February 9, 2012 in Blog by Amanda Sheckman

Generating New-HRO for the HR-Powered Enterprise

By Faye Holland

As the HRO market branches between those that are deciding and those that are doing, a new breed of HRO is developing. This New-HRO is about enabling organisations to cope with rapid change, uncertainty and complexity. It focuses on one hand on identifying relevant sourcing, services and technology options; and then on the other, the imperative of developing sustainable outsourcing as engagements enter the next wave of development and/or renegotiation.

HR Change Agents need to embrace New-HRO to ensure sustainable growth in the HR-powered enterprise.  Like when e-business became business, we are at a stage in the market when outsourcing is just business. We now know that after all the hype, BPO (business process outsourcing) doesn’t solve every ailment – and “one throat to choke” just doesn’t hold up. The original cost saving motivation has been mainly achieved and the technological solutions are evolving creating a new model for those where large scale outsourcing was never an option – it has simply become one of a kit bag of options to HR professionals.

Real HRO is what happens behind the scenes, for example, the patient and painstaking rollout of complex payrolls country after country which reaches far beyond the area of outsourcing. For this reason the ‘O’ today means any combination of optimization, operations, outsourcing, organziation or outcomes to name but a few – so what does the ‘O’ mean to you in the next phase of HRO?

By working with decision makers and influencers that are interested in being HR Change Agents – we know that they strive to improve the business value of HR and who are either:
• reviewing the options,
• on the verge of,
• have just made, or
• are veterans – of large purchasing decisions

These decisions cover a whole array of technology and sourcing options such as Shared Services, Outsourcing, Captive, transformational and re-engineering solutions.

Read HRO Today and HRO Today Global magazines to see how you can become a HR Change Agent – make the right decisions, learn about the options, and maybe even get that next level of promotion by being better informed. Or come and meet us out our 2012 HRO Today Forums where we will look at how HR Change Agents build both New-HRO and sustainable growth into their organization through HR services.

HRO Today Forum North America: http://hrosummits.com/
HRO Today Forum Europe: http://www.hrosummits.com/hrosummiteu/index.php
HRO Today Forum APAC: http://www.hrosummits.com/hrosummitapac/index.php

February 8, 2012 in Blog by Amanda Sheckman

Jobs Hope

More good news has arrived on the jobs front. Of course, these developments are still graded on a curve. Given the economic trauma of the past three years, and given the enduring misery suffered by those among the under- and unemployed, celebrations should be muted and hope should be conditional.

Still, the creation of more than 200,000 net jobs (seasonally adjusted) last month has brought the official unemployment rate to 8.3 percent, back where it was at the end of 2008. Massive unknowns loom—oil supplies from the Middle East are threatened, the epochal European debt realignment is tenuous, wars are being unwound, and some unanticipated disaster of the man-made or natural variety is always around the corner. And they loom particularly large given the demonstrable fragility of our socio-economic order. But employment and growth have not looked this promising in a long time.

Which presents workforce leaders with a new challenge. The dynamic was captured in September by the “Job Preparedness Index,” a new annual survey conducted by the Career Advisory Board. Some 500-plus hiring managers and 700-plus job seekers were polled.

According to the survey, hiring managers place the highest value on the following skills: strategic perspective, high integrity, global outlook, strong work ethic, dependability, and accountability. Makes sense. Now, 56 percent of job seekers expressed confidence that they know what qualifications are required for employment, and 72 percent of job seekers are confident they know how to present their skills during an interview. Yet only 14 percent of hiring managers reported that “most” or “nearly all” job candidates, over the past three years, have had the skills their company looks for in a potential employee.

But here’s the worst finding. Experience” trumps “eagerness to learn.” Only nine percent of hiring managers reported they would be “extremely” or “very likely” to hire a managerial candidate who lacked the necessary skills but appeared eager to learn those skills on the job. And just 30 percent of job seekers ranked prior experience as the top factor in leading to a desirable job.

This is a major problem. And I fault the supply side (employers) more than the demand side (seekers). I’ve coached a lot of sports teams in my day, and when it came to tryouts and drafting a team, it was always a principle among my fellow coaches that we’d pick athleticism first. Why? Because to the extent the kid in question demonstrated strength or speed or coordination or field savvy, we figured it was our job to channel that raw ability into what we needed on the field.

Our social and commercial order used to work this way, too. Job training programs, apprenticeships, G.I. bills, and the like helped create a path for inexperienced talent to grow into jobs. Now, all I hear is complaints about how the emergent workforce is unskilled or feels entitled or suffers from some sort of collective attention deficit disorder wrought by video-gamed childhoods.

Sorry, it’s not that easy. We need to reforge the social contract on jobs, and that starts with employers. Invest in a longer term proposition. The landscape is shifting fast. Hire accordingly.

We’ll be exploring this and parallel ideas when HRO Today convenes its annual forum—April 30 through May 1 in Washington, D.C. Our Workforce Congress and other sessions will wrestle with the “Job Skills Gap” and how to navigate it. Have a question or idea for the program? Post it below.

January 31, 2012 in Blog by Amanda Sheckman

What’s your Opinion on the O?

By Faye Holland

The “O” in HRO has always stood for Outsourcing. However, the issues facing HR Professionals and Change Agents no longer only focus on Outsourcing but how outsourcing (large or small “o” is fine – see blog: http://www.hrotodayforum.com/index.php/2012/01/time-to-change-the-meaning-of-an-o/) is used in conjunction with competitive business practices to build a stronger workforce both on a micro- (at the company) and macro-level (for the whole global/national economy).  As a media company at the top of this game, our priority is to provide knowledge to our audience on how to create and maintain a competitive advantage while doing more with less and better in productivity, innovation, and workforce effectiveness/satisfaction.

Even small and medium-sized companies find themselves using a multi-sectored workforce:  full-time, contingent, contract, and outsourced staff.  Big companies have used these strategies for years.  What lessons can they share with smaller companies?  What are the latest trends, technologies, and techniques every HR Officer needs to know to keep the company at the forefront?

This month we have been building the programmes for the HRO Today Forum in Washington (April 30-May 2) and Singapore (May 16-17) and working with the advisory committee on the programme for Dublin (November 13-15) and are keen to hear of better practices or new requirements as we keep content level leading-edge.

But before you all start panicking, I’m absolutely not saying the “O” of outsourcing doesn’t exist. As a company we are successful due to the fact that we have a strong editorial and content on that subject. But our tens of thousands of practitioner readers and forum attendees; and our providers, technology firms and advisors relationships demand that we stay ahead of the curve so this is the start of the move to building the “O” and your opinion matters!

So tell me what you think…. What are the latest trends, technologies, and techniques every HR Officer needs to know to keep the company at the forefront?

January 27, 2012 in Blog by Amanda Sheckman

Jobs Missing

By Dirk Olin

The enduring American jobs crisis will dominate public debate in 2012, whoever emerges from the Republican primaries’ theater of the absurd. Indeed, the debate will rage long after the election. Structural and generational forces are at work that are far more important than the short-term fiscal and programmatic proposals on offer from the candidates.

Pay no attention to Bain Capital this or Solyndra that. What’s at issue are far more pedestrian, but foundational, dynamics: employee engagement, workforce sustainability, and old-fashioned job training.

On those points, consider Apple Inc. A couple of months ago, I noted the death of Apple founder Steve Jobs with a mixture of awe at his brilliance and bewilderment about much of his corporate ethos. Not to put too fine a point on it, the company treated many workers like dirt—both in the corporate headquarters, where a culture of intimidation often obtained and abroad, where the company abjectly ignored Chinese subcontractors who were likely sickened by their working conditions.

As the reins were passed with Jobs’ demise, I expressed my hope that new CEO Tim Cook would find the right practices to grow a healthier Apple.

On that front, two updates. After promising that Apple would not change under his tenure, Cook was almost immediately reported to be reforming promotion and reporting structures. He has also amped up communications with a workforce that he addresses as “Team.” What’s more, he launched the company’s first matching program for employee donations of up to $10,000 to nonprofits. No small change there.

Of equal or greater importance, in January Apple published its first-ever list of company suppliers, addressing issues of both the overworked (some to the point of suicide) and underage employees in Chinese factories. The move represents a blindingly welcome shift in the company’s transparency.

A more intractable problem, however, is one that was detailed in the Jan. 22 Business Section of The New York Times. Headlined “How the U.S. Lost Out on iPhone Work,” the piece explained that the lion’s share of those device’s manufacturing jobs had been offshored. And when, at a dinner a year ago, President Obama asked Steve Jobs straight out why those positions couldn’t be brought back to America, the CEO reportedly replied, “Those jobs are not coming back.”

One reaction to that reality came from Betsey Stevenson, the chief economist at the Labor Department until last September. “Companies once felt an obligation to support American workers, even when it wasn’t the best financial choice,” she said. “That’s disappeared. Profits and efficiency have trumped generosity.”

Sorry, but I’m not buying. Companies can be persuaded to act out of enlightened self-interest, but they’re not running their operations pro bono. As other sources explain, the real problems are two-fold. First, and as we will explore in future posts, a corporate and communitarian devotion to job training has all but evaporated in many sectors. Compounding that is globalization’s empowerment of the labor force arbitrageur.

But the remedy for the latter isn’t protectionism. That would be self-defeating. Fixing the former—through an investment in millenials and the emergent workforce—is the only logical and, yes, sustainable path out of these woods.

Which brings us, once again, to the 2012 HRO Today Forum, which will be held April 30 through May 1 in Washington, D.C. On top of the agenda: The Job-Skills Gap.

Come help fill the void. And start by posting your own ideas below: What innovative job training programs have you come across recently?

January 26, 2012 in Blog by Amanda Sheckman

OccupyHR

By Richard Crespin

Up until that moment, I’d missed all the signs.

Earlier in the evening a few friends and I had met up for happy hour at a popular downtown DC restaurant.  Afterward, my friend Bill and I decided to grab a slice of pizza at the new Fuel Pizza that had opened up next door.  Just after we settled in, the assistant manager approached a nearby table where a young man had apparently fallen asleep.

I suddenly realized that everyone else in the restaurant had some connection to the sleeping man.  It was like a scene from a prairie dog den.  Before the assistant manager walked over everyone was hunkered down staring at their laptops screens, but when he came over they all popped their heads up and many moved as if they might intervene in the discussion.

That’s when I saw the signs.

To read more, visit http://blog.allegisgroupservices.com/post/2012/01/25/OccupyHR.aspx

January 12, 2012 in Blog by Amanda Sheckman

We Need to “Insource” Education First President Obama!

By Elliot Clark

I love politicians. They mean well. There is no systemic problem that cannot be fixed with a stage and, of course, a microphone if you simply identify it, call it out and have at it. Today we are after the evil nemesis of American prosperity; dare I name that which shall not be spoken: OUTSOURCING. Yesterday President Obama announced the Insourcing American Jobs Forum on “insourcing” and a program to reward companies that bring jobs back to the land of the free and the home of the brave. Yes, in an evil attempt to stay competitive US businesses sent jobs overseas. They did this to enhance profits and then, watch this, they distributed the profits to shareholders in the form of dividends. Why would they do this?

How about they had no choice? Particularly, in the tech sector America is running out of technical talent.

I am not speaking for all outsourcing, but a great deal of outsourcing is related to product development and engineering. Some is customer service support and infrastructure. We need to look at this as it does, in fact relate to unemployment. In February 2011 according to the U.S. Department of Labor, unemployment among college graduates was 4.2%. Nowhere near the national average of 9% reported at the time. Unemployment amongst people who did not have a high school diploma was 14.2%. So there was a very high rate of employment among America’s most educated. There is worker displacement in any economy as technology changes but for the most part the educated are working. In technology professions the unemployment rate is below 4.2% approaching 2% in some areas of the country. The level of graduates from U.S engineering schools have dropped in the last twenty years while China and India have increased their educational graduation rates and focused on teaching their graduates English. They do this to attract Western companies desperate for talent to their countries.

Hmm, interesting strategy. These countries are trying to be competitive in a way that gives potential labor markets resources that they need. Maybe China and India have figured out that vilifying outsourcing providers and companies that outsource is too negative and, instead, they should adapt their educational systems to global needs and focus on the workforce to meet the requirements of global businesses. Lenovo and Infosys have thousands of workers around the world but have not been slammed by their governments recently. In fact, they are held up as examples of a new global world order.

It used to be that students came from all of over the globe to train in America and stayed for the lifestyle and freedom we offered. Now they either do not come or they train here and return to their native country. This brain drain is part of the trend as well.

You can reward companies for “insourcing” but it is no more effective in the long run than trying to command the tide. Either we have the talent or we do not. It would be better to work with companies on how to optimize the productivity of the workforces they have in place right now as one issue and take the issue of education and improvement as a separate issue. That will be how it debated at the upcoming Workforce Congress April 30 to May 2 in Washington, D.C. at the HRO Today Forum at the Gaylord National. They are not one issue and treating it as one is a classic oversimplification. I welcome the administration to show up and argue the numbers. We have been “outsourcing” education far longer than jobs. That is where the epidemic started.

Register before March 16 to save 40%.

January 10, 2012 in Blog by Amanda Sheckman

Time to Change the Meaning of an ‘O’

By Faye Holland

Four years ago when I was in the BPO practice at IBM, my colleague Bill Payne constantly repeated that whether its BPO, FAO, HRO – it’s not a big O, it’s a little o. The premise behind this statement was that there are lots of ways of doing outsourcing and to choose the right solution may actually involve a combination of sourcing options. Simply, the ‘O’ is more than moving processes from in-house.

At HRO Today Forum Europe 2009 (previously HRO World/ Summit Europe) in London, we asked the 196 HR Officers in the audience to vote on what does the O stand for – outsourcing or operations. 80% of the audience said outsourcing but that it was seen as a ‘mystery’ and that we ‘still have a lot to learn’.  On a daily basis Heads of HR – HR Officers,   manage a portfolio that encompasses the need for operational effectiveness across talent, recruitment, learning, payroll and benefits so it was really no surprise that this elevated level of confusion existed.

Interestingly, it was the advisor community that was most receptive to ‘operations’ and it was music to my ears when in October last year, sitting in a HROA board meeting when Tim Palmer, PA Consulting said he doesn’t talk outsourcing per se with clients now but about how to run operations in the most effective manner.

Elliot Clark, CEO of SharedXpertise, Publishers of the HRO Today Magazines wrote in the autumn 2010 issue of HRO Today Global (previously HRO Europe) “Oh No, No ‘O’”. For the prior 18 months Elliot had been waxing lyrical across every medium possible about the future of HRO being inextricably linked to the future of HR. “HR outsourcing will simply be a tool in the compendium of HR solutions and it will simply become part of HR operational models for delivery of global infrastructure….It has become so common that it is inconceivable to think of any HR department in any organisation that does not outsource some aspect of its HR operations”.

It is our role as Change Agents to shape and define the O be it about the peer-driven solutions from HROfficers, the latest developments in HROperations or cutting-edge case studies in HROptimization. Join us to define our O at the  HRO Today Forums – Washington (April 30-May 2) and Singapore (May 16-17) and Dublin (November) to take on:

• Overcoming the Job-Skills Gap.  Even the midst of the Global Recession, every year millions of jobs go unfilled globally because companies can’t find the skilled workers they need…
• Operational excellence.  It’s not just cutting cost it’s about turning HR into a strategic asset that drive productivity and employee satisfaction…
• Opening up innovation. Net-new jobs come from new companies, new products, and new services.  HR has a role in nurturing a culture of innovation, creating the preconditions for growth…

What’s your view? Let the discussion begin……

January 10, 2012 in Blog by Amanda Sheckman

Innovation & the HR Officer

By Richard Crespin

In a recession, existing businesses shed jobs in an effort to cut costs and hoard cash for the lean months ahead.  As the economy recovers, they start to add these jobs back.  It’s economic churn, not new economic growth. So where does new economic growth come from?  Innovation. 

Recent work by the Kauffman Foundation highlights the role of small business in generating the growth that fuels the economy’s engine.  No doubt they’re right.  Small business plays a vital role.  But this draws the circle too narrowly.  It’s not just small businesses, it’s new businesses.  New businesses, along with the new innovations they produce, drive economic growth.  In the popular imagination, new businesses get started by boot-strapping entrepreneurs toiling away in garages, but in truth new businesses come in a variety of shapes and sizes.  Some are classic start-ups.  Others get started within existing businesses.  And that’s where you come in: the HR Officer has a distinct role to play in creating a culture of innovation.

Take a business like IBM.   IBM is the single largest holder of patents filed with the US Patent & Trademark Office.  These innovations spawned dozens if not hundreds of “start-ups” within IBM and hundreds if not thousands of start-ups outside IBM.  How IBM recruits, retains, and works with its alumni has played a critical role in its ability to create a whole ecosphere of economic growth for the past 100 years.

To understand how HR Officers create cultures of innovation and growth, we’ve invited Bob Litan from the Kauffman Foundation and the Brookings Institution, along with Scott Case from Start-up America to join us at the HRO Today Forum April 30 to May 2nd in Washington, DC.  Together we’ll explore how HR can foster an innovation to generate new and sustainable growth for the company and the economy as a whole. 

We’ve also invited Jim Quigley, CEO Emeritus of Deloitte, author of Together, and current head of Deloitte’s Leadership Institute, to discuss how HR Officers can act as stewards of the overall business strategy.  And we’ll bring all of these discussions to a head in a series of roundtables with your peer HR Officers, other corporate execs, and public policy makers to find areas for collective action — how we can work together to put our companies and the economy as a whole on a high growth path.

To join us for these important discussions, register today at www.hrotodayforum.com.  Register by March 16 to save almost 40%!

January 10, 2012 in Blog by Amanda Sheckman

Filling the Skills Gap

By Dirk Olin

How many times have you heard it from a company leader? “Our greatest asset is our people.”

As with most clichés, the aphorism is true. Except when it isn’t.

I’m not talking about the minority of corporations that possess such extraordinary physical assets—money, oil, property—that the holding trumps the value of their people. Google’s algorithms might well have greater value than its coders. Ditto Coca Cola’s recipe. But those fall under the category of exceptions proving the rule.

Rather, I’m alluding to those organizations that fail to incent, align, inspire, and empower their workforces. For Enron and Lehman, people were arguably their greatest liability.

Few HRO Today readers need to be told this. They’ve already internalized the reality. They are fluent in the language of human capital asset management, because they live it everyday. Though sitting at the table of corporate leadership, they are charged with maintaining the most sophisticated understanding of the rank and file. Like Henry V walking among his soldiers on the night before battle, they are wired in to the ground game. They know the realities of a sales rep living in a suitcase, a shop steward challenged by his need to discipline a shoddy worker, a facilities manager bristling because her creative cost management has gone unrecognized.

HR Officers are custodians of nothing less than an existential foundation of society: the dignity of work.

Yet while HR Officers understand that people, properly led, are indeed an organization’s greatest asset, that insight is necessary but not sufficient. Keeping the sensibility energized, refined, and activated is as important as aerobic exercise for the cardiovascular system. Sometimes that means getting out from behind the desk. Sometimes it even means leaving the office behind altogether.

That’s why HRO Today convenes its annual forum—so that the HR community’s thought leaders can come together, compare notes, elevate their thinking, and sharpen the tools in their toolbox. No book, no webinar, not even a great magazine (I can’t believe I’m writing this) can replace the professional elevation and evolution that can occur at the right confab.

The 2012 HRO Today Forum will be held April 30 through May 1 in Washington, D.C. It will be bigger, more thought provoking, and, frankly, more important than any summit we’ve ever held. We are asking you—the HR Officer—to join your peers, other corporate executives, and public policy makers to grapple with one of the most important issues facing our country today: The Job-Skills Gap.

Even in the midst of the most severe economic downturn since the Great Depression, jobs are going unfilled in the United States, because companies can’t find the skilled workers they need. The ManpowerGroup reports that its poll of U.S. employers found 52 percent declaring that talent shortages are preventing them from filling key positions.

The forum will have plenty of content devoted to the many “O”s of HRO: operational excellence, optimization of the workforce, originality in fostering a culture of innovation. But front and center will be HR Officers, bringing their powers and abilities to address a genuine national crisis: the yawning gap that exists between jobs that need filling to keep our workforce competitive in a flatter, faster world and the skills that too few candidates possess to meet those challenges.

When it comes to meeting the qualifications for the task of thought leadership, there is no gap. You’re the ones for the job. Indeed, you can help lay the groundwork for this vital conversation by posting your answer now to this question: Where are you seeing a skills gap among your job applicants?

Register before March 16^th to save nearly 40%!

December 21, 2011 in Blog by admin

Save the date for the @HROToda…

Save the date for the @HROToday Forum, April 30-May 2 in DC! http://t.co/Sec9laS7 Will you be there? #HR