Category: Technology

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Salesforce Bets (Again) on the HR Market

Marc Benioff is chairman and CEO of Salesforce.com. File photo.

This is a guest blog from Workforce Editor-in-Chief Mike Prokopeak.

After an extended quiet period, Salesforce.com has raised the stakes on its participation in the HR market.

The San Francisco-based technology company widely known for its namesake customer relationship management, or CRM, system is putting its chips on the table alongside workplace tech giants such as Oracle, SAP and Workday with the goal of becoming the enterprise software tool of choice. And the company is placing one of its bets on HR technology.

At the Chicago stop of the company’s Salesforce World Tour on April 23, CEO Marc Benioff announced the launch of Salesforce for HR, a suite of applications and tools aimed at making the employee experience more consumerlike.

The overall goal, he said, is to use cloud technology to help customers be as successful with HR as they’ve been with sales and marketing. It’s hard to argue with Salesforce’s CRM record. Since its founding in 1999, the company has grown to 16,000 employees, 150,000 customer companies and projected revenue of $6.5 billion.

The rise of mobile devices and the app economy puts Salesforce, with its relative youth, into an enviable position. For many workers, steeped in Facebook and Twitter and used to zippy mobile apps, using older technology at the office is like “going back in time,” said Jim Sinai, Salesforce senior director, app exchange and platform marketing.

Social networking apps like Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter have created the expectation for a continuous stream of updates and news delivered directly to the end user wherever they are, not locked away behind the login screen of an enterprise system or buried deep in an email inbox.

Consumers also expect that they’ll have opportunities to jump into that stream, posting comments and asking questions. With Salesforce for HR, the company aims to give employees a similarly engaging app and software experience to the one that they have outside of work.

The product suite includes five basic components:

  • Employee Journeys: a personalized feed that guides employees through onboarding and development.
  • Employee Communities: a networking and collaboration application that connects employees with colleagues and subject-matter experts across the organization.
  • HR Help Desk: access to a self-help HR service portal that also gives managers a view into employee and team milestones and progress. Plug-ins to HCM and HRMS systems are available.
  • Salesforce HR Analytics: access to performance and productivity data.
  • Engagement Apps: the ability to build and integrate custom mobile apps using Salesforce1, the company’s app development platform, and access pre-built apps from talent management software providers such as Cornerstone OnDemand, Lumesse and Fairsail.

While HR tech is small potatoes compared with Salesforce’s core sales and marketing market, the move is part of a broader play to become the technology of choice across the enterprise. Faced with rapid innovation and competition, workplace tech companies are looking to build a fortresslike integrated suite of workplace applications and data similar to the one Apple built in the consumer world with iTunes and its App Store.

As a tech company that was born native to the cloud, Sinai said Salesforce has a leg up on older workplace tech companies that are more recent — and in some cases — reluctant immigrants. After a slow start, two of those tech companies — Oracle and SAP — have gone in big on cloud technology in the past few years and invested heavily in making human capital management and broader business applications cloud-friendly. Here’s some analysis from Workforce sister publication, Talent Management, of past moves.

This move is not Salesforce’s first foray into the HR market. The company bought Rypple, a social performance management application, in 2011 and the following year used that platform to launch Work.com, an app for goal setting, performance reviews and employee feedback.

Salesforce has been a dark horse in the human capital management race, making spot acquisitions over the past few years and using Chatter, the company’s enterprise networking application, to broaden its corporate user base and use case in companies. But with Salesforce for HR, the company aims to take advantage of its prominent cloud and app position to help employers be “mobile out of the box,” Sinai said. “Legacy products just can’t do that.”

While Sinai declined to share how many companies are currently using the application, he said the company works with Salesforce customers like St. Joseph’s Hospital and Medical Center, a Phoenix-based network of 16 hospitals with 24,000 employees to develop and deploy it. Like other Salesforce products, the HR product will be offered as a subscription for the enterprise or individual.

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Is a LinkedIn Search Subject to the Fair Credit Reporting Act?

I’ve written a lot in the past few years about the pros and cons of companies using social media to conduct background checks on applicants and employees (e.g.,here and here). One issue I’ve never considered, however, is whether the social media site is a “consumer reporting agency” subject to the Fair Credit Reporting Act, or the information compiled from such searches qualifies as a Consumer Report. The issue is significant, because if the social sites are CRAs, or their information are CRs, then employers who use these sites to conduct background searches are subject to the FCRA’s myriad pre- and post-screening notice, consent, and disclosure requirements.

Recently, a California federal court examined this very issue in Sweet v. LinkedIn Corporation [pdf], and concluded that LinkedIn’s Reference Search function does not render it subject to the FCRA.

Unlike other social sites, LinkedIn maintains a specific tool that helps employers’ reference checks — a premium tool called “Reference Search,” which creates “a list of people who have worked at the same company during the same time period as the member you’d like to learn more about.” More simply, Reference Search generates a list of potential employment references.

In Sweet, a group of unsuccessful job applicants argued that LinkedIn failed to comply with the FCRA in how it operates and maintains “Reference Search.” The court disagreed, concluding that LinkedIn’s Reference Search is not a Consumer Report under the FCRA.

LinkedIn’s publications of employment histories of the consumers who are the subjects of the Reference Searches are not consumer reports because the information contained in these histories came solely from LinkedIn’s transactions or experiences with these same consumers. The FCPA excludes from the definition of consumer report any “report containing information solely as to transactions or experiences between the consumer and the person making the report.”

In other words, because LinkedIn creates its databases solely from information submitted by its account holders, it falls outside the FCRA’s coverage.

While employers still have EEO concerns with the use of social networks for background checks, this case should give employers some relief, as it appears that the FCRA is one statute they needn’t worry about when using social media to vet candidates or for other employment purposes.

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Talent Management Orientation Guide

“Talent management” is a broad term that includes all of the ways a company engages with its employees, from recruiting and onboarding to training, coaching, succession planning and performance management. It is the umbrella under which all talent strategies are deployed.

 

The success of these programs, and how well they are aligned with business goals, is becoming increasingly important as businesses struggle to compete in the global marketplace.

“Talent management continues to be a concern for today’s CEOs,” said Dan Staley, principal and head of the HR technology practice at PricewaterhouseCoopers. In Pricewaterhouse’s 17th annual global CEO survey, 93 percent of CEOs said they recognize the need to change their talent strategies, yet almost two-thirds of them have failed to make those changes. “It’s going to be a major challenge for companies going forward,” Staley said.

Roadblock

Seventy percent of workers are not engaged, according to a 2013 Gallup Inc. study of the U.S. workplace. “That’s dismal,” Forrester Research’s Claire Schooley said. “People accomplish so much more when they feel engaged with their work.”

It’s also an opportunity for HR leaders to demonstrate their strategic value to the company. As CEOs try to figure out how to adapt their talent strategies, they will rely on HR leaders to guide their path — but only if HR can demonstrate how their talent management programs can deliver measurable business benefits. That’s a tall order. According to the Pricewaterhouse survey, only 34 percent of CEOs feel that HR is well prepared to capitalize on transformational trends, and 9 percent say it is notprepared at all.

To change that perception, HR leaders must take a strategic, business-focused approach to talent management, said Leighanne Levensaler, vice president of human capital management products for Workday Inc. “Your talent management strategy must be inextricably linked to your current and future business strategy for the company to be successful.”

But that can be difficult, particularly as most talent management programs don’t spring up fully formed. They are built piecemeal as the company grows, and each one may have its own team, strategy and measures for success. But if you want to be viewed as a key part of the strategic business process, those disparate programs need to be reined-in and updated to focus on current and future business goals.

Roadblock

Goal-setting conversations can’t stop at the top. While more than half of senior leaders convene meetings throughout the year to discuss goals with business leaders, only 6 percent of those leaders use the same approach to communicate goals to their direct reports, according to a Bersin by Deloitte study titled “High-Impact Performance Management.” “This creates opportunities for misinterpretation, inconsistent messaging and lack of alignment across the company,” Bersin’s Stacia Sherman Garr said.

“Be clear on your objectives and be willing to adapt your plan as the business demands,” Levensaler said. “Business strategies can change on a dime, so you need to be agile enough to respond.”

This Roadmap offers HR leaders a framework for building a talent management program that delivers strategic business results.

Plan

What is your talent strategy? The first step to building an effective talent management program is defining what success looks like, said Cristin Sturchio, global head of talent for Cognolink, a global research firm. “Use that vision to identify skills and competency people need to make the company successful, then build your hiring, training, development and incentive programs around it.” Sturchio’s team found the most successful researchers in their organization are those who are competitive, self-motivated and results-driven; they built those traits into all of their recruiting and development efforts.

Create a talent plan as part of the business plan. Human resources should be part of strategic planning so it can help leadership understand how talent development will help them achieve their goals, then HR can map talent management efforts to align with them, said Stacia Sherman Garr, vice president of talent and HR research at Bersin by Deloitte.

fast track

Organizations that make it easy for employees to set clear goals are four times more likely to score in the top 25 percent of business outcomes, according to Bersin by Deloitte. “Creating a clear connection between employees’ work and an organization’s goals is a key driver of employee engagement,” Bersin’s Stacia Sherman Garr said.

Identify what you are doing right and what needs improvement. Look for success stories across your talent management process — great recruiting strategies, effective training programs — then determine why they work and how you can apply those lessons learned to other programs.

Prioritize your budget. To make the most of limited resources, identify your top talent priorities and align your budget accordingly, said Ravin Jesuthasan, managing director of the global talent management practice at Towers Watson & Co. For example, if developing great tech talent is key to the business plan, you might focus more money toward recruiting and compensating top young recruits; whereas if great leadership is your priority, leadership training, mentoring and succession planning should draw more investment.

Do

Train and engage managers. “Managers play a key role in helping employees set goals, assess performance and find development opportunities,” said Claire Schooley, an analyst at Forrester Research Inc. To be effective, however, managers need training on how to best mentor their team and ensure they are achieving their potential.

fast track

“Lots of training” isn’t the same as “good training.” In 2014, SAP’s new chief learning officer, Jenny Dearborn, reviewed the company’s entire training curriculum with the goal of eliminating any course that didn’t directly support the company’s strategic goals and desired competencies. “We went from 50,000 learning assets to 4,000,” she said. “Now every course is fresh, aligned with business results and there are no redundancies.”

Create transparency. Talk to employees about the goals and health of the company, and the role they play in the business, Cognolink’s Sturchio said. “When employees understand how their productivity is tied to the success of the company, they feel like they are part of something bigger.”

Pilot new ideas. Pricewaterhouse’s Mike Fenlon thinks HR should view itself as a talent research-and-development center. “The key for developing the right talent strategy is to begin with an idea, and see if it works,” he said. By piloting innovative programs with a small segment of employees or recruits, you can test ideas without investing a lot of moneyand prove they work before rolling them out to everyone.

Set goals. Every employee, from leaders to front-line workers, should have goals that are regularly reviewed and updated, Garr said. “It should be a continuous conversation between managers and workers.”

Encourage the behavior you want. Incentivesshould be clear, simple and tied to strategic skills, said Bryan Lewis, chief operating officer of Cognolink. “If you train people for those competencies, then tie incentives to that performance, it is easy to measure your success.”

Hold vendors accountable. Vendors should be just as culpable for meeting goals as your in-house team, said SAP’s Chief Learning Officer Jenny Dearborn. Before choosing a vendor, tell them what your business goals are, and ask them how they plan to meet and measure the effectiveness of their efforts to achieve those outcomes.

Review

Roadblock

Don’t leave talent out of the strategic conversation. If senior leaders set strategic goals without considering the talent implications, it will create obstacles to business success, said Bersin by Deloitte’s Stacia Sherman Garr. “It’s critical for leaders to have a dialog with HR about how talent management supports their plan.”

Measure everything. Every talent management program should include measures of success that directly align with business goals. Whether you are launching a new recruiting app or rolling out a training program, ask yourself: ‘Can I document how this investment will make something better?’ Dearborn said. “Everything you do should drive measurable business results.”

Use the same metrics as the rest of the company. The executive team doesn’t care how many people finished a training program, or how long it took you to hire someone. They care how those programs affected business goals, productivity and bottom-line results, said Workday’s Levensaler. “Your metrics have to be in the context of how the business measures itself.”

Choose technology with built-in benchmarks and metrics. Many of today’s HR technology tools provide real-time data about how programs are being used, who’s using them and other basic measures that can demonstrate success, Schooley said. “Some measures are more sophisticated than others, but it’s a good place to start.”

Harness that data. A good talent management program holds reams of valuable data. Using it to do workforce analytics can help companies identify development gaps and better prepare their workforce for the future. The prospect of doing analytics can be daunting, but HR technology tools are making it easier by offering analytics tools and dashboards, templated questions to ask and making suggestions based on results, Levensaler said. “Technology is accelerating every day,” she said. Though she cautions users not to be too reliant on the tools alone. “Humans still absolutely need to be involved in the process.”

fast track

Organizations that make it easy for employees to set clear goals are four times more likely to score in the top 25 percent of business outcomes, according to Bersin by Deloitte. “Creating a clear connection between employees’ work and an organization’s goals is a key driver of employee engagement,” Bersin’s Stacia Sherman Garr said.

If it doesn’t work, get rid of it. When you continue to invest in a program just because it has always been there, you are wasting valuable resources that could be used more strategically, Dearborn said. “If you can’t draw a line between the program and the business goals you shouldn’t be doing it.”

Case study

Real-Time Feedback at PricewaterhouseCoopers

Being adaptive and future-focused is critical for a successful talent management program, said Mike Fenlon, global talent leader for PricewaterhouseCoopers. “You have to let go off the illusion that there is one right way to do things.”

Pricewaterhouse’s talent management team has been going through a multiyear talent transformation effort to better align all of its programs. Fenlon sees it as an opportunity for HR to transform itself. “Not every innovation will work,” he said. “But we always learn something.” At the core of the transformation is the idea of “radical simplification” to allow for more rapid learning and development.

One of the more successful programs to emerge is a redesign of the company’s performance management program. In an 18-month pilot program, Fenlon’s team replaced the traditional end-of-project performance review with a real-time feedback and assessment model. Fenlon’s team also rolled out mobile apps so managers could do reviews and provide feedback on the fly.

Early in the program, buy-in among managers was slow. An investigation showed leaders who received training were more effective and engaged in the process, so they adapted the leadership training and rolled it out to all of the participating managers. At the end of 18 months, performance measures showed pilot participants were more motivated and delivered improved business outcomes on their projects compared with teams that did not participate.

Plan, Do, Review

Plan

• Define your talent strategy. The first step to building an effective talent management program is knowing what success looks like.

• Make the talent plan part of the business plan. Help leadership understand the role talent development plays in achieving their business plans, and map talent management efforts to align with strategic goals.

• Identify what you are doing right and what needs improvement. Look for success stories across your talent management programs and use those lessons to improve less successful efforts.

• Prioritize your budget. You can’t do everything, so identify your top talent priorities and align your budget accordingly.

Do

• Get managers on board. Remind them of the role they play in talent development, and provide training on how to mentor and develop their teams.

• Create transparency. Employees need to know why their productivity matters to the business.

• Pilot new ideas. Test new programs out on a subgroup of employees to prove that they work before rolling them out to everyone.

• Set goals. Every employee, from leaders to front-line workers, should have goals that are regularly reviewed
and updated.

• Offer incentives for the behavior you want. Incentives should be clear, simple and tied to strategic skills.

• Hold vendors accountable. Tell them what your business goals are, and require them to demonstrate how their products are helping you meet those goals.

Review

• Measure everything. Every talent management effort should have measurable, business-focused metrics.

• Use the same measures as the rest of the company. Use the executive team’s measures for success to shape your own metrics.

• Choose technology with built-in benchmarks. Many of today’s HR tools provide real-time data and metrics you can use to demonstrate your own success.

• Harness that data. Workforce analytics can help you identify development gaps and better prepare your workforce for the future.

• If it doesn’t work, get rid of it. When you continue to invest in a program just because it has always been there, you are wasting valuable resources that could be used more strategically.

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How Do We Jump Start Our Recruiting Strategy?

Dear Stuffy:

I don’t believe there is one single answer to your current recruiting challenges, but I applaud you for examining your methods to ensure you’re not missing any opportunities. As you examine your current recruiting strategies, it’s important to recognize how the job market is improving for most qualified job seekers. There are far more “passive” than “active” job seekers in today’s market. As a result, we as recruiters have to be more resourceful and make our opportunities stand out from the crowd. Here are two suggestions on how to do that:

  1. Make sure you are investing in social media recruitment. Today’s job seekers aren’t necessarily hanging out around job boards, but statistics show they are very regularly participating in social media sites. You need to have a strong presence on at least LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and Google+. Get your brand out there and provide them with good content that isn’t just about “hot jobs.” Industry information, original content or fun things about your company will engage them and help to raise your visibility with the audience. It’s not just “about you.” It’s “about them.” 
  2. Create robust, engaging job descriptions. One of the common mistakes that staffing firms make is that they will spend money on job boards, websites and other online resources, but they don’t pay attention to the critical piece of content that drives it all — the creation of a robust job description. If you’re asking someone to consider making an important career decision, you can’t expect them to get excited and apply to one of your jobs if the information is poorly represented. Recruiters need to take the time to get detailed information from the client on the opportunity they’re recruiting for and present it in a compelling manner. Is it a great company to work for? Is it in an exciting location? Is there room for career growth? If so, then tell them! How can a candidate get excited enough to apply for a job if your staff isn’t excited enough to take just a few minutes to properly and professionally present it?

I hope these two suggestions help to freshen up your recruitment strategy so you can start attracting the candidates you’re seeking.

SOURCE: Deborah Millhouse, president, CEO Inc., Charlotte, North Carolina, April 21, 2014.

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Posting Holiday Party Photos on Social Media? Make Sure Employees Consent

Are you having a holiday party for your company? Are you planning on sharing the cheer by posting photos of said party on your corporate Facebook page or other social media? If so, don’t forget to have your employees sign authorizations before you post those photos.

Many states have statutes that protect an individual’s name, voice, signature, photograph, image, or likeness. This “right of publicity” prohibits one from using another’s persona for a commercial purpose without written consent.

It may be sufficient to have a statement in your employee handbook advising employees that, from time to time, the company may post pictures of employees on the company’s website, Facebook page, etc., and employees who wish to opt out should advise HR in writing. The overly cautious employer, though, will want this to be an opt-in process, with employees providing specific written consent for the use of their likeness in photos.

Regardless, employers should do something to ensure that they are not infringing on employees’ right of publicity with photos of employer-sponsored events. Otherwise, your holiday lump of coal might come in the form of a lawsuit by a shy, and overly litigious, employee.

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‘Ruff’ Around the Edges: Collaring Personnel Problems in the Pet Industry

Jamie Migdal has a bone to pick with recruiting for the pet care industry.

Despite tremendous growth and increased revenue from consumer spending during the 20 years she has been in the business, the young industry has been held back in talent management by antiquated recruitment practices, Migdal said.

“The pet industry is fragmented and generally technologically unsophisticated. It’s a relatively new industry that’s seen most of its growth over the last decade, and it hasn’t figured out how to deal with human resource issues,” she said.

Migdal wants to change that. She hopes to use lessons from human resources in her newest company FetchFind, which aims to help pet-care businesses dig up candidates who have experience dealing with animals.

The field’s biggest problems? The industry’s high turnover rates are crippling. She estimates it to be at 200 percent — and unsophisticated methods of finding new employees like Craigslist ads makes onboarding good employees who specialize in pet care difficult.

 “I’ve been in this space hiring for so many years, and all of my clients were coming to me saying, ‘Our biggest spending point is hiring. We can’t find good people, we don’t know how to identify the good people with the traditional outlets for sourcing candidates, i.e., Craigslist, Monster and word-of-mouth,’ ” Migdal said.

She added, “Those things just have a very limited shelf life, and there is no way of truly understanding someone’s background because many people applying through those jobs are really looking for any job, not just pet-specific ones.”

One wouldn’t think that there would be a shortage of pet-specific job candidates. According to research from The Children’s Mutual, a U.K.-based company that specializes in saving and investments for children, kids really want to work with animals. One of the most popular professions that children ages 5 and 6 say they aspire to be when they grow up is a veterinarian.

But fast-forward a couple of decades, and things are different. On average, veterinarians, for instance, don’t get paid nearly as much as family practitioners and pediatricians, who are among the lowest-paid doctors. And jobs grooming and “sitting” for pets are considered even more undesirable, Migdal said.

“People think of working with pets as being, if you can’t do anything else, you either wait tables or you work with animals. That’s not really the way that it should be,” Migdal said. “It takes a particular skill set.”

This mentality exists despite numbers showing that the pet industry is one of the largest and fastest-growing industries in the United States. According to the American Pet Products Association, Americans are expected to spend almost $60 billion on pet industry services and goods this year.

This growth has brought with it plenty of opportunities for more jobs with the increased demand for pet products and services. Dog groomers make on average $10.58 per hour and the average wage for a dog-sitter is $10.50 per hour.

Migdal said that businesses that require one-to-one contact with pets usually have the highest turnover rates because they are typically lower-paid and have less barrier to entry, meaning employers in the pet industry experience a huge influx of candidates who want those types of jobs, but most of these pet-care job hunters have not worked with pets before and don’t have any experience.

“Many employers will kind of just take what they can get and cross their fingers.”

Laurren Darr, founder of the International Association of Pet Fashion Professionals, said it’s very common for pet employers to get applications from candidates with no relevant experience.

“Many people do not realize that designing clothing for pets is very different than designing for a baby or for adults,” Darr said. “Different considerations must be made for materials and fabrics, even for smaller vs. larger dogs.”

FetchFind hopes to use online training modules and a system of certifications and specialty-dependent badges to transform the field, both for people serious about working in the pet industry and for employers who want reliable and qualified employees.

Anani Lawson who owns Philadelphia-based Royal Cat Boutique said he would seriously consider hiring a social media expert for the company if he had confidence in finding a qualified candidate with an obvious passion for working with pets.

“You wouldn’t be worried about an employee being all talk,” Anani said. “You’ll be able to find someone you know will be good and will be able to work with pets.”

Migdal hopes to change this uncertainty with her HR-based approach.

“What I’m looking to do is to create a high level of prestige and bring some professionalism to the pet industry by creating a networking space.”

Lara Walsh is a Workforce editorial intern. Comment below or email editors@workforce.com. Follow Workforce on Twitter at @workforcenews.

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Internet Use and Addiction as a Disability

Jon Hyman The Practical Employer

Last year I reported on the possibility that Internet use could become a protected disability under the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Now, we have one of the first documented cases of this phenomenon. From CNN:

A man who checked in to the Navy’s Substance Abuse and Recovery Program for alcoholism treatment was also treated for a Google Glass addiction, according to a new study.

San Diego doctors say the 31-year-old man “exhibited significant frustration and irritability related to not being able to use his Google Glass.” He has a history of substance abuse, depressive disorder, anxiety disorder and obsessive-compulsive disorder, they say.

The man was using his Google Glass for up to 18 hours a day in the two months leading up to his admission in September 2013, according to the study…. “He reported that if he had been prevented from wearing the device while at work, he would become extremely irritable and argumentative,” the doctors write.

The Guardian adds that “the patient repeatedly tapped his right temple with his index finger, … an involuntary mimic of the motion regularly used to switch on the heads-up display on his Google Glass.”

This supposed addiction is not limited to wearables like Google Glass. For example, CBS News recently reported on the physiological changes to the brain that could result from too much Facebook use.

What results when we toss this story into the employment-law blender?

  • Do you have employees who seem to spend an inordinate amount of time online? Is it affecting their performance and inhibiting their ability to perform the essential functions of their jobs? If so, you may have to engage them in the interactive process to determine if there exists a reasonable accommodation that enables them to perform those essential functions? For example, could you deny computer access to employees who do not need to use a computer for their jobs, and require that such employees leave their cell phones outside the work area?
  • Do you have a policy that prohibits non-work-related Internet use? If so, it might run afoul of the ADA, just like hard-capped leave absence of policies. It’s not that employers cannot place reasonable limits on workplace computer use. By instituting a ban, however, employers are avoiding their obligations to engage in the interactive process, thereby violating the ADA.

These are difficult issues, exacerbated by the novelty of the concept. Nevertheless, the more the Internet becomes entrenched in our lives (if that’s possible), the greater the likelihood that employees will begin embracing ideas such as Internet addiction as a disability and the need for employers to consider and provide reasonable accommodations. It’s a brave new world, we just happen to work in it.

Jon Hyman is a partner at Meyers, Roman, Friedberg & Lewis in Cleveland. Comment below or email editors@workforce.com.

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YourForce: An Apple a Day …

The Apple Watch’s debut last month was a boon for technophiles, but it also might be one for employee wellness programs, too.

Less than 10 years ago, a mobile phone was just that — a portable device with a numeric keypad you’d use to dial up friends. But when Apple came along with the iPhone, it was a sea change.

What the iPhone did for communication and entertainment, wearable devices may do for health and wellness programs, which are often held back by low participation and uncertain return on investment.

Wearables like the Apple Watch might just change that. They effortlessly monitor your heart rate, alert others to a sudden change in activity and even make sure you’re getting enough shut-eye.

If it takes off, an Apple a day may just keep the doctor away, and employers might take a bite out of their health care costs.

Giving in Guatemala
AMN Healthcare President and CEO Susan Salka (left) recently led a volunteer company mission to villages in the highlands of Guatemala. There, teams operated an acute-care hospital and clinic and conducted community development projects. AMN, a San Diego-based health care staffing company, partnered with Helps International to sponsor 10 clinicians for the weeklong medical mission and 10 nonclinical company staffers to participate in a related community development project.

Reader Feedback

Reader Dick Grote reacted to the August issue’s Last Word, “SHRM’s Game of Chance”:
I don’t have a dog in this SHRM/HRCI fight. But I sure do appreciate clever writing when I run across it.
Rick Bell’s article on the current certification mess is one of the most insightful, astute and amusing pieces I’ve run across in our HR field in quite a long time.

And reader GoShox stated:
I agree that many employers don’t give a second thought about what specifically the certification is, if they care at all. For those that do, they look for the letters at the end of the name and wouldn’t give much credence as to which governing body issued them.
Workforce.com/SHRMchance


Reader Ronald reacted to the August story “Does Paid Time Off Pay Off?”
There are a few points that I disagree with both in this article and in the prevailing wisdom on the “all inclusive” plans: They do not decrease unscheduled absence. If people are sick, they do not plan those absences under any system. These plans erase the line between illness and any other day off, which creates a sense of entitlement. I think we HR professionals need to sharpen our business focus and make sure we are providing solutions that better meet business needs.
Workforce.com/PTOpayoff

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Analytics for Dummies

Workforce analytics may dangle the promise of finally letting companies use data to make better talent management decisions. But there is one big problem: no-one really knows how to do it.

The current generation of workforce analytics tools is still relatively complicated, according to Ron Hascombe, research director at Gartner, an information technology research and advisory company. “Most technologies run ahead of what all but a few HR people are able to utilize,” he said.

Fortunately, that is slowly changing. HR technology vendors recognize that customers want faster, easier, more robust analytics tools, and they are racing to develop or acquire software specifically designed to make it easy for non-analysts to do workforce analytics.

“It is critical that we continue to simplify how customers turn the vast amount of people data… into insights,” said Leighanne Levensaler, vice president of human capital management products at Workday, a Pleasanton, California-based software producer. “There is a lot of hype and hyperbole when it comes to big data and workforce analytics, yet there is still a dearth of people with advanced analytics skills in the industry.”

Doers and Dreamers

Most companies fall into one of two categories when it comes to workforce analytics. There are companies that want to collect and interpret basic internal metrics – but don’t really know where to start. Then there are the advanced organizations that are already doing some analysis of internal and external data, and are ready to move into more predictive reporting. These companies are usually larger, and have some level of analytics expertise on the HR team.

For the time being, most companies fall into the first category, said Hascombe. Gartner research predicts that by 2017, only 15 percent of organizations with more than 5000 employees will be doing predictive analytics using internal and external data.

Fortunately, most vendors in the human capital management industry are focusing on the needs of the many by creating ever-more sophisticated analytics tools that use visualization strategies, preset queries, and simple report generators that allow managers to choose a combination of metrics and rely on the technology to do the rest.

“The vendors will continue to invest in this subset of tools for the next three years,” Hascombe said.

The most recent upgrades suggest that vendors are focused on making analytics less technical and more user-friendly.

For example, SuccessFactors, an HCM software producer, recently launched ‘Workforce Analytics: Headlines,’ an automated tool that reviews employee data, interprets and prioritizes findings, then sends relevant information to managers in the form of news stories.

“It strips away the obscure analytical terms and just tells managers what’s happening with their teams,” said Mick Collins, principal consultant of workforce analytics and planning for San Francisco-based SuccessFactors. “It supports a more self-serve model for workforce analytics.”

And last fall, Workday rolled out a new tool designed to help customers combine various sizes, sources, and structures of internal and external workforce data to give them greater flexibility in the kinds of information they explore. Customers can answer business questions by building unique scenarios merging data from multiple sources, or they can leverage pre-built analytic templates to tackle common scenarios such as market compensation comparison or retention risk and impact analysis, Levensaler said. “It is about providing people with easier access to insight.”

There are also stand-alone vendors, like Visier, which focus entirely on workforce analytics and helping clients transition from interpreting past data to predicting future trends. Visier’s cloud-based platform unifies customers’ workforce data from multiple sources and allows users to get answers to hundreds of workforce-related questions.

Visier, which is based in both Vancouver and San Jose, rolls out new updates every quarter, and is focused currently on building more robust visualization tools, said Dave Weisbeck, chief strategy officer for Visier. “Employee data has a lot of complexity that simple charts can’t capture, which is why visualization is so important.”

For the more advanced clients, both tech vendors and human resource consulting firms, like Mercer, PWC and Gartner, offer ‘analytics as a service’ models, through which consultants set up custom models to analyze masses of workforce data and provide analytics support.

Hascombe points to IBM’s launch of IBM Workforce Analytics, which provides a mix of applications to help companies do predictive workforce analytics.

Good Data Is Good Enough

Many vendors are striving to help clients achieve the ultimate goal of predictive analytics, but there are still many obstacles to overcome – both in what the technology can deliver, and how HR thinks about data.

Most of the current workforce analytics tools available are still limited, preventing companies from mixing and matching complex metrics or customizing their reports. “In most cases, to get predictive analytics still requires consulting support,” Hascombe said.

HR leaders also need to get more comfortable diving into the analytics world – even if they have limited analytics skills and imperfect data sets, Weisbeck said. “The biggest obstacle for us is the fear HR departments have about their data not being good enough to do analytics.”

Weisbeck encounters many companies that are so focused on perfecting their data and rooting out all errors and anomalies that they never actually get to the analytics process. According to Weisbeck, those companies are missing opportunities.  “You can get amazing insights from imperfect data if it is analyzed properly.”

Workforce analytics will continue to be an important part of the talent management process, and the sooner companies embrace these processes the sooner they will be able to use employee data to make meaningful decisions, Hascombe added. “In the meantime, clean up your data, invest in governance and work with your organization to determine the critical metrics that you will want to track.”

Sarah Fister Gale is a writer based in the Chicago area. Comment below or email editors@workforce.com. Follow Workforce on Twitter at @workforcenews.

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The Untapped Talent Pool of People With Disabilities

Recently, Dana Marlowe’s technology consultancy was managing a software project at a Fortune 500 company, when the client told her he was so impressed with her project manager that he wanted to hire him on the spot. That’s not surprising in a world where great tech talent is hard to come by, but it may be surprising to hear that this particular project manager is both deaf and legally blind.

“He’s a brilliant guy, and why wouldn’t they want to hire someone who is brilliant?” said Marlowe, who is principal partner of Accessibility Partners, a Washington, D.C.-based firm that helps organizations ensure their information technology products and services are accessible for people with disabilities. She prioritizes hiring workers with disabilities with the goal that at least 75 percent of the workforce has a disability.

Having workers with disabilities on her team is about more than doing the right thing, she said. “Employing people with disabilities just makes good business sense.”

The unemployment rate among disabled workers is double the average population, according to the U.S. Labor Department’s Office of Disability Employment Policy, or ODEP. Yet many of these workers are highly educated, deeply talented, and very loyal, Marlowe said. “People who overcome challenges on a daily basis can handle whatever workplace issues you throw at them.”

In an economy where companies are facing serious talent shortages, workers with disabilities offer a great value proposition. They not only bring expertise and experience to the table, they help organizations create a more inclusive workplace culture, said Kathy Martinez, head of the ODEP. “Diversification breeds innovation,” she added.

That’s important today as older workers are opting to stay in the workforce longer and could develop a disability while employed. “If you train a person for 30 years and they lose their vision due to diabetes, you would make accommodations so they can keep working,” she said.

Yet a lot of companies shy away from hiring candidates with disabilities in part because they aren’t sure what “accommodations” those employees will need to do the job. Employers imagine they will have to buy expensive equipment or adapt their office space, but the reality is quite different, Martinez said. According to an ongoing study by the Job Accommodation Network, 58 percent of accommodations don’t cost the company any money, while the rest typically cost about $500.

“Accommodations are really just productivity tools,” she said. Many solutions are as simple as lowering a desk or buying an extra piece of software like a screen reader for the blind, or an amplified phone receiver for someone hard of hearing. “It’s not going to be as expensive as you think.”

The other obstacle that hiring managers face is the discomfort that comes with not knowing how to discuss the disability, or what questions they are allowed to ask. But most of the concerns are answered in the Americans with Disabilities Act. For example, according to the ADA, an employer cannot make any pre-employment inquiry about a disability or the nature or severity of a disability. An employer may, however, ask questions about a candidate’s ability to perform specific job functions and may, with certain limitations, ask an individual with a disability to describe or demonstrate how that person would perform these functions.

“People with disabilities usually know what they need to do the job, so just ask them,” Martinez said.

Even if hiring someone with a disability requires a little discomfort or a small investment in new technology, it’s worth it for the value they bring to the organization, Marlowe said. “This is a huge, untapped talent pool, and companies would be foolish to ignore them.”

Sarah Fister Gale is a writer based in the Chicago area. Comment below or email editors@workforce.com. Follow Workforce on Twitter at @workforcenews.