Innovation in an enterprise organization starts at the top. Here are six ways leaders can build a culture of innovation.
Citrix and The Economist have teamed up for a study called “The Experience of Work.” Meghan M. Biro breaks down the findings about how technology can help productivity and engagement and what HR leaders can take away from the study.
Your benefits are missing the target if employees don’t engage with them. Meghan M. Biro offers four strategies for making sure your benefits programs succeed in engaging employees.
Here’s a bit of irony: When we think of health care we don’t often think of health or wellness; we think of insurance to help us cope with illness and injury. We also think of the process of dealing with those benefits — which on many occasions will include wait times, filling out forms, juggling in-network and out-of-network providers, waiting for claims to be processed, the limitations of coverage and administrative complexity. In other words, we don’t tend to think of the actual benefits of health, and that’s an enormous problem in the world of work. Forty-nine percent of the U.S.
In just a couple of weeks I’m headed to Vegas! And not just to gamble and lounge by the pool — although I’m very good at that. If it’s June in Las Vegas, it means SHRM Annual, the world’s biggest HR conference. I’m on the #SHRM19 blogger team, and I’ll be documenting my experience on Twitter and Instagram. I’ve been to SHRM many times over the years, and I know just how overwhelming it can be. The agenda is about a mile long, with information-packed sessions starting as early as 7:15 a.m. If you do SHRM right, the days are long
To be honest, I don’t talk about being a woman in business very much. I’m in a field that is filled with vibrant, brilliant, highly successful women who tend to go at a very fast clip, with little time or inclination for reflection. HR is filled with smart, powerful, resourceful women. But is it equitable, at the end of the day? The truth is we have a long way to go to truly make the world of work better for women. The good news is that dynamic and effective organizations understand that equity benefits everyone, which is why more HR departments
Let’s face it: We all have incredibly high expectations for technology. We expect efficiency, simplicity, and value from every app or piece of software we use. When a program doesn’t work the way we like, we find another one — pronto. But when it comes to old-fashioned data entry and what we think of as “employee transactions,” HR is nowhere near as efficient as it should be. It’s difficult and inefficient to stop what you’re doing to make a simple employee change in your HRMS. That could be costing your organization more than you think. Organizations that don’t embrace tools like
AI is here to stay. You are going to need to hire AI talent no matter what your industry is — and now is the time to start preparing your organization to do that effectively and efficiently. It’s just not going to happen on its own. Once upon a time in recent history, businesses made the switch to PCs, email, networks, the Web — and experts in information technology became vital for any company. Now we’re racing headlong into another evolution as AI transforms business applications. We’re going to need people who are experts in AI. It’s that simple. Even if
One of the best parts of my job running TalentCulture is interviewing fascinating people who are reimagining work on the #WorkTrends podcast. Kevin W. Grossman and I have been running some form of an HR-focused podcast for many years now, and we’re just getting started. Now that the holiday season is behind us and a new year is in full swing, we’re thinking about the big trends and concerns YOU are facing in 2019. What’s happening in your world, and how can HR leaders deal with these shifts? We’re also combing through survey data that our amazing TalentCulture community provided before
With low unemployment and growing demand for talent, it’s absolutely a job seeker’s market out there right now. A survey last year found that 82 percent of workers were open to new employment opportunities, and Gallup data from 2015 and 2016 indicated that half of all employees in the U.S. were actively seeking new jobs. The ongoing talent crunch means a huge percentage of job applicants are actively employed at other companies. So how do you keep your talent from leaving? For starters, by knowing that cracking down on job seekers within your company isn’t going to help. Smart organizations are
It’s more important than ever that companies are able to move people around the world efficiently to match skills to business needs and to build dynamic leadership pipelines — but global workforce mobility represents a huge logistical challenge for even the largest and most agile companies. In a recent discussion with Dell, I got a glimpse into how the tech giant is harnessing technology to solve a range of key business challenges, including talent development. The talk was a fact-finding mission for our upcoming webinar hosted by Topia, a leader in global mobility management software. Dell is really at the forefront
With potentially groundbreaking HR technology solutions emerging, we’re seeing a tech boom that is fundamentally reshaping the way we work — and how we think about HR. According to the 2019 HCM Trends report from The HR Federation, a network of leading HR market analysts, global HR technology venture capital has topped $3.1 billion this year, more than triple the amount invested in 2017. While there’s a range of technologies, some of the most interesting — and disruptive — examples are powered by artificial intelligence and automation. “AI and machine learning are opening the door to a whole new world of
Do you speak IT? The information technology job market is as strong as it’s ever been, with tens of thousands of highly lucrative and unfilled IT jobs available throughout the country. And the barriers to entry in IT are lower than most people think — even for professionals already established in other fields, according to the Computing Technology Industry Association (CompTIA), a leading destination for training, certification and ultimately a career in technology. “A commitment to learning, self-growth and finding a job that lets you capitalize on your innate strengths are some of the most important factors involved in switching careers
As the gig economy continues to expand and transform the workforce in significant ways, HR professionals and other business leaders should be thinking about the implications these changes will have for their organizations and their people. Millions of people are already freelancers, entrepreneurs and independent workers who rely on short-term engagements for all or part of their income, and the number is only expected to grow in the coming years. A 2016 study by the McKinsey Global Institute says independent workers make up 20-30 percent of the workforce in the U.S. and key European countries, with the figure projected to climb.
The pursuit of new markets is part of many companies’ long-term growth strategy, as is global expansion. From small businesses to enterprise firms, the key is to involve people. Companies need to be able to create a viable strategy for hiring, managing and keeping people — wherever they expand to. But that’s not a simple task. There are numerous challenges in hiring employees globally — including local employment laws and regulations, differing cultures and expectations, and different languages. When it comes to background screening, it turns out that not very many companies are prepared to meet the challenges of global hiring.
The phrase “world of work” really means the world now. So many businesses are expanding geographically to grow. And that means relocation opportunities for the workforce — as well as a whole range of logistical challenges for HR. But it also means conveying these opportunities to employees. Surprisingly, there’s a disconnect, as Wakefield Research found out in a soon-to-be published study for Topia. The results, shared with me as a preview of the study, reveal that while HR is tackling how to track and facilitate reassignments and relocations, the workforce doesn’t always know these opportunities exist. Given that we’re in a
There’s nothing I love more than nerding out over HR tech and culture. I love seeing demos, hearing about new features and dreaming about where work is going. But as much as I love technology and the HR tech industry, there’s one word I don’t often associate with tech companies: “family.” Traditionally, HR tech companies are big on solving problems and selling their solutions, but sometimes “service” gets lost in the shuffle. I’m here to tell you that is not the case with my new friends at ExponentHR. Their team recently invited me on a trip to Sun Valley, Idaho (if
It may take a village to raise a child, but based on many parental leave policies, apparently it only takes a mother to raise a newborn baby. According to research by Deloitte, 64 percent of workers believe that women and men should receive the same amount of parental leave. But 54 percent think that men would be viewed negatively by their colleagues for taking an equivalent amount of time off. These sorts of stereotypes could explain why there were only 32 women CEOs in the Fortune 500 last year. However, some companies, like Cisco, are determined to do away with labels
I have a long list of speakers I can’t wait to see at SHRM next week. High on that list is Sheryl Simmons, CHRO of Maestro Health. Her #SHRM18 session, Making Your Case to the C-Suite: Why You Should Be at the Table, is on Tuesday afternoon. Simmons has led HR teams for many years. In this Q&A, she shares how she got into HR, why she runs toward change, her perspective on diversity in hiring and what you can expect from her #SHRM18 session. Tell me about yourself: What is your background and how did you get into your current
On June 28, Paycom and I are collaborating on a webinar about engagement that everyone needs to attend. Why? Because we’re at a standstill in terms of employee engagement, and we’re going to be looking at the most effective ways to break out of it. We’re going past the concept of employee experience to exactly what experiences add up to engagement. The right HR tech includes those experiences as part of its functionality — so it’s optimizing employee engagement every time it’s utilized. Here’s what we know: Every interface and every touch point either has a positive or a negative impact
Best week ever? Best week ever. My week was an all-time highlight because I was in Orlando for SAP’s #SAPPHIRENOW. I’ve been to a lot of conferences, but this one was incredible. I won’t bury the lede: It was mostly such a high for me because I got to see former President Barack Obama speak on Monday. Being in the room with someone I respect so deeply was incredibly moving for me. His message was about the power of great teams and how you can’t really fake or easily recreate that special sauce known as culture. I cried when he wrapped up. For
Are you planning your calendar for #SHRM18 in Chicago? I’m making my packing list, getting excited to see some of my favorite people in the HR world, and taking a close look at the packed SHRM agenda. This year, I’ve been focused on health and well-being — both personally and professionally. Loyal TalentCulture readers know that I recently started using a standing desk and I’ve upped my wellness routine. I’m also very interested in how vendors are making it easier for employers to create healthy workplaces. If you’re interested in making work healthier, here are the sessions I recommend at SHRM18:
The opening keynote speaker at UNLEASH America was Gary Hamel, one of the world’s most influential business thinkers. He is a professor at the London Business School, director of the Management Innovation eXchange and the author of several best-selling books, including “The Future of Management” and “What Matters Now.” Hamel is also the most reprinted author in the history of the Harvard Business Review. He spoke about the stifling effects of top-down management and how we need less — not more — workplace bureaucracy. Here are highlights from Hamel’s Q&A session with the media. Understanding the Effects of Bureaucracy “Bureaucracy shackles
One of my favorite speakers at UNLEASH America was Jason Averbook. If you’re looking for HR “a-ha!” moments, he’s your guy. He is the CEO and co-founder of the HR consulting firm Leapgen. Jason is an agent for change in HR, and the author of the new book, The Ultimate Guide to a Digital Workforce Experience. He spoke about the power of technology to transform how we work, starting with a focus on people and process. Here are highlights from his keynote. You Need a Workforce Strategy “You need a digital strategy, and I call it the workforce strategy, not an
This week, I’ve been in Las Vegas at UNLEASH America, soaking up big ideas about the latest HR tech trends and how technology is changing the way we work. One of the speakers who knocked my socks off was Rachel Botsman. She is an author and visiting lecturer and researcher at the University of Oxford. Her keynote was all about trust, and why organizations need it to survive and thrive. Her new book is “Who Can You Trust?: How Technology Brought Us Together and Why It Might Drive Us Apart.” Here are the highlights Rachel shared in a conversation with media
