Review your HR technology

I am often being asked this question these days " What impact would the slowdown have on HR technology investments" and " what's the advice for HR on technology these days" ??
While I did write an article on impact of slowdown , but to be honest and fair that was just the beginning of what we are now witnessing as a global phenomenon. The impact has been so encompassing and profound that companies have put a freeze on IT investments, what was presumably what used to be called as business enablers have now taken backseat.
So these questions do make a lot of sense and working with organizations over years on their HRIT adoption made me think if there was a simple answer to it!!!
Unfortunately not, while it's true that organizations have widely put freeze or controls ( in some cases) on their IT expenditure. I think it's a golden opportunity to see what they can do with what they have at hand, so here follows some advice

1. For organizations using HRMS
Create a small team to review the current system, analyse gaps in implementation as well as understand what could have been done better. Organizations invest $$$ in automating systems. While the implementations happen in a time bound manner, so if there is a problem in the implementation, more often than not organizations wait for the next upgrade to sort these issues. These seriously hamper the utility of the system. Now is the time to identify and plug such holes.
Another aspect is usability, organizations need to look at how to make systems more usable internally and identify areas where the usability is low and then follow it up with some training. Use time to improve usability and show more value out of the investments.

2. For organizations that don't have an HRMS
While there might be a freeze on spending and your dream system may be a bit far , it's time to create better business justification which should be preceeded with a more dynamic need analysis of the system required and the preferred implementation model. This is also time to work through your evaluations and make it fool proof for your requirements.
Once you have done this and the business is ready to take off again, you would be better poised to identify the right system

3. For organizations that are investing in HRMS
These are the ones that believe that they need a system now! It's crucial for these organizations to realize that any short term investments would only hamper their businesses.
They need to look at investing in sound systems, because while you need a system and the mandate is to have a low cost one. It's always better to invest in phases than buy a low cost unstable solution.

What would be right would really depend on how well you are able to justify your needs but these are some advice that would surely help you beat the recession blues

Stay on top of your talent

Nothing could have been worse than your CEO asking you to cut the flab !!!
These are tough times indeed and HR / Talent / People are the first to bear the brunt.
Isn't it ironical that the function that has been trying to prove that people investment is like investment in capital is asked to cut down headcounts in tough times.
This holds true more because organizations have little to do with the cost of human capital, and returns also include intangible. How does HR ensure in such times that it does not loose critical talent ?.
To ensure this, its imperative for HR to have a clear visibility on its talent. However this is easier said than done.
Organizations continue to function in Silos and live on island of systems making it near impossible to have a single view.
Thats the reason organizations should strive to have an integrated talent management system,to ensure they have one single view to the data, are able to combine various factors while taking decisions.
Organizations need to move up the value chain in terms of their system maturity and after achieving administrative excellence, they should look at acquiring Strategic HCM capabilities, which is where a talent management foundation supported by analytics can really help organizations identify the " RIGHT talent" to retain and develop in these times of crisis.

CedarCrestone HR Systems Survey Results

I had blogged about the Cedar Crestone HR Survey here

CedarCrestone has released the results of its HR Systems survey, the FIRST one to be conducted in APAC. CedarCrestone has been doing this worldwide survey for the last 11 years, covering major trends and providing insights into the latest practices and adoption of HR technology.

The Coverage
The survey covered around 270 organizations APAC wide, and more than 800 organizations other than this worldwide. It covered organizations across industries and across sizes,and in that sense it was broadbased. Average employee size of the organizations surveyed varied from 500 to 40,000 +.

HR Solution Adoption
Adoption of Core HR remains high at 80 %, whereas Strategic HCM and Analytics are low on adoption at less than 30 %, again pointing to the need of having an integrated talent management strategy and solution.

Findings
SPENDING TIME AND BUDGET:
Top initiative where respondents are spending at least one day a week is activities around metrics and analytics
SERVICE DELIVERY VALUE:
Self service and move to service center enables organizations to serve more employees
TALENT MANAGEMENT MATTERS!
Organizations with technologies had higher financial growth on all measures than those without
BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE VALUE:
Organizations with technologies had higher sales per employee than those without
WEB 2.0 TECHNOLOGIES
WEB 2.0 is at the innovator/early adopter stage.

An interesting fact remains, this survey was done just before the recession wave tookover US and the world, so there may be some more conservatism if this same survey was to be conducted again. However, I don't feel it would have made the results significantly different.

What has become important for organizations across industries is Talent Management, and the investment related to it.As the survey goes on to prove how the investment in Talent Management has been associated with higher financial growth.
Another significant finding has been on Scope of Succession Planning, when Succession planning is limited to Top Management, Sales growth may be lower as compared to when Succession Planning is for other section of employees. This can be linked to the Employee engagement and the impact of it on the performance of the employee.
Another aspect covered is about the Web 2.0 technology adoption which remains low. This points to the large potential that lays unexploited still in the usage of HR technology.

For me - One single fact stands out - Investment on HR Technology can lead to significant benefits for the HR processes inturn impacting Sales growth positively. I think this makes for a continued case of investment into technology and use of it.
Lexy and her team have done an excellent job of putting together this survey and you can read more about it here