This post is part of our Data-Driven Talent Acquisition Strategies series. . Lack of workforce diversity has placed a magnifying glass on the hiring practices of organizations in all industries. It’s about being more thoughtful in granting everyone equal access to employment opportunities and also opening your doors to a wider range of talent that may just the very thing you need to succeed in today’s business climate. Companies with more women on the board statistically outperform their peers over a long period of time ( Catalyst ). Talent Acquisition leaders have taken note.

Like many aspects of human capital management, recruiting practices and outcomes are under increasing scrutiny. Operational metrics are no longer enough. At the same time, organizations are realizing that operationally focused processes and technology solutions are no longer enough either. Aptitude Research Partners’ recent research on strategic talent acquisition found that as the pressure to identify talent intensifies, companies need to address a more holistic view of every stage of the candidate’s journey, from candidate to applicant to new hire. Look At Your Data ]. Overall turnover (56%).

At the recent HR Technology Conference , sessions on data-driven HR were standing room only. Whether it was Mark Berry ’s talk on “Quantifying HR with Advanced HR Analytics,” or the “Ask the Expert” Datafication of HR panel of Visier customers joined by Josh Bersin , or Al Adamsen’s interview of tech evangelists on the future of HR analytics, conference attendees couldn’t get enough on the topic of workforce intelligence. Here are some great HR analytics articles to help you on your way: Make HR Analytics a Priority, But See the Bigger Picture. Applying Analytics Can Enhance Workforce Planning.

Since joining Visier, I’ve been thinking a lot about the value of workforce analytics. came to this organization because in my prior life as a researcher, my core focus was HR technology adoption and the value organizations derive from it. In fact, a consistent finding from the annual Sierra-Cedar HR Systems Survey (which I managed for 16 years) was that “ organizations with workforce analytics outperform.”. The above finding was obtained using aggregated data from publicly-traded survey respondents who provided financial data so we could report on their financial performance. Data Sources.

Our Talent Acquisition team checked out LinkedIn Talent Connect 2016 and brought back fantastic learnings on how recruitment can have a greater impact on areas such as candidate experience, employee engagement, employer branding, and diversity and inclusion. Another major theme at the conference? The need for Talent Acquisition to work closer with the business and connect recruitment initiatives back to the bottomline. Feel free to download the LinkedIn Talent Connect 2016 session notes straight from the link below (no need to fill out a form). Download LinkedIn Talent Connect 2016 Notes.

What could be more important than realizing that the world of HR is on the edge of a dramatic shift that will literally change the entire focus of HR? Unfortunately, HR leaders are frequently so busy that most haven’t found the time to realize that “The War For The Future of HR” is already over, and “data analytics” has won! The Business World Has Changed and HR Can’t Afford to Lag Behind. For decades, HR leaders justifiably focused on what can be best described as a “soft approach” to their role. And that approach served HR executives well. Human Capital is Now the #1 Business Challenge.

The 16 th annual HR Technology Conference and Expo was a fast-paced three days of learning, idea sharing, connecting, and of course, trying out the latest in HR tech. As mentioned in our previous post , top themes from the show included: Making Sense of HR and People Data. Engaging and Retaining Talent. The Continuing Impact of Marketing on HR and HR Tech. Succeeding with Modern HR Technology. Design and User Experience Comes to the Forefront. We sent our team into different sessions to gather insights around these different themes. Download HR Tech 2016 Notes. HR News & Trends HR Tech

One question every recruiter faces is: “How long will it take to fill this position?” Seasoned recruiters have had long practice in figuring out how to deflect this question by speaking of the tough hiring market, sharing insight on the current candidate pool, or turning the question back to validate just how important timeliness really is for a specific hire. But what if you could turn to an executive and show them the result of a predictive algorithm that had analyzed all your hiring data and come up with an answer? Below is how Visier works. Predicting Time-to-Fill. Look At Your Data.

With voluntary resignations at an all-time high and unemployment rates historically low, employee retention is a key objective for most HR organizations, and employee turnover is the single most prevalent HR metric. However, knowing your turnover rate does little to support strategic business plans. To achieve true insight, a more in-depth analysis of what’s causing turnover in different parts of the organization is required. Why should HR make employee retention a priority? One third of new hires quit their job after about six (6) months. The Era of Workforce Analytics. Senior managers?

This post is part of our Data-Driven Talent Acquisition Strategies series. Be sure to give  the first post  and second post a read for more insights and tips. An exceptional job candidate experience, regardless of whether you hire that person or not, can mean the difference between a healthy recruiting pipeline or one that is weak and anemic. Enough bad experiences can negatively impact your employer brand and make it difficult to attract great talent to your organization. Leave it too long and it can hurt your employer brand or worse sales. Why does this keep happening? Lack of time.

While 77% of all organizations believe people analytics is important, only 32% feel ready or somewhat ready for analytics, according to Deloitte’s Global Human Capital Trends 2016 report. Experian — a global leader in consumer and business credit reporting and marketing services, and a Visier customer — is one organization that has successfully embraced workforce analytics. While commentary on the rise of workforce analytics is in abundance, there is still very little discussion on the practical approaches HR can take to make a real impact. Get the basics right. Capability.

The last quarter for the calendar year is coming up, which means preparations for 2017 are now underway. The timing of the 19th Annual HR Technology Conference & Expo , as always, is impeccable. It’s coming at the perfect time to inspire HR leaders with innovative thinking and new innovations (over 400 companies will be exhibiting, including 40 new startups!). Steve Boese , conference Co-Chair and industry thought leader, cited five major themes and trends he saw emerging from the conference agenda: Making Sense of HR and People Data. Engaging and Retaining Talent.

Contradictions are everywhere. We are told that data-driven decisions are more accurate and more likely to result in better outcomes and yet we still feel more comfortable relying on our own intuition (or following what others do). We are told that to achieve competitive advantage, organizations need to be unique — but organizations love to benchmark and follow the best practices of others. I was reminded of the paradox of contradiction in a recent article appearing in the New York Times Magazine in which Mark O’Connell describes a funny machine which turns itself off when you turn it on!

Making HR analytics a leadership priority is not just about encouraging HR to present the latest analytics innovations, but rather a true partnership to drive pivotal decisions. Harvard Business Review Analytics study of 230 executives suggested a stunning rate of anticipated progress: Today, 15% said they use “ predictive analytics based on HR data and data from other sources within or outside the organization,” yet 48% of them predicted they would be doing so in two years. However, today’s HR analytics are mainly used for cost avoidance, not to drive broader strategic success.

When setting up a workforce analytics function, it’s clear that the people you include are vital to long-term success. However, the technologies you choose to enable your team are just as critical. In fact, exploring new technologies — especially those based in the cloud — was a popular recommendation in this year’s Global Human Capital Trends report by Deloitte. But with so many options to choose from, how can you make sure you’re equipping your team with the right tools? Follow these four key best practices for choosing the right HR analytics technology: 1.

No business is immune to risk, especially when it comes to its workforce. People can be unpredictable — their behavior can change in an instant. Whether HR is dealing with health and safety incidents, compliance issues, compensation and payroll errors, or wrongful hiring and termination practices, these are all risks that HR can mitigate with the right data-driven approach. According to PWC’s 2016 Global CEO Survey , 79% of CEOs are most concerned about over-regulation. These days it seems new legislation is always coming into effect. Well, in this case: HR! are proposed to start in 2017.

This post is part of our Data-Driven Recruitment Strategies series. You can read the first post here. Bad” and “hire” are two words recruiters never want to hear said together. Not only can it undermine trust in the recruitment process, but it’s also a very costly problem. A bad hire can cost as high as five times the annual salary for that role — not just from the turnover, but also lower productivity, a damaged employer brand, lower employee engagement, and higher manager time spent on mitigating underperformance. were actually the people leaving the company the fastest!

In May 2016, wildfire broke out in Wood Buffalo Municipal District near the City of Fort McMurray, Alberta, Canada and became possibly the costliest disaster in Canadian history. As the fire grew to nearly 2,000 square miles (approximately 590,000 hectares) in size, more than 80,000 residents were forced to evacuate. The City of Edmonton responded to this unmatched crisis by putting “all hands on deck.”. Edmonton Fire Rescue Services sent firefighters and equipment to help fight the blaze. Recommended Read: Visier Case Study: City of Edmonton Case ].

The latest JOLTS (Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey) came out earlier this month and as the graph below shows, there continues to be more job openings than hires being made. Companies cannot hire fast enough to keep up with their workforce demands and competition is fierce for those high potential people who will deliver innovative solutions or go above and beyond for your customers. Data-driven recruitment is the key to attracting and keeping the right talent needed to meet business objectives — and hiring them at the right price. First, the technology. Second, the data is siloed.

It’s been an exciting first few days of the 2016 Summer Olympics. Whether you’re cheering Michael Phelps on to his 20th gold medal or admiring Usain Bolt’s speedy feet on the track, there is no shortage of examples that can motivate and inspire employees. However, when it comes to letting employees watch the Olympics at work, some executive leaders may see it as a distraction and productivity drain. recent study by the Workforce Institute at Kronos found that an estimated 55 million U.S. employees expect to watch some Olympic events live during working hours. Step 3: Make your case.

There is no way to put this delicately: HR has an image problem. More than 10 years ago, Fast Company published the article, Why We Hate HR , setting off a firestorm of discussion and debate. The bottom line was this: HR’s inability to align talent strategy with business strategy called its value into question. Unfortunately, many HR departments today are still stuck in “neutral” (so to speak). Seismic Demographic Shifts Ahead. Even though the U.S. enjoyed more than 60 years of unprecedented economic growth, participation in the labor market has been dropping steadily since the early 2000s.

The first six months of 2016 have come and gone, and in that time, we’ve seen an increase in the number of companies adopting HR analytics. While this is good news, it is by no means the end of the journey. powerful analytics function can help you easily overcome new regulations, achieve diversity goals, get ahead of turnover, and more, but it requires the right mix of people, technology, and process to achieve. How do you get started? How do you make your existing team more successful? What best practices exist? How Improving HR’s Analytics Capability Prevents Chaos Over New Overtime Rule.

Automation and artificial intelligence will undoubtedly have profound effects on the future of work. One widely-cited estimate suggests that 47% of work in the U.S. may soon be automated. It is easy to get caught up in the hype of “worker versus machine,” but that overlooks the fundamental role that HR and other organization and social leaders will play in constructing work and workplaces best suited to the emerging future.  . Getting past the hype requires, among other things, that we “blow up job descriptions,” or “deconstruct” work. It is vital to aligned strategy execution. 47% of U.S.

As a tech company, we experience first hand the challenges faced by HR and business leaders in the hyper-competitive tech talent market. While the race to out-innovate with new ideas and products fuels the technology industry at large, the competition between companies is fought most pervasively as on the talent front lines. Innovation and ideas come from people, and being able to attract, retain, and develop the best people creates the real competitive advantage. 90% of technology CEOs are confident about their revenue growth in 2016 , according to PWC’s 19th Annual Global CEO Survey.

When it comes to talent management, there’s a paradox that continues to confound HR leaders. For a long time, HR departments have been called on to become more strategic—less fixated on matters that only concern HR, and more focused on matters that concern the entire business. At the same time, talent management—a bedrock component of the HR function—is by definition a strategic pursuit. Given that the workforce takes up most of the company budget, it’s hard to argue that there’s a function outside of talent management more critical to a company’s ability to execute on its strategy.

It’s no secret that the success of many HR activities relies on effective collaboration. Whether an HR team is working on compensation and benefits, career development, or performance management, it needs to take into account input from all stakeholders involved, including employees, their managers, and Finance, among others. But there’s a case to be made that workforce planning is the one process that creates the highest level of risk for the organization if stakeholders don’t work together adequately. First and foremost is the budgetary input from Finance. Account for net exporters of talent.

Over the past few months, I had the privilege of taking part in a ground-breaking research project. It leveraged the Visier Insights database — a workforce database unmatched in the world in its breadth and depth, which allowed us to examine gender equity like never before. Here’s what we found. Discovering the truth behind the gender wage gap is no easy task — and neither is closing it. But, there is good news: a new finding ( released this week ) that may provide HR with the key to accelerating pay equity — and the economic and social benefits that come with it.

For tech entrepreneurs, the Information Technology industry is a wonderful place to make your living. No matter how large and well financed your competition may be, they all have the same Achilles heel: new ideas and the drive to make them a reality. The innovator’s dilemma is alive and well in high tech. Moore’s Laws Govern the Field of Innovation. All new IT offerings I have experienced over my four decades in the business have followed Geoffrey Moore’s technology adoption curve. The early adopters like to lead the pack in testing the usefulness of new things. Seizing the Right Opportunity.

“Never let a good crisis go to waste” is an expression HR leaders at healthcare provider organizations understand well. They are painfully aware of the serious challenges their industry faces: unprecedented growth in demand for services, a short supply of skilled caregivers, and constant pressure to improve patient satisfaction and reduce readmission rates and costs. To avoid drops in service quality and patient satisfaction scores, organizations need to estimate and track hiring rates more accurately—so that recruiters can provision the right hiring capacity ahead of demand.

Today, HR leaders across the country are being asked by their C-suites and Boards if they can avoid the millions of dollars in overtime costs their organizations are now at risk of incurring — thanks to new overtime rules passed by the Department of Labor — without negatively impacting business objectives. And, in this pivotal moment, many are turning to  cumbersome, error prone, insecure spreadsheets. The rules around overtime work have been largely unchanged since 2004 , but in May 2016 the U.S. The DOL predicts that an additional 4 million workers across the U.S

Workplace safety is a top concern across a wide range of industries. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), there were 2.8 million nonfatal workplace injuries reported in 2014. Whether you work in a factory or an office, occupational hazards exist across all sectors of the economy — making the prevention of safety incidents a key strategic imperative for a diverse array of organizations. Even complying to the strictest safety standards doesn’t guarantee that your workers won’t suffer from a workplace-related injury. Using Data to Find the Root Causes of Safety Incidents.

There is a lot we can learn from the financial services industry. Constantly changing regulatory and remuneration policies , as well as post-recession restoration pressures, are making it difficult to attract and retain key people in the financial services industry (FSI). In fact, 72% of banking and capital markets CEOs and 70% of insurance CEOs see the limited availability of key skills as a threat to growth. There is a clear connection here between what happens in the workforce and the success of the organization. Companies with stronger HR programs, outperform on financial metrics.

“Like, I’ve been doing this podcast for like, eight years now, but there’s like one language peeve that I’ve never thought to write about, so when a listener asked me about it, I was like, ‘I can’t believe we’ve never covered this before!’ – Grammar Girl, 2014. The caricature of a Valley Girl is comical, but analogies showing how one thing is “like” another are vital tools for social and organizational change, especially when it comes to work and HR. In my last article , I urged HR to embrace the best and brightest from all disciplines. Yet, analogies can be tricky. AdECN Website 9/2007).”  .

“Build vs. Rent” is a common dichotomy in technology buying, but what does it mean when applied to workforce intelligence? What should you be aware of before committing to one path or the other? The race to adopt workforce intelligence is heating up: according to the Deloitte Human Capital Trends 2016 report , “companies are no longer ‘stuck in neutral’ in their deployment of people analytics… Indeed, analytics capabilities will be a fundamental requirement for the effective HR business partner.”. Building your Workforce Intelligence Solution. Hardware purchase and maintenance. Product updates.

Deloitte’s 2016 Global Human Capital Trends report predicts that “in the not-too-distant future, it will become impossible to make any HR decisions without analytics. Indeed, analytics capabilities will be a fundamental requirement of the effective HR business partner.”. Indeed, the “datafication of HR” is accelerating, driven by the critical need to create better business outcomes using evidence-based workforce decisions. Have stock market returns 30% higher than the S&P 500 , are twice as likely to be delivering high impact recruiting solutions , and their leadership pipelines are 2.5X

Getting to a fact-based and business-oriented mindset is critical for HR — 80% of executives say their company could not succeed without an assertive, data-driven CHRO, who takes a strong stance on talent issues and uses relevant facts to deliver an informed point of view. This Spring roundup of articles shares some of our most popular articles on how HR can become a true strategic business partner. Message to the Best and Brightest: Change the World by Changing the Future of Work and HR. How can we retool HR thinking to create the ideal future workplace? Keep the Inspiration Going.

Do you see yourself becoming a respected and successful CHRO one day? report by Harvard Business Review Analytic Services reveals that the “new” CHRO must be an assertive, data-driven, strategic leader, who demonstrates business creativity and innovation, takes on responsibility for contributing directly to business performance, and arms their organization with the tools needed to be more fact-based in workforce decision-making. How a Data-Driven Mindset Improves Business Outcomes. The cost of people in any organization is in the range of 60-80% of the total annual expenses.

There will always be challenges that face HR executives and practitioners. Historically, many issues arose from lack of data. It used to be embarrassing. HR practitioners used to wince when they needed to justify expenses. Workforce analytics are now better than ever, but organizations need to properly access them, align their information with decision-making, and act accordingly. Specifically, this initiative is not just about understanding data-driven HR and the usual metrics, but specifically how HR can connect what it’s doing to business outcomes. But did it? And then there’s all this data.

Today is Equal Pay Day. A day of awareness about the pay gap that exists between men and women, Equal Pay Day symbolizes how far into the next year women must work to earn what men earned in the previous calendar year. According to a recent CareerBuilder.com survey of 223 HR managers, men are nearly three times as like as women to earn six-figure salaries and nearly twice as likely to earn $50,000 or more. These are staggering numbers, especially when you take into account that women at these same companies were almost twice as likely to report earning less than $35,000.

The evolving work ecosystem requires “retooling” HR issues using the best thinking from disciplines such as engineering, finance, neuroscience, marketing, operations, and supply chain. Innovative HR leaders already reach out to peers in disciplines like supply-chain engineering, but the most profound impact may occur much earlier in the talent pipeline – attracting young professionals to change the world by reimagining work and HR.  . How to Inspire Silicon Valley Interns: The LinkedIn HR Hackathon. The festival attracted nearly 1,000 applicants for about 150 spots in the overnight competition. The

Since the mid-1990s, the phrase, “HR transformation,” has been a part of HR’s common vernacular. In fact, it is so often-used some regard it as almost a form of HR “smart talk”  – something that many talk about, but few really understand how to do. The same could be said – most recently – for the terms, “workforce analytics,” “talent analytics,” and other variants of this. Given the frequency of use of both, it is critical to understand what HR transformation really is and the role workforce analytics plays in effective HR transformation. What is HR Transformation? Enabling HR service delivery.

In the NFL, skilled wide receivers are often the star players on their teams. Mention Jerry Rice, Randy Moss, or Terrell Owens, and there’s a good chance that even people who don’t normally follow football will recognize their names. Wide receivers are known for their speed – with 40-yard-dash times that compare well to track athletes. By definition, their role is to catch the football when the quarterback throws it. Before the catch, the receiver typically runs a pre-planned route on the field to escape coverage from the defensive team and get into an open space for the catch.

During our most recent Visier Customer Forum , keynote speaker Dave Ulrich told a story that has stayed with me, as it’s illustrative of many of the key challenges we face in connecting workforce outcomes to business outcomes. The CHRO of a large organization had called to get advice on a vexing issue. They had uncovered that a company they were considering acquiring had a culture that was negative and at odds to their own. What should they do? Many of us in the room wondered if the CHRO should consider objecting to the deal. It worked, and the CHRO saved the company $10 million. Competitors?

The healthcare industry today is facing a perfect storm. On one hand, there has been unprecedented growth in demand for healthcare services: As many as 18 million more people have healthcare coverage today than did a few years ago. At the same time, the population is aging and people are living longer with chronic medical conditions: by 2030 more than 20% of US residents will be 65 or older, compared to 13% in 2010. The biggest factor in both dimensions is the workforce: a highly specialized and very mobile group of skilled caregivers who are constantly in short supply.

Employee engagement can look like a random effort to keep workers happy. Should we invest in tuition reimbursement? Re-examine our core values? Order another ping-pong table? While general employee satisfaction is important, employee engagement is not about delivering a slew of eclectic activities. When done well, it zones in on what really motivates high-potential people to remain with their employer, deliver innovative products, or go above and beyond in customer service. Research has revealed a strong link between personal learning and motivation. Focus on the following key areas: 1.

With baby boomers heading into retirement — by 2050 an estimated 88.5 million people in the U.S. will be 65 or older — healthcare providers have an increasingly large influx of patients entering their doors. But there is another retirement population that is perhaps even more worrying to them: nurses. According to a survey by the National Council of State Board of Nursing and the Forum of State Nursing Workforce Centers, 55% of registered nurses (RN) are age 50 or older. Improving HCAHPS Scores with Data-Driven HR. Basing decisions on intuition or gut feeling is not an option.

When customers start using Visier, they often tell us the stories that led them to seek out a workforce intelligence solution. One such story clearly describes a core inefficiency that is common to many companies. At this company, the leadership team wanted to develop a new product line and asked Finance if they could afford the startup costs. Finance’s response was that there was no money to spare. However, at the end of the fiscal year, Finance reported what they saw as good news: they had found that there was significant under-spending in headcount-related expenses. What can HR do?

Training colleagues to use a new HR technology can be daunting and there is a lot of pressure to get it right. If users feel frustrated and uncertain while using a new tool, such as a workforce intelligence (WFI) solution , they may return to the old methods of figuring out their HR data despite how antiquated or cumbersome they are. When I led the training during the roll out of the Visier Workforce Intelligence solution to City of Edmonton employees, I wanted to ensure that every lesson I prepared would make mastering the self-service analytics solution easy and uncomplicated. panicked.

Healthcare has long been a highly regulated industry with a diverse and specialized workforce — one that’s hard to hire and even harder to retain at the best of times. Even though healthcare has been projected to add 4 million jobs — more than any other industry — between 2012 and 2022 , turnover is high and hospitals perennially face a shortfall of registered nurses (RN). Competition is fierce for these highly skilled workers, and job satisfaction is vital to preventing nurses from resigning or worse, leaving the profession completely. Too few staff (49% of respondents).

Why is it so difficult to successfully implement change?  . This is a haunting question for any HR professional. Any perusal through common literature in the genre of change management will reveal high probabilities of failure – some sources stating that as many as 70% of all attempts at change fail. In recent work we’ve done at Exelon in partnership with our colleagues at BPI (Bridget Laffey in particular), we’ve gotten a little closer to making change implementation easier. Adapting to a Changing Landscape. Revitalizing our executive development. Adopting a strategic business partner model.

Maturity models have been so successful in breaking down the journey, intermediate goals, and steps to creating business impact that there is hardly a discipline or function without a model. They are particularly powerful in scenarios where the path to business impact is less obvious, and so we often see them in process-heavy or data-heavy disciplines. While workforce analytics and workforce planning are increasing in priority , most organizations have not progressed to take advantage of the opportunity that workforce data provides. Level 1: Reactive. analysts are the main users. Moving Up.

How can leaders use analytics to identify the best ways to accelerate women’s career progress? The answer requires a different perspective and looking for sets , intersections and configurations instead of common (and simple) linear solutions. Statistics suggest that women make up 59% of the U.S. labor force and 51% of the U.S. population, but in companies like Google, Apple, Facebook, Microsoft, Intel, Cisco, Twitter and Amazon, women make up only 29% of the workforce, only 16% of technical positions, and only 22.5% of leadership positions. Leaders want to make impactful investments.

One fascinating source of information that the BLS publishes is known as JOLTS , or Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey. There is a goldmine of information contained within that gives us insight ranging from the state of the economy to how hard it will likely be to make that next critical hire. And something exceedingly rare has just appeared. In the following graph, we see how many hires are being made, by comparison to the number of job openings: For nearly the entire history of the JOLTS data, more hires are tracked than job openings, but recently this relationship has switched.

2016 promises to be a year of seachange for HR with HR professionals accelerating their embrace of a fact-based and business-oriented mindset (see the fifth point in this Josh Bersin post ). Brilliant HR in 2016 is data-driven, strategic, and impactful. Its practitioners ask not just how many , but — more importantly — ask why. They uncover workforce insights; help to shape not just HR, but also business strategy; and proactively create better business outcomes. They cover the full critical thinking cycle from the what to the so what to the now what. The Employee Engagement Hoax?

From all of us at Visier, we wish you. brilliant holiday season and insightful New Year! The post Holiday Greetings from Visier appeared first on Visier Inc. HR Leadership HR News & Trends About Visier HR Tech

From all of us at Visier, we wish you. brilliant holiday season and insightful New Year! The post Holiday Greetings from Visier appeared first on Visier Inc. HR News & Trends Workforce Optimization About Visier HR Tech

During the holidays, it’s not unusual to receive a slew of out-of-office messages from people squeezing in one last getaway before the new year. Unfortunately, it is also becoming just as common to receive emails and phone calls from people working through the season, even if they have paid time off (PTO) to burn or worse, they’re on vacation. heavy workload and job pressures from peers and supervisors are causing more workers to put in overtime and take less PTO. The Hidden Costs of Unused PTO. Vacations exist for a reason. For context, this cost is “ nearly half the size of the current U.S.

Engagement surveys are a mainstay in the arsenal of HR tactics. And for a long time engagement scores have been the go-to metric that HR teams use when they need to demonstrate their impact on business results. The theory is that employees who are more engaged will also be more productive. However, in spite of numerous innovations in engagement tracking, such as tools that help companies measure engagement more easily and more often, the engagement process alone still can’t answer the question: “How does engagement actually affect workforce outcomes?”. Take a hospital, for example.

In the 1950s, when all but 10 percent of open positions in companies were filled internally, “HR was a powerful function, voted the most glamorous area in business by executives,” writes management expert Peter Cappelli in this HBR piece. During the post World War II era, he explains, a huge leadership void had been created by the war. This made “What happens if the boss gets hit by a bus?” a big postwar question, and ushered in an era of new revolutionary practices, such as coaching, job rotation, 360-degree feedback, high-potential tracks, and succession planning. Today’s Talent Shortfalls.

Earlier this month we were fortunate to host an interactive HR Leadership workshop for Visier customers, led by father of modern HR and leading business consultant Dave Ulrich. In this workshop, Ulrich focused on the top questions of the group, the first of which was focused on, “What is blocking HR’s progress?” Here are some key takeaways. In December 2014 Dave Ulrich published the article Why Chief Human Resources Officers Make Great CEOs in Harvard Business Review, in which he shared the results of his research with Korn Ferry’s Ellie Filler. How your company is going to win. ”).

In August 2015, the need for more workforce diversity was spotlighted in a big way when President Obama issued a call to action to technology companies, encouraging them to hire more women and minorities by implementing the Rooney Rule. During the White House’s first-ever Demo Day , over a dozen major technology companies committed to ensuring more diverse recruitment and hiring practices, including Facebook , Amazon, Microsoft and Box. What is the Rooney Rule? Xerox is aiming for 34% of the executive leadership team to be female within the next five years. How to keep track of your compliance.

Should you encourage managers to differentiate performance and rewards among workers? The typical assumption is that more differentiation is better. Merit-based rewards are seen as a hallmark of a “high performance culture.”. 91% of companies linked pay to performance in 2011 , up from 78% in 2009. 89% of companies differentiated performance using numerical ratings in 2014-2015. Yet, some leading organizations are adopting performance management systems that reduce or remove ranking, numerical ratings and performance categories. Microsoft abandoned its forced-ranking system in 2013. Lawler III.

E mployees raising a publicized stink with the union over your rewards. Investing in workplace foosball tables and hammocks , only to get scathing reviews on Glassdoor. Getting a great employee engagement score, but discovering that 15% of your workforce spends half their day on non work-related tasks. Yes, well-intentioned employee engagement tactics can backfire. But simply surveying your workforce for sentiment data once a year and getting a sleek report won’t give you the insights you need to avoid serious snafus. Make sure your questions reflect what really matters to your business.

Employees raising a publicized stink with the union over your rewards. Investing in workplace foosball tables and hammocks , only to get scathing reviews on Glassdoor. Getting a great employee engagement score, but discovering that 15% of your workforce spends half their day on non work-related tasks. Yes, well-intentioned employee engagement tactics can backfire. But simply surveying your workforce for sentiment data once a year and getting a sleek report won’t give you the insights you need to avoid serious snafus. Make sure your questions reflect what really matters to your business.

If you could only bring two things to HR Tech World Congress in Paris, what would they be? My answer: A pack of throat lozenges and really, really comfortable (but stylish!) shoes. With over 4000 attendees from more than 80 countries and a dizzying number of sessions, there will be a lot of walking, listening… and talking. Here are my “top five” sessions to attend, listed in the order in which they take place: Smart Simplicity in a Complex World. Tuesday, Oct. 27 @ 8:55. It is hard to beat the quality of the research put out by Boston Consulting Group. How can HR support Smart Simplicity?

As an HR leader, you’re often put in a tough spot. It’s not unusual to have to choose between a decision that’s unpopular and one that’s ineffective. Case in point: A Visier customer told me about the time the manager of a business unit demanded a meeting with HR. The manager had noticed that more of his employees were resigning than ever before, and he wanted the company to do something about it. The manager had already come up with what he thought was the right solution — raise the base pay for all of his employees by 10% — and he now just wanted HR to execute his idea.

As an HR leader, you’re often put in a tough spot. It’s not unusual to have to choose between a decision that’s unpopular and one that’s ineffective. Case in point: A Visier customer told me about the time the manager of a business unit demanded a meeting with HR. The manager had noticed that more of his employees were resigning than ever before, and he wanted the company to do something about it. The manager had already come up with what he thought was the right solution  —  raise the base pay for all of his employees by 10%  — and he now just wanted HR to execute his idea.

It’s hard to attend an HR conference or visit an HR website and not hear the term “employee engagement.” Deloitte’s Global Human Capital Trends 2015 report rated culture and engagement as “the most important issue overall, slighting edging out leadership (the No. issue last year)” in 2015. And for good reason. The employment landscape has changed dramatically in the past few decades. Thirty years ago. there were more skilled people than there were available jobs. Employee turnover was around 4%, most of it involuntary or driven by economics. The Employee Engagement Hoax? The problem?

It’s hard to attend an HR conference or visit an HR website and not hear the term “employee engagement.” Deloitte’s Global Human Capital Trends 2015 report rated culture and engagement as “the most important issue overall, slighting edging out leadership (the No. issue last year)” in 2015. And for good reason. The employment landscape has changed dramatically in the past few decades. Thirty years ago  there were more skilled people than there were available jobs. Employee turnover was around 4%, most of it involuntary or driven by economics. The Employee Engagement Hoax? The problem?

“HR Tech is closer to a marathon than a sprint,” notes the event’s Co-Chair Steve Boese ( @SteveBoese ) in his annual conference tips post. We couldn’t agree more: With as many as 10 sessions running at the same time (and an expo floor with 300+ exhibitors vying for your attention), it can be difficult to wade through all the content in the agenda to find out which speakers are worth your while. And with employee engagement and culture becoming the number one challenge companies face worldwide, according to Bersin by Deloitte , there is a plethora of sessions focusing on this very topic.

“HR Tech is closer to a marathon than a sprint,” notes the event’s Co-Chair Steve Boese ( @SteveBoese ) in his annual conference tips post. We couldn’t agree more: With as many as 10 sessions running at the same time (and an expo floor with 300+ exhibitors vying for your attention), it can be difficult to wade through all the content in the agenda to find out which speakers are worth your while. And with employee engagement and culture becoming the number one challenge companies face worldwide, according to Bersin by Deloitte , there is a plethora of sessions focusing on this very topic.

How to Link Workforce Metrics With Business Outcomes, Part Four. To some, workplace culture is about as real as corporate pixie dust. But it’s “more than all those carefully drafted corporate values statements and ethics codes—it’s the way things really work,” writes Dori Meinert in this HR Magazine article. Indeed, the shift towards a new culture is a tangible workplace trend, particularly for trading firms and banks operating in a post-global financial crisis environment. Goldman Sachs, for example, put senior managers on compulsory courses to make them think about ethics. Question #4.

How to Link Workforce Metrics With Business Outcomes, Part Three . Back in 1747 Scottish physician James Lind finally put an end to the age-old “what-treats-scurvy” debate: is it cider? seawater? vinegar? He found 12 scurvy-inflicted sailors, conducted one of the first ever clinical experiments in the history of medicine…. and confirmed that two oranges and one lemon would do the trick. This marked the beginning of evidence-based health interventions, now a cornerstone of modern medicine. Meaningful employee engagement — a key driver of healthcare quality — is now a critical issue.

The majority of leaders (73 percent) have experienced talent shortfalls due to poor workforce planning, according to a new report released by Harvard Business Review Analytic Services (HBR-AS). Although business leaders know talent shortfalls prevent their companies from achieving their business goals, the report reveals that they have not aligned their workforce planning process to manage the issue. DOWNLOAD THE REPORT. At a high level, the workforce planning challenge is that the budgets created by finance have little to do with the actual talent needed to execute the business objectives.

How to Link Workforce Metrics With Business Outcomes, Part Two. The second in a four-part series on linking workforce metrics to business outcomes, this post looks at five key metrics for manager effectiveness that will help your organization motivate talented people. In the tech industry, competitive threats loom large. With the exponential increase in processing power, the race to “be first” has become increasingly daunting. Behind the scenes, competitors are continually working on new advances that may offer performance or cost advantages. Which managers grow the best employees?

How to Link Workforce Metrics With Business Outcomes, Part Two. The second in a four-part series on linking workforce metrics to business outcomes, this post looks at five key metrics for manager effectiveness that will help your organization motivate talented people. In the tech industry, competitive threats loom large. With the exponential increase in processing power, the race to “be first” has become increasingly daunting. Behind the scenes, competitors are continually working on new advances that may offer performance or cost advantages. Which managers grow the best employees?

The first in a four-part series on linking workforce metrics to business outcomes, this post looks at five indispensable recruitment optimization measures that will help you move the needle on tech innovation — without breaking the bank. Here’s a reality check for your leadership team: It takes a bit more than a ping-pong table to attract and retain a group of in-demand software engineers who regularly delight new and existing customers with innovative products. In fact, the demand for software developers in the US is set to grow 22% faster than average, according to Onet.

Amazon’s alleged “bruising workplace.” Walmart’s boost to its minimum wage. Google’s focus on diversity. HR topics like workplace culture, compensation, and diversity often go viral. But what about less “Hollywood” topics that are keeping HR and business leaders up at night? We searched for articles about day-to-day HR issues that earned high numbers of social media shares over the last 12 months, and found 18 popular articles on subjects ranging from recruitment and retention to strategic CHROs. Manager’s 10-Step Guide for Hiring Top Talent , by Lou Adler, CEO, The Adler Group, Inc.com.

In September 2013, top HR leaders undertook a voluntary and collective effort to envision the HR profession in 2025.  They conducted interviews, focus groups, reviews of published findings and drew upon their significant personal experience through CHREATE (The global Consortium to Reimagine HR, Employment Alternatives, Talent, and the Enterprise).  Their findings included five forces shaping the future of work and organizations, and six necessary roles.  They envisioned a step-change in organization challenges, responses and workplace capabilities.  Five Forces Shaping the Future. Lawler III.

Take this quiz to find out if impulsive managers are holding you back. That fly-by-the seat-of-your-pants approach to talent issues. It can leave you chanting “ Inner Peace, Inner Peace ” as you deal with the fallout. Whether it’s a hiring or promotion decision misstep, things can get sticky when managers either overstep their bounds or remain too complacent. Here are five common amateur talent management tactics, and what you can do about them to get your organization back on track. Amateur Tactic #1: Use the Promote-to-Fire Technique to Deal With Lax Employees. And who is on the list?

It’s peak vacation season. The next time you find yourself sitting in the airport or maybe lounging by the hotel pool, take a look around at the people who are glued to their smartphones and iPads. While kids may be connecting with friends, checking Facebook or reading the latest Buzzfeed post, the furrowed brows and frantic typing of adults may point to an ongoing connection to the office. The Constant Connection. The fact that we can now work from virtually anywhere at any time has made working during leisure time a reality. Enter the “Workation”. And 36% work at least once a day.

It’s peak vacation season. The next time you find yourself sitting in the airport or maybe lounging by the hotel pool, take a look around at the people who are glued to their smartphones and iPads. While kids may be connecting with friends, checking Facebook or reading the latest Buzzfeed post, the furrowed brows and frantic typing of adults may point to an ongoing connection to the office. The Constant Connection. The fact that we can now work from virtually anywhere at any time has made working during leisure time a reality. Enter the “Workation”. And 36% work at least once a day.

Frontline employees for companies conducting a substantial amount of work with Facebook are probably “liking” a recent announcement made by the social networking powerhouse. In May, Facebook announced a new set of standards for vendors and contractors with respect to employee pay and benefits. This includes a $15/hour minimum wage, sick time, vacation, a $4,000 new child benefit for new parents who don’t receive paid parental leave, among other things. And as a recent Economist article indicates, the market is taking notice. Considering Increasing Pay? Consider This.

This one is for you, Bill Kutik. At Visier the security and privacy of our customer data is our highest priority. When determining the validity of our predictive analytics capabilities, customer data analyzed was anonymized. Many HR software vendors talk the talk of predicting “at risk employees,” but how many can prove they walk the walk… and that their predictions actually work? Recently HR industry expert and father of the HR Tech conference, Bill Kutik, wrote a column for HR Executive Online about employee flight risk, and talked about the hype around predictive analytics. Hold on?

It’s time to put HR on an equal footing with Finance. Who decides what is the right budget to cover the people resources or how many resources are affordable within the budget? Typically it’s Finance. Still, because people are hard to define only by numbers, CEOs want the CHRO to be a strategic talent advisor who can also speak the language of the business with hard data.  A February 2015 study — conducted by Harris Poll on behalf of Visier — surveyed 301 corporate executives and revealed key traits that can help elevate HR’s profile in the business. Business-Oriented.

Marie, a sales director earning $120,000 per year, enters her manager’s office one day and announces that the firm down the street has offered her a position with a 10% salary increase. In the mind of her manager, Marie’s work performance is above average and she has potential, according to a recent talent review. However, she has not had many opportunities to prove herself because her tenure has been relatively short. Also, she has a history of asking for more: within the past six months, she requested (and received) a 3% increase. Should the manager counter-offer to keep Marie? Step 1.

It seems no one in HR has escaped the story of Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game. For those few who haven’t, however, it is the story of how Billy Beane, as the general manager of the Oakland Athletics baseball team, challenged conventional methods of player evaluations. Supported by carefully interpreted statistical data, Beane focused on landing talent the “old school” experts had overlooked. In the end, the team ended up winning with a payroll that was less than half that of their division rivals, a true story that is chronicled by Michael Lewis in the book-turned-Hollywood film.

Making drastic changes to talent programs without thinking through the outcomes is like introducing rabbits to the Australian ecosystem: both can bring a myriad of unintended consequences. Consider Jack Welch’s famous Stack Ranking policies , which focused on ranking employees and then firing the lowest 10% of performers. Proponents have credited this approach with a 28-fold increase in earnings (and a 5-fold increase in revenue) at GE between 1981 and 2001. So how do you know these types of bold moves will work and are worth it for your organization? How do you prove it? Step 2. Step 3.

Picture this: You are the VP of Talent for the North American operations of Innovocorp — a (fictional) software company based in the Silicon Valley that is going through a period of dramatic change. The company recently acquired ZippySoftCo to close gaps in its technology and accelerate its product roadmap. The company also re-organized its product development organization to incorporate a team of customer subject matter and usability experts alongside software developers, so that it can continue to innovate with new software releases that meet market demand. What do you do?

Editor’s note: Cold, hard numbers about critical workforce trends can seem theoretical. But these numbers represent real life situations: whether it’s people exiting the company to seek opportunities elsewhere, or candidates turning down job offers because the head office is nowhere near a hip urban city center. This blog post series by Visier’s UX team will help you use the right storytelling approach, to make your data memorable and shape day-to-day decision-making about your people. Reality, of course, is typically very different. Which bring in the most top performers? The first step?

As an HR leader, you know that people sometimes behave irrationally: they can let office politics get in the way of productivity or abruptly leave a job because something set them off. Remember the JetBlue flight attendant who made a dramatic exit from his career by sliding down the emergency-evacuation chute after a dispute with a passenger?). And yet, the advice of HR — the people experts — often falls on deaf ears among the P&L crowd. It can be tricky to capture this kind of real-world complexity on a spreadsheet. The assumption here is that people act in isolation. Factor.

As an HR leader, you know that people sometimes behave irrationally: they can let office politics get in the way of productivity or abruptly leave a job because something set them off. Remember the JetBlue flight attendant who made a dramatic exit from his career by sliding down the emergency-evacuation chute after a dispute with a passenger?). And yet, the advice of HR — the people experts — often falls on deaf ears among the P&L crowd. It can be tricky to capture this kind of real-world complexity on a spreadsheet. The assumption here is that people act in isolation. Factor.

The company with the best talent will often win, but talent alone is not enough. Talent is wasted if those who possess it are not given the freedom to do what they believe is right, or are not aligned with the company’s strategy. Great HR leaders understand this and can demonstrate how workforce dynamics impact business outcomes. At the same time, talent is very expensive. Total human capital costs average nearly 70% of the operating expenses of most organizations. Download the full Harvard Business Review report: The Changing Role of the CHRO. Align programs with critical talent needs.

The digital era has created a peer-to-peer economy , forcing organizations to re-think business operations from the ground up. As Ray Wang, CEO of Constellation Research, explores in his newly released book, Disrupting Digital Business , the leaders in this new economy have moved from selling products or services to focusing on experiences and outcomes. Why should digital transformation be an urgent priority for almost every company in every industry? Ray Wang: A digital divide has emerged among global organizations. To get to this mindset, organizations have to build a digital DNA.

More than ever before, the business world needs strong HR leaders. The workforce in the developed world and China is rapidly aging. New, first-time workers are barely replacing workers who are retiring. Despite increasing automation, in the next 20 years there will be a serious shortage of skilled workforce everywhere. Due to the lack of employment growth and longer life expectancy, over the next 10 years the ratio of workers contributing to social programs compared to those receiving benefits will have changed from 2.5:1 to 1.5:1. Successful CHROs are: Data-Driven. Business-Oriented.

More than ever before, the business world needs strong HR leaders. The workforce in the developed world and China is rapidly aging. New, first-time workers are barely replacing workers who are retiring. Despite increasing automation, in the next 20 years there will be a serious shortage of skilled workforce everywhere. Due to the lack of employment growth and longer life expectancy, over the next 10 years the ratio of workers contributing to social programs compared to those receiving benefits will have changed from 2.5:1 to 1.5:1. Successful CHROs are: Data-Driven. Business-Oriented.

As Vice President of Workforce Management Practice and Principal Analyst at Brandon Hall Group Mollie Lombardi wrote in this Workforce Planning blog post last year: “Workforce planning is tricky business. Not just because of the complexity entailed in the process, but because if you ask four people what workforce planning is, you’ll likely wind up with five definitions.”. So, what is Workforce Planning? Essentially, it is about: Projecting labor supply based on where you are today. Capturing labor demand for where you want to go. Enabling data-driven decision making.

With recent articles like Harvard Business Review’s “It’s Time to Split HR,” written by world-renowned business advisor and author Ram Charan, and BersinInsights’ “Will HR Lose the Battle Over Analytics?” written by industry analyst Karen O’Leonard, 2015 is a pivotal year for Human Resources as we know it today. The global economic recovery, compounded by demographic shifts, is moving power from employers to employees, turning labor into a seller’s market. As a result, the workforce is becoming an increasingly core strategic consideration to businesses. Voluntary turnover is on the rise.

In her book, Lean In , Sheryl Sandberg recounts the story of a board meeting where all the men attending (plus Sheryl) sat down around the conference table, while the couple of women attending chose chairs that were around the edge of the room. Rather than taking their rightful seats (literally) at the table, they diminutively sat apart. This hit home with me: I had done the same several years before at a board meeting. After that meeting our (male) VP, Sales & Marketing at the time told me I should have sat at the table with the rest of our colleagues, who were all male.

In her book, Lean In , Sheryl Sandberg recounts the story of a board meeting where all the men attending (plus Sheryl) sat down around the conference table, while the couple of women attending chose chairs that were around the edge of the room. Rather than taking their rightful seats (literally) at the table, they diminutively sat apart. This hit home with me: I had done the same several years before at a board meeting. After that meeting our (male) VP, Sales & Marketing at the time told me I should have sat at the table with the rest of our colleagues, who were all male.