Insights on Corporate Talent, Learning, and HR Technology
We are clearly entering some form of economic slowdown. Our most recent index of talent management executives (January of 2008) showed some significant changes from May of 2007: 21% greater interest in cost-reduction, 18% lower focus on product introductions, and a significant increase in focus on building new leadership (18% increase). So let’s assume your ... Read more»
I recently had a conversation with the CLO of one of the world’s largest manufacturing companies, who told me that “The CLO Role as we know it is dead.”
I have to somewhat agree. Over the last two years some very interesting shifts have taken place in the corporate training market: more and ... Read more»
In our recent study, High-Impact Leadership Development: Trends, Best Practices, and Industry Solutions, we identified the best practices and the top providers in leadership development. Our study covered all aspects of leadership development and evaluated a number of HR consultancies. With rich data in hand, we revealed six best practices in leadership development that ... Read more»
We just released the largest-ever research study on the market for talent management suites. This research took place over the last 18 months and is the result of an exhaustive analysis of 20 vendors, 800+ HR managers, and in-depth meetings with more than 50 organizations. Leighanne Levensaler, our principal analyst in this area, is ... Read more»
As we look ahead to 2008, many pundits are trying to predict the direction of the US and world economy. Today we see that the US unemployment rate ticked up to 5% and the job creation rate (18,000 for December) was at its lowest level in four years. The unemployment rate is affected by many ... Read more»
We recently conducted focus groups with our research members and one of the topics which comes up frequently is the question: how can we better align with our business leaders? Let me discuss a few important comments here (we have much more coming on this topic), and give you a “short guide to becoming aligned ... Read more»
As we continue to study best-practices in talent management and talk with many organizations, we see more and more evidence that top-down goal alignment and transparency truly do drive business results.
For example, we recently had an in-depth discussion with the Vice-President of HR at Bon-Ton Stores, a highly-successful mid-sized retailer which operates among the ... Read more»
Last week was a big week in the world of corporate talent management systems. SuccessFactors, one of the fastest-growing providers of performance management software, went public. The initial IPO valued the company at about $500 Million, or close to 9 times sales. This valuation is very high relative to the other companies in this ... Read more»
This week I was on a panel at the Oracle Users Group discussing the needs of the multi-generational workforce. Most of the attendees (HR and training managers) were focused on identifying what their organizations need to do to attract, manage, and integrate younger workers into their organizations.
Our research clearly shows that the Millenia (20s) ... Read more»
I recently completed a meeting with 200 of the top HR executives at MetLife, one of the most successful and sustainable global insurance companies. MetLife’s Vice-President of People, Deb Capolarello, is developing an integrated talent management strategy to help the organization integrate all its well-established HR processes into business solutions.
One of the problems MetLife ... Read more»
This year’s shootout focused on the powerful integration (but not well understood or adopted) between performance management and recruiting including the coveted, and often elusive measure of “quality of hire. Four leading talent management suite vendors were included; Authoria, HRsmart, SuccessFactors, and Vurv had 75 minutes to demonstrate ... Read more»
Leighanne Levensaler and I just finished a week at the HR Technology show in Chicago. This conference represents one of the biggest meetings of HR technologists and HR software vendors each year. As always, this conference was an opportunity for most of the HR and learning technology providers to announce new products and offerings.
Here ... Read more»
Should we kill the performance appraisal process?
Over the last few years as we have studied the market for performance management systems, we have talked with dozens of HR executives and managers about their performance management process. In our discussions we find that organizations struggle mightily with the right way to craft the precise process ... Read more»
Yesterday Taleo, one of the largest providers of online recruiting and applicant tracking systems, announced its long-awaited performance management system. As we have been writing for nearly two years, it is about time someone started to rethink this problem. The system is built on a whole new metaphor for user interfaces, giving the manager, employee, ... Read more»
(This post was recently updated after conversations with
SuccessFactors VP of Product Marketing.)
Recently SuccessFactors Inc. filed their “S-1” statement, a prospectus to file for public offering. SuccessFactors is one of the most interesting and fast-growing software companies in the talent management market. Looking at the S-1 filing helps us understand many things about this ... Read more»