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DOESYOUR TALENT STRATEGY

REALLYDRIVE EMPLOYEE

PERFORMANCE?

Silo-ed HR operations and disconnects in data could be

holding you back.

Organizations are notorious for under-utilizing the talent that they have.

Todays various human capital-related systems all capture data, but rarely is

it synthesized in a way that capitalizes on the skills and knowledge that the

individual brings to the organization. While discrete silos of information exist

such as within the hiring management system, the training management

system, the HRIS system or the performance management system, etc. - how

can the employer today get the full picture of the employee?

This Vital Analysis White Paper identifies the advantages to organizations of

creating and using a big picture view of their employees.


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Copyright 2011. TechVentive, Inc. Unauthorized reproduction, storage, transmission or quotation strictly prohibited. Page 1

DOESYOUR TALENT STRATEGYREALLYDRIVE EMPLOYEE

PERFORMANCE?

Silo-ed HR operations and disconnects in data could be holding you back. Executive Summary

Organizations are notorious for under-utilizing the

talent that they have. Todays various human

capital-related systems all capture data, but rarely is

it synthesized in a way that capitalizes on the skills

and knowledge that the individual brings to the

organization. While discrete silos of information exist

such as within the hiring management system, the

training management system, the HRIS system or

the performance management system, etc. - how

can the employer today get the full picture of theemployee?

In the same way a CFO talks about one version of

financial truth as he or she looks at the revenue or

earnings of the company, todays organizations

benefit from a version of the truth about an

employee. In todays organizations there are far

more likely to be many versions all with

information about the employeebut none

presenting in one place a single vision of thatemployee in the organization.

This Vital Analysis report reviews the improved

business practices that can result when a

performance management solution presents a

single version of the truth to the organization.

Bombarded with new technologies

and recession-induced changes in

the world of work, businesses have

lost sight of a key tenet: knowing

and understanding the individual

in the workplace. Computer

technology had frequently re-

siloed specific tasks and activities,

causing the talent managers to

lose sight of both the big picture

of the employee and the big

picture of the organization.

What happened?

x New technologies came into

play that addressed activities

previously done manually

x These technologies were often

standalone, leading to

fragmented business

processes.

x Integrated solutions

addressed these issues

technically: now HR

professionals must realign

themselves to meet the

requirements of a changed

work environment.


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THE BUSINESS VALUE OF KNOWING YOURWORKFORCEThis concept sounds simple, doesnt it? But often those who work with only

one aspect of the individual fail to see the whole picture of that individual

when that picture would be useful. The cause: deployment of fragmented

applications. These applications exist throughout the organization, ranging

from sourcing, hiring, onboarding, performance evaluation, learning

management, salary history, to total rewardsoften disparate and

disconnected.

In order to create a talent-driven environment (that begins before thecandidate even walks in the door), you will have to be able to know the skillsand competencies that a person brings with him or her. The data around theindividual grows as the employee cycles through the organization, gainingnew skills, getting bonuses or rewards, taking training, changing positions orroles, or participating in outside volunteer work, to name a few. Not only doemployees capabilities change over time, their career needs and wants alsochange. For example, workers may at times want more challengingassignments to foster career growth.

To ensure that this growing circle of data about the employee is sustained

and available to those who can benefit in decision-making through that

knowledge, one employee statement of record must exist. This integration is

accommodated by technology. Without it, employee management is

piecemeal, and decisions concerning the workforce remain in silos and hence

ineffective.

A key reason to go beyond standard data collection (and really know your

employees) is the fact that 71% of those employed throughout the recession

of 2008 2011 reported that they planned on jumping ship once the

economy improved and were increasingly aggressive in seeking positions

elsewhere.1 45% reported a decrease in loyalty to their employer,

demonstrating the recessionary impact on a trend that has been rampant for

some time.2 Never has there been a time when the value of knowing your

employees has been more crucial. Better firms must act now to identify,

know and retain all employees, not just their high performers.

It is acquisition and integration of employee data that makes HR and

business management excellence coalesce. We see the traditional areas of

data collection (Figure 1), often in separate databases or files, and we see

the bigger areas that can only be determined by connecting the dots on the

1The Recession from the Workers Perspective. Human Capital Institute and Monster. 2009. Page 7.2Ibid. page 8.


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information available about the employee. Silos must be surpassed for HR to

ensure:

x Alignment between corporate goals and the individuals goals

x Retention risks are identified and mitigation methods crafted

x The capability to measure the brand value the employee is bringing to

the company through his or her outside or volunteer activities

x The validation equity and fairness in relation to total rewards.

Figure 1. Value of Integrated Talent Management Solutions

Source: Vital Analysis. 2011.

Todays organizations recognize the need to align their workers activities and

behaviors with the broader goals of the business, and many have acquired

radically improved integrated talent management solutions to do so.

Integrated software solutions allow important new levels of transparency in

understanding corporate talent allowing enterprise-wide visibility to

employees worldwide. Only through these solutions can HR professionals


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achieve a true big picture of their talent, and have the data necessary to

plan for the future.

THE CHALLENGE: CREATING A SINGLE VERSION OF

EMPLOYEE TRUTHMoving to that big picture view of the workforce starts with a review of

current conditions: Employee data is collected in many different areas, often

in different technology applications, as that employee traverses his or her

career through the organization. Data silos create disconnects, as we

discuss here, between sourcing, hiring, onboarding and performance

management.

Disconnect 1: Sourcing and Hiring

Data about an individual starts being accumulated before they enter or

perhaps even know about an organization: a recruiter may have done a

search on talent types and located the individual at work in another

company. Referred to as a passive candidatetalent that is currently not

actively seeking a job these individuals are often the first to be contacted

with a position suiting their skill sets open up in an organization. But what

happens to this information? Where do todays recruiters keep the

information they glean from social networks, for example, such as LinkedIn,

Facebook or others? Likewise, when recruiters get a lead on a good candidatefrom a colleague or employee, where does that information go? Few HR

systems possess the ability (or a place) to retain this information. Is it

attached to the social information gathered? Unlikely. It is more likely to be

retained, if at all, on a Post-It Note.

When an individual applies for a position, it may be the first body of

information a company captures about the potential employee. Whether it is

an application for a specific posted position or to the company in general,

there is data gathered at the time of application that is seldom looked at or

used within the company again. This is one of the largest wasted areas of

employee information today: it sits as resumes, forms, test scores,

transcripts and recommendations in files that are unused within the

organization thereafter.

Disconnect 2: Onboarding

On-boarding should include a clear review of the specific objectives of the

new hire and ensure that he or she feels prepared to start the tasks at

handor address the learning needed to fill any gaps. But the conversations

in onboarding, at best, may be no more than a review of what the employee


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should do for the rest of the week and a handshake. There is unlikely to be

any review of the initial job posting to which the candidate was hired; rarely

is even the description of the position as advertised retained with theemployee who was hired to fulfill it. Given time lags between job posting

and the new employee appearing at work, the view of the position may have

changed quite radically in the eyes of the hiring manager. New employees

often report that they wondered as they walked into work if they had actually

been employed for the positions for which they originally applied.

Disconnect 3: Managing Performance

In the old days, employee performance management was an event, usually

tied to salary increases, in which a manager reviewed the past years

progress or lack thereof with a generally nervous employee. The goal was to

mete out praise (but not too much), and create some goals for the individual

for the coming year. Such reviews were generally forced upon managers,

not at all timely, and provided little value to either party. Furthermore, the

objectives were not at all tied to the overall business or mission of the

organization: they did not provide employees with a sense that they were

part of a whole greater than their immediate department, and certainly did

not align their future work with the goals of the corporation.

The performance review information, housed in files with HR and never

looked at again, was used mainly for merit increases in salary or a

compliance exercise for weeding out underachieving or unsuccessfulemployees from the organization. The information was not tied to the skills

the employee entered the organization with nor what he or she may have

added to that skill set since joining. This data was captured in and

maintained in a separate training database or a learning management

program. Often the employees manager knew only that the employee went

off to a class but never knew how well that employee succeeded in it.

Whether or not the class attended actually met the gaps in the employees

knowledge to fulfill a task on the yearly list of objectives was often never

known.

Using the performance management tools of today, all that can change.

PERFORMANCE-DRIVEN TALENT MANAGEMENT

Alignmentmay be the most popular word of the decade in HR circles, as

managers are told to focus on a cascading set of goals that eventually will

dictate optimal performance at the individual contributor level. Often

stemming from a corporate scorecard, the overriding goals of a business

generally fall into four major areas:


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a. Customer relationship improvement and retention

b. Operational efficiency

c. Product or service excellenced. Revenue growth or cost cutting/containment

The components of the corporate scorecard define the big picture for the

entire company; the talent management record the system of record for

the employee provides the big picture of the employee in the company.

All departments in a company relate to one of these four areas as does

each employee, often with goals that touch multiple corporate goals.

Alas, there is a fallacy with the implementing this ideal. There is a subtle

difference in an aligned and a true performance-driven organization. Evenwhen goals from the executive are cascaded to the rank and file, (hence

aligned, as most define it), they may not foster the anticipated high

performance from the employee. Corporate goals and individual goals are

often intermingled at the higher elevations of the waterfall, diluting or at

least confusing the articulation of the goals for employees at the bottom of

the rapids. True alignment only comes into play when the work of the group

and individual is totally in synch with the business goals of the entire

organization

The degree of emphasis on the four primary business goals (operational,customer, product, or revenue excellence) varies and changes over time,

thus the individual or group objectives shift as well. It is these goals that

should drive tasks and activities as they trickle down the corporate hierarchy.

Corporate goals color individual goals, as in the example below (Figure 2),

where the ability to open a new office (expanding revenue) may rely on

training a top manager to learn the language of the locale.

If the big picture of corporate intent is lost in the goal setting process, the

manager may set the employee off on a tangent (activities, projects or

learning objectives) that really to not line up with any of the overridingcorporate goals.


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Figure 2. From Corporate to Individual Goals

Source: Vital Analysis. 2011.

Make Your Metrics MatterHuman Capital Management professionals have reached new heights in

becoming data-driven or at least driven to collect data. But amassing data

for its own sake, or collecting numbers on things that are easy to count may

not help the organization become more successful. Numbers of open

positions, time to hire, sources of new hires, or turnover rates all have a

place but what data can really drive your organizations performance?

Generally, corporate-level goals

include at least four key areas

mentioned above, for example:

x Create and maintain superior

relationships with customers

x Run the organization efficiently

and economically

x Increase revenue

x Design and develop innovative,

better, or less costly products or

services

CorporateGoal

Increase Revenue Growth

DivisionGoal

Create a new division for sales in France

Dept.

Goal

Hire sales and marketing people in Paris

IndividualGoal

Learn French adequately to open and staff an office abroad

Metrics madness has

overshadowed the reason HR

started collecting metrics in the

first place: to make better

business decisions.


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W I

m

c

t

b

M

r

m e

c

c

y

b

c

What metrics about the workforce will help

executives make the best decisions in these

or similar goals? While HR leadersunderstand aligning employees goals with

corporate goals for improved results, they

themselves have to deliver the data that

demonstrates levels of achievement, and

alignment of, for example, a training

initiative with better customer intimacy or

increased sales. For HR metrics to matter,

they have to provide input into business

decisions. Rather than considering all

operational numbers as metrics, devisestrategic key performance indicators (KPIs)

in measurable areas that are vital to

executive decision-making.

The performance delta you want to measure lies between the goals and their

successful execution. Those are the metrics that really matter.

THE MOVE TO A NEW EMPLOYEE STATEMENT OF RECORDA single employee view should provide a complete life cycle account of an

employee that can proactively guide development, ensure productivity,enhance engagement, and drive retention. Because of these requirements,

increasingly the employee statement of record is shifting from the HRIS to

the talent management system. Why? To present an actionable big picture

view of the employee in the organization.

Successful HR practitioners want to understand the total scope of their

organization and be able to provide a holistic view of each employee in it.

This necessitates a whole new view of the workforce, a view with two-way

transparency of the employee from all those working with him or her, and

of the organization from the top levels to the entire workforce. Todaysintegrated talent management systems indeed provide that view of the

employees life cycle within the corporation, relying on information that

would not be attainable from fragmented performance management

applications. The challenge is now to put that big picture of talent to work.

Integrated employee information is the first step: Visibility is required into all

aspects of the employee. Growth in skills, knowledge, increasing acceptance

of responsibility, tangible and intangible value to a group or the wider

organization are all aspects to be retained. Integrated systems allow more


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complete understanding of the employee than existed previously, allowing all

those who work with the employee and with employee data to both see and

do more.

Talent management systems have blossomed into the de facto employee

system of record within many organizations, because they have captured and

retained the objectives for an employees position, the success that employee

had in meeting those objectives, and the total history of the employee in the

organization training results, positions held, awards won, and the like.

Because it is integrated and accessible, the value of the information has far

greater potential use than ever before. Only now can HR leaders truly

become responsible for the organizations lifeblood: its talent.


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Vital Analysis reports are generally available to Vital Analysis

clients only. Public access to this report was made available

through the sponsorship of Halogen Software. We hope you

enjoy this document and share it with colleagues.

Getting a Big Picture View of Talent Management that TrulyDrives Performance

Halogen Softwares talent management suite is purpose-built from theground-up to drive employee performance, and supports the bestpractices outlined by Vital Analysis. Halogens organically built TalentManagement Suite uniquely connects performance to all functional

areas: recruiting, compensation, succession and learning anddevelopment helping organizations build world class workforces that

deliver better business results. For more information on HalogenSoftwares Talent Management solutions visit:

www.halogensoftware.com


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About Vital Analysis

Vital Analysis is a very different kind of technology research organization. We are the

intersection set where exceptional technology market knowledge meets the executive suite.

Where other analysts replay vendor press releases, we give you the:x impact new technologies will or wont have on your business

x reasons why you should or shouldnt care about specific emerging solutions

x business justifications why you may or may not want specific solutions

Vital Analysis was carved out of TechVentive, Inc. in 2007 as a new, but complementary

business. As designed, Vital Analysis is the publishing, research and analytical arm of thatcompany.

Our reach, like our blog readership, is truly global. Weve consulted with top technology

executives in Australia, Brazil, Canada, United Kingdom and the United States. Weve beenbriefed by technology providers from virtually every corner of the planet.

About the Author

Dr. Katherine Jones, an industry analyst with Vital Analysis, is the founder of Independent Consultingservices (ICS), serving technology and service-providing organizations with marketing, strategy, and

talent management consulting services. Jones was a research director at Aberdeen Group in Bostonfor eight years, focusing on research and consulting services in talent acquisition and workforcemanagement, ERP, and mid-market companies. In charge of Aberdeen's Human Capital Managementpractice, Jones research covered talent acquisition, employee performance management, the hiring,retention and management of the hourly and contingent workforces, ERP in the Small and Mid-SizedBusiness, Human Resource Outsourcing (HRO), sales performance management, and issues ofworkforce hiring and management, workforce optimization, and employee retention and succession.

Today, she provides research and consulting services in business applications, on the fundamentalprocesses of business operations and strategy, and the effects of technological change and innovationon these processes within the global organization. In addition to ERP and Human Capital Managementexpertise, she specializes in the business advantages of SaaS and Cloud applications.

A veteran in enterprise applications, Jones has been responsible for technical product marketing andstrategic alliance management in several computer companies since 1984. Prior to a high technologycareer, Jones was a university dean, involved in academic administration, research, and teaching.

She welcomes your thoughts and invites you to contact her at [email protected] or

[email protected]

Reproduction of this publication in any form without prior written approval is forbidden. The information in this

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accuracy, completeness, or adequacy of such information and shall have no liability for errors, omissions, or

inadequacies in the information contained herein or for interpretations thereof. The reader assumes sole

responsibility for the selection of these materials to achieve its intended result. The opinions expressed herein are

subject to change without notice.

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