Gautam’s talking about performance reviews today. He asks "If it serves so many functions why is it often such a de-energising and negative process?" " It’s a fair question. Here are two guesses: 1. – The medium is the message. If you’ve got to slog through reams of paper to do your reviews, it almost doesn’t […]. Talent Management Performance Reviews Workforce Performance Management MORE

Safe Harbor Certification is a program set up by the US Department of Commerce in partnership with the European Union. The deal is that the EU passed some regulations dealing with the privacy of its citizens’ data back in 1998 and the certification program was set up to help verify that US companies comply with [… MORE

Got a tip on this interview with a Deloitte HR consultant named Andy Peck on Talent Management / Succession Planning. His Take: The biggest long-term issue is the lack of talent-management strategies and the relationship with changing demographics. By 2008 many baby boomers will be retiring, which will put enormous pressure on the workforce. One […]. Strategic HR Succession Planning Talent Management MORE

Anita at the Small Business Trends blog is talking about the impact Software as as Service (SaaS or SaS) is having on small business. She does a great roundup of some of the discussion going on right now and talk about the benefit to be reaped by small businesses. Money Quote: If you are a […]. Uncategorized SaaS Software as a Service MORE

Our own Rob Bernshteyn published an article with the above title in the most recent edition of IHRIM.link. It discusses the complex issue of how workforce performance management systems actually treat the employees and managers that are expected to use them. While terms like "human capital supply" are bandied about pretty freely, can we really […]. Strategic HR Talent Management performance management Thinking About HR Workforce Performance Management MORE

There have been some annoucements recently about the HR-XML standard so I thought I’d inquire about what was happening on that front within SuccessFactors. So, I had a conversation with Doug Ito who has been doing some work on it from our side. First – what is this thing? Well, it’s an attempt to make […]. Talent Management performance management MORE

Is such a thing even possible? Well, I wasn’t able to attend our most recent user group meeting in Chicago, but Randy Reynolds tells me about an interesting comment from some of our customers. We unveiled some new interface enhancements at the meeting that reduce the number of steps managers have to go through to […]. Talent Management Performance Reviews Workforce Performance Management MORE

DubDubs from systematicHR (Previously Known As The HR Technology Discussion board – so update your links) has some new thoughts on the performance management shootout from the HR Tech show in Chicago. Although he wasn’t there, his (very educated and experienced) feeling is that Authoria won becuase of a spiffy user interface and solid integration […]. Talent Management performance management Workforce Performance Management MORE

Our little contest is covered over at FC Now by Kevin Ohannessian. Kevin also comes through with his own thoughts on why the performance review process is "along the lines of a trip to the DMV." " He’s not wrong – so many of us treat annual reviews as a chore to get through (though probably […]. Talent Management Performance Reviews MORE

As a followup to a previous post on forced ranking, I thought you’d like to see this article at workforce.com. It reprints an appendix from Dick Grote’s new book called Forced Ranking: Making Performance Management Work. It’s a memo from a CEO to his company explaining the benefits of an upcoming forced ranking process and […]. Talent Management Employee Performance Management performance management Performance Reviews Workforce Performance Management MORE

Hewitt reports on the results of a small survey of Canadian compaines in which 66% of companies surveyed said they had no intention of paying out holiday bonuses. Instead, bonuses are being tied to performance because, among other things, "organizations remain under tremendous pressure to deliver results, and variable pay plans continue to be the […]. Talent Management Employee Performance Management Workforce Performance Management MORE

Watson Wyatt released a study today which shows that while employers are leveraging best practices when designing their performance management programs, they are falling short in the implementation of those programs. From the study’s summary: In designing their performance management programs, most employers have adopted best practices — including providing a formal yearly review (98 […]. MORE

BusinessWeek highlights "Electronic Scorecards" used in the banking industry. The article tells the tale of a Kansas City based bank called UMD Financial that’s using performance management to align goals and pay for performance. From the article: In the past the bank paid people based primarily on seniority and cost-of-living adjustments. Now a substantial part […]. MORE

Good ol’ SuccessFactors is highlighted today in an article in the San Jose Business Journal. The article, called "Fully-engaged workers contribute more to bottom line" covers a lot of ground talking about the impact of engagement on issues from turnover to training. It also speaks to some of the ways companies like Yahoo! are working […]. Strategic HR Talent Management Thinking About HR Workforce Performance Management MORE

Business 2.0 talks to Google CEO Eric Schmidt about goal alignment (even if they don’t use the words). Here’s "the … formula he uses to stay on track while innovating: Spend 70 percent of your time on the core business, 20 percent on related projects, and 10 percent on unrelated new businesses." " In Schmidt’s words: […]. Strategic HR Goal Alignment MORE

The Leadership Now blog talks about what can only be deemed a terrifically bad 360 process at a fortune 500 company. Don Blohowiak recounts the sad tale of a manager with so many 360′s to do, he and his team basically submit a boilerplate response to everyone. To boot, HR uses the 360′s to help […]. Talent Management Performance Reviews Workforce Performance Management MORE

HR Blogger, DubDubs, who writes a fantastic, focused HR Tech blog sat in recently on a SuccessFactors webinar and posted his thoughts. Talent Management Workforce Performance Management MORE

The most famous was “Why I Hate HR” published in 2005 in Fast Company, followed by. Over the years I’ve read article after article about what’s wrong with Human Resources. Bersin & Associates, Leading Research and Advisory Services in Enterprise Learning and Talent Management. Human Resources MORE

Things are getting good. A raft of new posts over at worstreview.com. If you’re not hip to the contest, it’s a little game we’re playing to find the worst performance review ever. Prizes, fun and games. Like a carnival. Go check it out – tell us a story or post some comments to the contest [… MORE

Been traveling today (back to good old NYC), so I haven’t had a chance to post anything of substance, but I thought I would take a minute to wish a happy thanksgiving from all of us at SuccessFactors to all of you. Enjoy the Turkey. Smile a Lot. See you next week MORE

Regina at Bnet’s HR’s Brand New Experience blog thinks we should be having a best review contest in addition to a worst review contest. I like the angle, and she’s got a post about her best review ever. I’d like to get a "comforting basket," the night before my review, too! Some good ideas for […]. Talent Management Performance Reviews Workforce Performance Management MORE

Through the miracle of Tivo, I just caught "The Office" on NBC. If you don’t watch it, you should – it’s a brilliant commentary on the nature of working for a company. Anyway, this episode found the good folks at Dunder Mifflin talking about performance reviews and I thought you might get a giggle out […]. Talent Management Performance Reviews MORE

HBS’s Working Knowledge recently published an article on using Forced Ranking in performance management. I’ll get into the conclusions of the article, but first – what is Forced Ranking? Well, Forced Ranking is a method by which managers evaluate employees relative to the performance of other employees. It’s a little like the curve I had […]. Strategic HR Talent Management performance management Thinking About HR Workforce Performance Management MORE

Is the era of traditional enterprise software (Hardware, Software, Configure, Integrate, Test, Deploy) ending? Our customers think it is, we think it is, and now Wall Street is coming around, too. In an article on thestreet.com called "Software’s Eve of Destruction," Kevin Kelleher talks to Gordon Ritter – a Partner at Emergence Capital (one of […]. Uncategorized SaaS Software as a Service MORE

I recently spoke at a conference where I was asked the question, “What did Workday see in the market that made you think there was any opportunity for a new enterprise player?” Time constraints and the element of surprise conspired to make my answer sub-optimal at the moment. MORE

And back in 2004 or 2005, a cell phone (and network), that could not be counted on to reliably carry good quality voice calls was, well, pretty much worthless. Blah, blah, blah and suddenly we are back in 2005. But at least we are now ready to compete with Verizon in 2005. MORE

A pretty good article in the San Francisco Chronicle on Christmas day about On-Demand software. More or less a primer on On-Demand, it profiles a number of SaaS (Software as a Service) companies including RightNow, Salesforce.com and NetSuite. Here’s a snippet from the article in which On-Demand is explained. My favorite part is at the […]. Uncategorized SaaS Small/Medium Sized Companies Software as a Service MORE

Sometimes all the high-level talk about performance management can leave you – how should I put this? – wanting more. Today I sat through a 45 minute webinar that left me thinking – "alright, I know you CAN do it, and it SHOULD work – but can you show me HOW TO do it, and […]. Strategic HR Talent Management Employee Performance Management performance management Small/Medium Sized Companies Succession Planning Workforce Performance Management MORE

Interesting report from AMI Research showing that On-demand HR applications are taking off among small and medium sized businesses. There’s a very strong case to be made for software as a service (SaaS) use among SMBs – low upfront costs, easy implementations, high configurability, super-quick time to real value and so forth. We released a […]. MORE

The seeds of an interesting conversation are planting themselves here with this post called "So that’s why my peformance reviews sound like they were written by a robot" and here at systematicHR (especially in the notes by our good friend regina.) The topic, in regina’s words: "technology can be an enabler of creating an engaged […]. MORE

Over the weekend, Newsday – a NY newspaper – published an article called "Hey, boss, improve those performance reviews" that quoted some of the stories that have been submitted to our Worst Review contest. The article is about some of the reasons reviews are often so poorly given and poorly received and talks about some […]. MORE

Greg Gianforte from RightNow Technologies published a piece in BusinessWeek Online today about the validity of the software "platform" concept. In his mind, a platform (like Oracle’s upcoming Fusion) is something customers don’t need or want and that doesn’t solve any real customer problems. In his parlance, it’s "marketecture," a marketing creation that does no […]. Uncategorized Software as a Service MORE

One of my favorite 80’s TV shows was Sledge Hammer. Hammer was an offbeat cop in the Get Smart/Monk tradition who had a great tagline: “Trust me. I know what I’m doing.” ” This was the ultimate ironic statement because his wacky, unconventional methods didn’t exactly reinforce to the viewer that he knew what he was […]. Talent Management performance management MORE

Jason Corsello asks the question about SAP after attending the company’s Industry Analyst Conference in Las Vegas. Apparently, not much time was spent on it – Jason says 15 minutes out of two days. Then, DubDubs wonders about Oracle – saying that the HR track at OracleWorld was left until the last day – resulting […]. Talent Management Employee Performance Management Software as a Service Workforce Performance Management MORE

Frank "The Proposalnator" Lynn (author of this recent post) points me to an article in Fortune called "For Happier Customers, Call HR." " It echoes something I heard recently at a talk given by the legendary Jac Fitz-Enz – namely that unless marketing backs up its taglines with some customer service people who drink the kool-aid, […]. Talent Management Employee Performance Management performance management Workforce Performance Management MORE

Last year I wrote about corporate prank email and the hoax that was successfully perpetrated on a Starbuck''s Human Resources assistant. The prankster, Shizzy Joyce, pretended to be the President of Starbucks and asked the HR assistant to do a number of unusual tasks such as spying on the head of HR and firing the "fat girl." As bad as this was, it pales in comparison to the trick (crime) that has MORE

The Boston Consulting Group’s 10th annual global survey of the state of innovation shows that 79 percent of respondents ranked it as the company’s top-most priority or a top-three priority—the highest percent since the survey began in 2005. Innovation continues to be a hot topic. MORE