’s diverse. Or, some facets of it are. I will admit that a primarily female staff might not pass the sniff test under conventional definitions for diversity, but contextually? That’s a different thing.

Bottom line? Diversity can be achieved. Even in industries where its presence has not historically been of value, if leaders believe in the business case and take talent-oriented steps to bring about its deliverance: networking to facilitate recruiting, creating the right culture to support business and talent goals, and ensuring that the global marketplace at large knows of the company’s position on diversity and inclusion in the workplace.

According to the article Dots’ international staff were, shall we say, displeased with the recent travel ban. It “hit a nerve for us,” Murphy said. To make it crystal clear the company did not support the ban or that the actions reflected its values, Dots created an in-app pop-up to fundraise for the American Civil Liberties Union.

“In a single Saturday night, Murphy says the team developed a dozen translations of their message and worked out cultural nuances that might affect how players in specific regions, such as Taiwan versus mainland China, might interpret it.” Dots couldn’t track how much money players donated to the ACLU, but their reports showed their efforts drove 500,000 players to donation pages in a single weekend in late January.

I’m sure building Dots’ diverse workforce wasn’t quite as easy and straightforward as it seemed in this article. But it proves that with a little strategy and effort, it can be done.

Kellye Whitney is associate editorial director for Workforce. Comment below or email editor@workforce.com.

March 7, 2017August 31, 2023

Can 2 Letters Take Down HR as We Know It?

Tedious administrative tasks have long been the bane of the HR professional’s job.

Updating paperwork, sending out benefits reminders and plowing through hundreds of resumes can eat up hours every day, preventing HR leaders from focusing on more strategic tasks related to workforce planning and development. But the days of drudgery may soon be over, at least according to some vendors. Over the past year, HR software providers have trumpeted the fact that their technologies automate all of the manual and repetitive tasks that few want to do.

artificial intelligence — Don’t fear, HR. Industry tech experts say your job is safe.

It’s an appealing offer, said Mark Somol, co-founder and CEO of Boston-based Zeal Technology Inc., which offers software to measure employee engagement and morale. “At the heart of the automation trend are leaders who recognize that they need to understand their people better,” he said.

It’s an important message when it comes to HR automation. Unlike the manufacturing industry or the promise of self-driving taxis, automation isn’t intended to replace HR staff, it’s meant to enhance what they do. By eliminating tedious tasks, HR employees can finally focus on what Somol calls “personalized talent management.”

“We are all better off if HR and talent management leaders spend more time with people, taking care of their individual challenges,” he said.

The need for more time has often been a challenge for HR, so why are vendors suddenly eager to automate?

“Because they can,” said Alan Lepofsky, vice president and principal analyst for Constellation Research in Toronto. Access to massive amounts of data and computing power coupled with advances in the machine learning technology means vendors can finally use artificial intelligence, or AI, to automate many of the manual tasks that waste so much time.

In some cases they can do them better, faster and with fewer errors than any human ever could. In recruiting, for example, trying to find candidates on social media using keyword searches is tedious and inconsistent. But a system that uses machine-learning algorithms can be programmed to search millions of profiles and to learn which kind of candidates, sources and backgrounds deliver the best candidates.

“It’s more accurate and easier for the computer to do it for you than to do it yourself,” he said.

These tools can also be used to analyze internal forums to identify in-house experts or identify complaints that might suggest an employee is a flight risk. “If you can remediate the problem before an employee quits, that’s a great value,” he said.

The promise of automation is intriguing, though Lepofsky warns HR leaders to not get drawn in by the hype.

“A lot of the talk about AI in HR is overblown,” he said, adding that many tools are more like chatbots than AI. “They can simulate human conversations, but they can’t learn or communicate in any meaningful way.”

So while a chatbot can convincingly respond to an email query about the benefits programs, an AI system could recognize that an employee is struggling to complete their benefits enrollment and recommend training or a support tool based on what previous employees have used.

Vendors like Oracle, SuccessFactors, and Infor already offer automation capabilities that use machine learning to do compliance checks and make suggestions, and more are likely to come, said Ray Wang, principal analyst for Constellation Research. Though it will likely be another year or two before AI technology is trusted enough to be allowed to take action without any human review.

As with virtually every previous HR technology trend, Wang predicts that the small start-ups will likely bring the most innovative AI tools to market first, then shortly after, the big firms will start acquiring them to add that functionality to their suite. “Small companies have the agility to test their theories, but the big companies have the data to scale them,” he said.

Regardless of who is first to market, this trend will ultimately be benefit for HR.

“The days of counting contingency workers and entering data will soon be over,” Wang said. “As vendors automate more tasks, HR leaders will become more strategic, focusing their time on taking care of the workforce and planning for the future.”

Sarah Fister Gale is a writer in the Chicago area. Comment below or email editors@workforce.com.

March 6, 2017June 29, 2023

Lessons From a Ransomware Attack

CNN reports that a ransomware attack has locked the computer network of the Pennsylvania Democratic Caucus. This is what we call a teachable moment.

What is ransomware? Ransomware is malicious software that locks one’s computer or network until a sum a money is paid, at which point the cybercriminal provide a code to unlock the system. If the ransom is not paid with a set timeframe, they will wipe the data. And, any organization that relies on access to data, and cannot afford to lose access to that data at any time, is the prime target of a ransomware attack. Does that sound like your business?

How does one become infected with ransomware? Like any other virus or malware, most often by clicking a suspicious link in an email or on a website.

If you become victim to a ransomware attack, your options are limited. Depending on the type of encryption used by the cybercriminals to lock your system, you may be able to break the encryption. But that is unlikely. Much more likely, you either pay the ransom, or rely the quality of your system back-up and the expense that goes along with restoring it.

ransomware cybercrime — No business is immune from suffering a cyberattack. Being proactive is better than being reactive.

Either way, plan on a ransomware attack costing you. In 2015, for example, victims of these attacks paid a collective $24 million in ransom to these cyber-extortionists, and another $325 million to disinfect machines and restore backup data. In other words, ransomware is big business and a bigger threat, and it’s not going away anytime soon.

The best cybercrime offense is a good defense. Here are four tips to best protect your organization from suffering a crippling and expensive ransomware attack.

1. Diligently back up everything. If you invest in quality and reliable system backups, then you remove most of the risk of suffering a ransomware attack. In the event of an attack, you simply wipe your computers and servers, and start from scratch via the last uninfected backup.

2. Avoid suspicious emails and links. This, of course, is easier said than done, especially if your employees do not know for what to beware. Even a little bit of cyber-training goes a long way, and with the right training, your employees will learn to vet before they click. Your employees are the prime targets of these attacks, and they are also your first, and best, line of defense.

3. Patch software and block suspicious emails and websites. This step does not work without training your employees. The cybercriminals are at least one step (if not two three, or more steps) ahead of software patches and email/website blacklists. Nevertheless, have the latest version of everything installed lets the security experts working for your software providers do their jobs.

4. Disconnect immediately upon an infection. Any cyberattack is easier to contain and correct and limited to one desktop. Once it spread to multiple machines or, worse yet, servers, it becomes more difficult and exponentially more expensive to remedy. Once you learn of infection, notify IT and get everything offline as soon as possible. Quarantining the infected machines is the only way to stop ransomware from infecting your entire network.

No business is immune from suffering a cyberattack. However, being proactive is better than being reactive. Taking these four steps will help position your company best to avoid a cyberattack such a ransomware and to respond when it occurs.

Jon Hyman is a partner at Meyers, Roman, Friedberg & Lewis in Cleveland. To comment, email editors@workforce.com. Follow Hyman’s blog at Workforce.com/PracticalEmployer.