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HR: How to Succeed at Flying Solo #TChat Preview

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(Editor’s Note: Are you looking for a full recap of this week’s events and resources? Read the #TChat Recap: “HR Generalists: Tricks of the Trade.“)

“I am not a product of my circumstances. I am a product of my decisions.”
–Stephen Covey

Are you an “HR department of one”? If so, you’re not alone.

Statistics suggest that there’s a legion of U.S. small company practitioners who function as all-in-one HR virtuosos.

The Bureau of National Affairs says that the median HR-to-employee ratio remains fairly stable, at 1.1 HR practitioners for every 100 workers. And according to the SBA, more than 98% of firms employ less than 150 employees. No wonder the Society of Human Resources Management  (SHRM) reports that most of its 275,000 members are from departments of 1-5.

Making It Work

With so many solo HR managers in today’s world of work, it’s important to understand how successful practitioners serve their organizations across all specialties. What practices promote effectiveness and efficiency, despite limited bandwidth? How should you prioritize your efforts? That’s the topic we’ll explore this week with two experts who know how to make it work:

• Dave Ryan, SPHR, Director of Human Resources at Mel-O-Cream Donuts, and
• Donna Rogers, SPHR, instructor of management at University of Illinois Springfield, and owner of Rogers HR Consulting.

Dave helped set the stage by briefly explaining what it means to wear many HR hats:

And Donna offered her perspective as an experienced HR consultant and teacher:

What’s your advice for HR colleagues who need to do more with less? This is a topic that affects all of us, directly or indirectly. So bring your tips, questions and opinions — and join this week’s #TChat conversation!

#TChat Events: The HR Department of One

#TChat Radio — Wed, Dec 4 — 6:30pmET / 3:30pmPT

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Tune-in to the #TChat Radio show

Our hosts, Meghan M. Biro and Kevin W. Grossman talk with Donna Rogers and Dave Ryan about how to ensure that HR remains effective, even in small company environments. Tune-in LIVE online this Wednesday!

#TChat Twitter — Wed, Dec 4 — 7pmET / 4pmPT

Immediately following the radio show, our discussion moves to the #TChat Twitter stream, where Dr. Nancy Rubin will moderate an open chat with the entire TalentCulture community. Everyone with a Twitter account is invited to participate, as we address these questions:

Q1: What’s the first thing a one-person HR shop should do and why?
Q2: How should an HR pro organize and scale for all talent activities?
Q3: How should HR pros and business owners partner in small companies?
Q4: What other resources should one-person HR shops consider utilizing?
Q5: What technologies help keep one-person HR shops productive?

We look forward to hearing gathering helpful wisdom from the crowd — so bring your best HR management advice, and let’s talk!

Throughout the week, we’ll keep the discussion going on the #TChat Twitter feed and on our LinkedIn Discussion Group. So please join us share your questions, ideas and opinions.
We’ll see you on the stream!

The Human Side of HR Self-Service

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(Editor’s Note: If it’s Monday, this must be Meghan’s #TChat Preview, right? Well, in the spirit of continuous improvement, we’re shifting the editorial flow. Starting this week, you’ll see #TChat Preview/Sneak Peek videos even earlier than before. Our Community Manager, Tim McDonald, is posting weekly previews on the weekend, so that Meghan is free on Mondays to share whatever is on her mind. That should keep us all guessing! Let us know what you think of this approach. And as always, thanks for your support!)

HR & Technology: A Natural Power Couple

I’m psyched about the upcoming HRO Today Forum in Philadelphia from April 30-May 2. This is a fun HR/Tech meeting of the minds. It’s always exciting and inspiring — filled with the best and brightest minds, and the latest cool and innovative HR technologies. In fact, this will be my second year serving as a judge at the Forum’s iTalent competition. Think of it as “The Voice” (or as I put it last year, “The X Factor”) for those of us who obsess over HR technology. I can’t wait to see who wins this showdown!

Forbes_MeghanMBiro_on Attributes of a World-Class Workforce

Read the full Forbes.com column now…

What Makes HR Tech So Powerful?

But of course, tech for tech’s sake isn’t the goal. It’s really about finding ways to create a better world of work. As I explain in my Forbes.com column this week…

Self-service is a key development in building and retaining a work-class workforce. It is a key leadership and learning tool. It is what the future looks like. And it’s here today. 

But … Self-service is no substitute for savvy hiring. It can take smart hiring to a new level, but never, ever forget that hiring is the bottom line in HR and leadership. If you hire wrong, all the “insanely great” self-service efficiency in the world will be worthless.

So, even as we embrace new ways to operate more efficiently and effectively, we need to keep our eyes on the strategic business prize. To see the full picture from my point-of-view, read my Forbes post:

“5 Attributes of a World-Class Workforce”

Bottom line: Technology is only as valuable and productive as the people using it. Until robots rule the world, people are your core asset. So let’s not lose sight of what really makes the world of work go around.

P.S. Want to explore the link between workforce strategy and technology in deeper detail? Then read this week’s #TChat Preview post, and join the conversation!

(Editorial Note: Want to read the RECAP of the week’s #TChat events? See “HR: What Are You Waiting For?)

Image Credit: Pixabay

Building a World-Class Workforce #TChat Preview + Video

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(Editorial Note: Want to read the RECAP of this week’s #TChat events? See “HR: What Are You Waiting For?)

Change. We all feel it. It’s become a relentless business reality — and the pace just continues to accelerate.

Now, however, the structure of work itself is changing. This means HR processes and programs are also shifting in fundamental ways.

The evidence is all around us. HR organizations are becoming flatter, more flexible and more agile — as we discussed several weeks ago when exploring “Talent in the Cloud.” And increasingly, talent strategies are driven by insights from relevant research and data analysis.

What does this suggest for the next chapter on the human resources management front? What issues and opportunities should be foremost on HR practitioners’ minds?

These are the questions that the HRO Today Forum will tackle in Philadelphia, April 30-May 2. And that’s what we’ll also discuss throughout the coming week in the TalentCulture community.

#TChat Sneak Peek Video

Leading the #TChat conversation this week is HR trendspotter, Elliot Clark, CEO & Chairman of SharedXpertise, creator of the HRO Today Forum and publisher of HRO Today and other specialized publications for business professionals.

I spoke with Elliot in a Google+ Hangout, to learn what is foremost on his mind, and what’s on the agenda for the HRO Today conference. Interestingly, there are ties to last week’s #TChat focus on the generational stereotypes in today’s workplace. Watch the video now:

#TChat Events: Building a World-Class Workforce

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Tune into #TChat Radio – Live on Tuesday or on-demand after

Join us this week, as our TalentCulture community examines what it means to create and sustain a world-class workforce:

#TChat Radio — Tuesday, April 16 at 7:30pmET / 4:30pmPT  Elliot joins hosts Kevin W. Grossman and Meghan M. Biro to tackle key issues facing today’s HR practitioners, and how data is increasingly being used to shape talent planning, acquisition and management.

#TChat Twitter – Wednesday,  April 17 at 7pm ET / 4pm PT  Everyone is welcome to join our open, online Twitter forum, as talent-minded professionals exchange ideas in real-time about these key questions:

Q1:  What are the primary elements of today’s world-class workforce? Why?
Q2:  Can gamification really help us recruit, engage and retain employees? Why/why not?
Q3:  The contingent workforce continues to grow; how can companies truly integrate with FT employment?
Q4:  Why are manager and employee self-service technologies so important to the enterprise?
Q5:  Will mobile workforce communication/collaboration circumvent other forms? Why/why not?

Throughout the week, we’ll keep the discussion going on the #TChat Twitter feed and on our new LinkedIn Discussion Group. So please join us share your questions, ideas and opinions.

We’ll see you on the stream!

HRO: Engagement Perception and Social Recruiting Technology

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I spent most of this past week at the HRO Today conference in Las Vegas as a member of the blog squad, and what do I have to show for it? A new appreciation for HR and Recruiting technology innovation – that’s what.

On the personal side, new friendships were made and old bonds renewed. In short, a very good conference. I even had an opportunity to sing along with dueling pianos  – talk about a Talent Show. Right up my alley. We had many laughs. What happens in Vegas is not always meant to stay in Vegas after all.

This week’s #TChat was a highlight of course. As I referenced earlierin the week,  The HRO Analyst Study was pretty fascinating from my perspective. So while there’s plenty of HR technology out there, much of it is focused on talent management and recruitment. HR and recruiters just are not perceiving what’s out there as innovative, perhaps because most of what we’re seeing isn’t screaming cloud, mobile application. What the survey found, instead, was a gap in perceptions of innovation.

For example, 62 percent of technology providers think it’s vital to innovate in talent management technology – but only 33 percent of practitioners agree. Even more telling: 70 percent of providers surveyed think talent management technology supports work, while practitioners – 37 percent – view the technology as ‘just gadgets’.

But wait, there’s more – over 70 percent of practitioners surveyed say providers ‘rarely or never’ talk to them to gauge whether their offerings align with the practitioners’ business strategies and goals. Yikes, what a disconnect! As a “recruitment practitioner” (one of my hats) I’m hoping there are many more of us who see these innovative tools as a must have – I certainly fall into this grouping.

So let’s go to Door #1 and a review of my stint as a judge on the iTalent2 Demo Competition. The talented roster of hopefuls: BranchOut a solution that helps people tap into their Facebook friends network to find career opportunities; InternMatch a brilliant yet simple application that simplifies finding interns and marketing internship opportunities for organizations of pretty much any size; JobScore a social media-enabled talent management application; SmartRecruiters a winner (did I say it is free?) application with a great SaaS recruiting solution; Wednesdays a team building and employee engagement application built on social media networking, and Work4labs, with a very cool application that enables career sites on Facebook. Quite an impressive array of new technologies included here.

As a judge who ended up being closer to Simon Cowell than Paula Abdul as we first thought – I was way careful about the numbers I gave each company featured, never going past 8 on a scale of 1-10. Apologies to the contestants if that seems harsh, but we’re talking about my passion here: innovation meets matching people talent with new career opportunity.

I have a weak spot for technologies that do it well. In classic start-up form no company or application is perfect just yet. Innovation is truly about creating a culture of working and reworking ideas where it’s ok to make mistakes in the early innings. I found flaws in each application from either a usability or branding perspective. It will be exciting to watch their progression in the coming months. There were almost too many good things on offer for the judging panel.

SmartRecruiters won – it’s a free (yes, free), social-media enabled application that helps companies recruit top talent. The pitch was strong, the website is user friendly, it’s organized and the people are enthusiastic about it’s potential in the market.

I have a soft spot for InternMatch. I mentor as many interns as I can and many people know I’m an advocate for these programs. Pay it forward and all, interns are a great resource for any company – and actual work experience with actual companies is part of a complete education.

I’m so energized by the people I met, the ideas that were presented, the technology that is available right now that will make talent recruiting and hr management so much easier and more productive. I can’t wait to talk to people (and clients) about what I’ve heard about in Vegas and beyond. Onward we go.

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