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A New Year Means Reflection, Renewals, and New Goals

I’ve been called an influencer and a thought leader, these past few months. This still sounds surreal to me because I don’t really consider myself to be either. When I looked back on 2011, when I created my Twitter account, I realized how much things have changed. I considered Twitter boring, and my Facebook community was limited to close friends and family members! It wasn’t until 2017 that I took a more goal-oriented approach to Twitter. I focused on intentionally connecting with HR Pros who are willing to share their insights on #NextChat, #JobHuntChat, #HRHour, #HRSocialHour, #DisruptHR. I started following blogs that were inspiring, thought provoking which finally got me started in blogging. In 2018 I began to see the potential for applying social media to my personal life and started adding fellow HR pros on Facebook. Twitter and other social media platforms are now part of my daily routine. A way to connect and engage with a broader world, especially fellow HR pros who continue to inspire me, inform me, and provide me a deeper understanding of evolving trends and attitudes that affect our common calling.

2018 Reflection:

It’s been a while since my last blog post, which means that I’ve already failed to achieve one goal in 2018 – publishing at least one blog per month. That said, the goals that I did manage to reach were beyond my expectations, so I can honestly and proudly say that 2018 was a great year!

Professionally speaking, being chosen as one of the #SHRMBloggers was about the best 2018 birthday gift I could have asked for. And while I wasn’t able to maintain a pace of at least one blog per month, I did publish fourteen blogs entries in total. Thanks to being a #SHRM18 blogger and #SHRMDiv18 blogger, I also became a blog contributor for Workology and a guest spot for #DriveThruHR and #HRSocialHour podcasts. I enjoyed every minute spent at SHRM18, meeting the HR bloggers who I’ve admired online and I enjoyed many post-conference adventures with them – Talk about “Expanding Our World”. The experience helped shape and merge my personal and professional brand in a constructive and holistic way. What you see online is who I am in person, and I’m grateful that so many of the individuals I followed online turned out to be genuine, unpretentious, no-BS people after my own heart!

I had the opportunity to speak at two DisruptHR events, Sioux Falls, ND, and Brookings, ND. It was awesome to connect with so many HR professionals and entrepreneurs who found that my topics resonated with them. (HR is not for Lazy People and Is it the Skills Gap, the Pay Gap, or both?). In April, I launched the #DisruptHR event in Omaha. Some considered the venture overly risky—the kind of event that wouldn’t be well-received due to the conservative nature of the local HR community. It was a sold-out event! It turned out that there were many HR pros who were hungry for disruption!

The SHRM Diversity and Inclusion Conference was an eye-opener for me! The sessions I attended were phenomenal! The speakers were passionate about diversity and inclusion, and though I consider myself knowledgeable on these subjects, I still learned many valuable lessons. Attendees shared a litany of experiences that illustrated how far we have to go as people and as employers. I highly recommend it as one of the best conference to attend!

2018/2019 Renewals:

Before the year ended, I renewed my SHRM-SCP Certification and my SHRM Membership. I consider this a necessary personal/professional investment. Though I don’t always align with SHRM’s marketing and leadership (who does?) the organization has done a lot for my career growth. The ability to update and monitor the accumulation of CE credits towards my recertification has served to make the process considerably easier than it once was. I look upon my HR Certification as an individual necessity, not a social statement. If I let it lapse, it will be me who has to shoulder the consequences, not the community.

I also renewed my license to hold DisruptHR events in Omaha and Lincoln, Nebraska.

2019 Goals:

My 2019 goals are coming along nicely! I’m attending #WorkHuman2019 in March. I’m always excited to visit new places and am looking forward to learning, meeting new people, and spending time with online connections in real life.

Planning for DisruptHR events in Omaha and Lincoln is well underway. I can’t wait to host events in both of these awesome locations!

I am also looking forward to attending #SHRM19 to spend time with old and new connections in real life, and hopefully I get to attend #SHRMDiv2019.

I hope to work on my blogsite and have time to blog more often. I won’t commit to one blog per month, because I don’t consider this practical.

I guess you can say that my 2019 goals aren’t any different from 2018, except perhaps I want to be able to contribute more in the HRTech landscape and the future of work. I’m thankful for UltimateSoftware for including me in their white paper on my thoughts about AI in 2018 and I look forward to sharing my knowledge and hands-on experience in various HR Tech.

I hope that whatever your goals are for 2019 that you will include getting more involved in networking, engaging, and providing positive impact to the HR community, the world of work, and your local community. I am fortunate that many in my #HRTribe helped me in achieving my goals, if I can help you in anyway in achieving your goals, lets connect!

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#SHRM18 Vendor Spotlight: Ultimate Software

I had the privilege of attending #SHRM18 as a member of the #SHRM18Bloggers Team in Chicago, IL. One of the vendors I wanted to highlight was Ultimate Software. They are one of the sponsors of SHRM #NextChat and was the host for the #NextChat Reception that was held at the conference. I am already aware of how they support the #HR profession and the HR Tech industry, so I wanted to dig in into their product offering. I got the honor of getting my questions answered by Adam Rogers (Twitter: @adamr), Chief Technology Officer, Ultimate Software.

If your organization is in the market for a HCM, hopefully this Q&A will give you some valuable perspectives when considering a HCM vendor. If you’re heading to the #HRTechConference in September, check them out!

GT: How do you differentiate your product/services from other HR Tech companies? If I’m in the market for HR systems, what features would win me over?

AR: There are really three crucial things to consider when evaluating HCM systems: culture, product, and services. I mention culture first because it’s often overlooked during the buying process, but it shouldn’t be. An organization’s culture ultimately determines your long-term experience with them. Ultimate’s commitment to putting people first is paramount, and, in addition to taking excellent care of our own employees, we design products and services that help our customers build the people-centric environments they need to grow and thrive. Ultimate’s also unique because, while most of our competitors focus primarily on either product or services, we’ve always invested equally in both. We introduced UltiPro as the first cloud-based HR/payroll Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) technology back in 2002, and we continue to leverage Agile software development, Service Design Thinking, and other collaborative processes to pioneer exciting new product advancements. At the same time, we view each and every customer as a partner for life. Offering every customer a dedicated account representative, free training for life, and 24/7 access to APA-certified UltiPro experts is just the beginning of our personalized and comprehensive service offerings. By devoting ourselves entirely to these three key priorities, we’ve differentiated ourselves in a crowded space and are proud of our consistent 96% customer retention rate. Our very first customer, who launched back in 1991? They’re still a valued and satisfied customer today. That’s the sort of lifelong partnership that wins our customers over.

GT: Can an organization just purchase one or two components (i.e., HR, Benefits) of Ultimate, or do they have to purchase the entire suite? If they can be bought a la carte, can they be integrated with other payroll systems or will this require redundancy in data entry?

AR: Our standard UltiPro offering includes HR, payroll, and benefits administration, as well as UltiPro Business Intelligence. Other solutions can be purchased as needed to enhance the core offering, such as talent management, compensation management, advanced benefits tools, learning suites, and more.

Our sentiment analysis survey solution is also available to certain organizations a la carte, depending on company size.

We understand that integration is paramount, so we offer various options to help organizations seamlessly exchange data between UltiPro and other business solutions via timely, secure, and reliable integrations.

GT:  How HR savvy are your implementation/design teams? I found that one source of frustration I had when dealing with HR tech teams involved their lack of understanding of the nuances that we face in HR. This is especially true when it comes to accuracy of data and how to address inaccuracies (human data entry error) in a timely manner. I had a PM who thought correcting SSN and COBRA notifications were not priorities.

AR: Thanks to our incredible culture, benefits, and global recognition as a Best Place to Work, we attract and retain many of the best people in the industry. Many of our launch, implementation, and design professionals have decades of experience and multiple certifications. The high level of collaboration between our product and services teams ensures that everyone has a clear understanding of HR and the features needed to optimize our customer’s experience. Our project teams are composed of experienced industry experts specializing in specific areas of UltiPro, along with technical resources, integration analysts, and a dedicated project manager who personally oversees the entire project. This means our customer’s questions are addressed quickly and they benefit from immediate, proactive assistance every step of the way. Many of our integration consultants are FPC and PMP certified, as well as Certified Experts in SQL Server Development.

Finally, we use an iterative design process, which means our user experience (UX) team conducts detailed, ongoing research and actively partners with customers to truly understand our users’ needs. By partnering closely with our customers, we can ensure that UltiPro exceeds their expectations, not what our developers think they need.

GT:  What is the average time spent by an employee doing benefit enrollment?  How will AI assist employees with this process?

AR: Benefits options are quite complex, and employees often aren’t given much (or any) insight to assist with decision making. Many studies show that employees almost always default to selecting the same plan as they chose the year before, including recent research from Aflac that indicates almost half of employees spend 30 minutes or less making benefits decisions. Haphazardly choosing among plans can have expensive repercussions for everyone involved, including employers.

Assisting employees with making more personalized benefits decisions—decisions that help them to save money while ensuring the best coverage to meet their own needs—is a perfect opportunity for AI support.  Solutions like UltiPro Benefits Prime provide step-by-step guidance, educational tools, and personalized plan recommendations. Without ever needing to contact HR or the benefits provider, employees are able to make the best benefits decisions for themselves and their families.

GT:  Are your clients asking you to collect data to determine possible gender wage gap in their organization?

AR: We recently released a Pay Equity report for all of our customers, which allows them to analyze average pay by gender, ethnicity age and disability status.

And while recognizing pay disparity is a great initial step, working to improve overall diversity, equity and inclusion is obviously the ultimate goal. We’re working on a variety of solutions to interrupt and eliminate bias before it occurs, including tools that help improve quality of hire while eliminating unconscious bias, revamp interview guides and job descriptions based on diversity data, and help recruiters and organizations reevaluate their recruiting and hiring processes.

GT: What AI related features are you rolling out in your upcoming releases?

AR: We’re still extremely excited about Xander, which isn’t really a feature but our “People First” AI engine. Xander uses natural language processing (NLP) to digest and actually understand human language, including the emotions that drive the words, coupling analytical and emotional intelligence to analyze all aspects of HCM data and provide decision makers with detailed, unbiased insight.

Armed with a comprehensive understanding of what’s really going on in their company, leaders can take meaningful action to drive positive changes within the organization.

We’ll be leveraging Xander’s enhanced AI capabilities in a variety of solutions and recruiting-based predictive analytics are coming next. Customers will be able to leverage AI and predictive analytics to identify top candidates and make smarter talent decisions.

Building off of our AI-powered sentiment analysis and NLP capabilities, we’re working on delivering a new kind of performance management tool that’s focused not just on managing performance but improving it. With real-time coaching for better quality feedback and team-level performance intelligence, a manager will be able to quickly make sense of continuous feedback and focus on real improvement opportunities.

GT: Have you seen demand for machine learning features from your clients?

AR: Absolutely. Machine learning enables the platform to learn from experience and get better with time, which is clearly desirable—you’d want the same thing from your employees. Ultimate’s machine-learning technology looks at how effective UltiPro’s predictions are and automatically makes adjustments to improve, which means your data from today is even more valuable tomorrow.

GT: You emphasize capabilities that will enable the removal of barriers faced when applying for a job. What are some of the more serious barriers these features address?

AR: Traditional recruiting systems can be complex and burdensome, leading to candidate disengagement and application abandonment. UltiPro Recruiting’s unique candidate-centric design helps engage potential hires with familiar technology they want to use and build successful relationships from the first interaction. We use social and mobile technology for an easy, personalized, and enjoyable experience. Candidates can even use gamified features to find opportunities or import their information from LinkedIn. And with automated candidate match capabilities coming soon, we’ll be able to speed up processes for identifying promising candidates and getting them into the right roles.

GT: Do you partner with anyone on your Learning Management system to make sure that education is centered not just on the employee, but the organization as well? Depending on industry and/or state, there are some statutory training requirements. Are those pre-packaged, or add-ons?

AR: UltiPro Learning enables organizations to build an optimized learning strategy while effectively reaching employees where they are, with mobile and social learning capabilities. Today’s learners expect their learning at work to be much like the learning they do at home – on-demand and snackable.  Think YouTube for the enterprise – where we can easily share what we know with others, as simply as uploading a video from our phone.

Organizations have several options for creating courses and adding course content, including building their own content, converting existing content, or adding third-party content. By leveraging our course marketplace, customers can jumpstart or expand their development content, including best practice statutory, soft-skill and technical training courses and materials.

GT: How much of an impact will the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) have on your systems, considering the massive personal data collected from ATS, HRIS, and Payroll?

AR: The GDPR has specific requirements for data processors like Ultimate, regardless of whether the organization operates within the boundaries of the European Union. Ultimate already has all the key practices in place to align with our responsibilities as a data processor to allow for an employee’s right for data portability or erasure. Additionally, we’ve added the ability for customers to capture or withdraw an employee’s consent in UltiPro and have a team of subject matter experts available to guide our customers through the new regulations.
Adam-Rogers-head-shot1

Adam Rogers began his career in 1997 as Ultimate Software’s very first intern and quickly became a leading innovator in the field. In 2002, Adam led his team to deliver the very first Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) cloud Enterprise solution, redefining industry standards by bringing HCM to the cloud. Today, Adam serves Ultimate as CTO and holds the unique distinction of leading both product innovation and corporate IT strategy. His teams are routinely recognized for their industry-leading innovations and Adam’s thought leadership work is regularly published in Forbes, InformationWeek, and a variety of online blogs and publications.

 

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#SHRM18 Vendor Spotlight: Quantum Workplace

Quantum Workplace will be one of the vendors at the #SHRM18 in Chicago, IL. They are an employee engagement software company designed for a manager-driven work culture. Quantum Workplace is headquartered in Omaha, Nebraska (my new home town).  I had the opportunity to tour their new location where I conducted this interview.

Quantum Workplace is the survey engine for the “Best Places to Work” contests nationwide.

I Interviewed Natalie Hackbarth (NH), their Inbound Marketing Manager. 

GT: In an elevator pitch format, what is Quantum Workplace?

NH: Quantum Workplace is an all-in-one employee engagement software that gives managers the tools they need to increase team engagement and effectiveness.

GT: How do you differentiate your product/services from other HR Tech companies?

NH: Our software differentiates in two key ways:

1) First, it’s built formanagers. Our engagement software fits right into their existing workflow, it coaches them on how to be better managers, and it transforms the way lead and engage their teams.

2) Second, it’s provides organizations all the tools they need for measuring and improving engagement in one place. It’s the only of its kind, offering survey and pulses, recognition software, goal setting and tracking software, feedback, one-on-one conversation, ideas and alerts, as well as team and company-wide analytics.

GT: How did your company decide to hold the “Best Places to Work” contests?

NH: Listening to and acting on employee opinions is crucial. Quantum Workplace wanted to honor and showcase companies that valued employee voices and treated people as the most important resource.

GT: Tell me about some of your best success stories with a client.

NH: Fossil Group uses Quantum Workplace to empower thousands of users to own and improve team engagement. PromiseShip, a non-profit based in Nebraska, had never had a method for collecting employee feedback and improving employee performance — and they now use our tool to engage employees in a continuous cycle of improvement.

GT: Are your clients asking you to collect data to determine possible gender wage gap in their organization?

NH: Not specifically, no. But employers can use our analytics feature to uncover almost any trend, gap, or blind spot they might have in their organization.

GT: What AI related features are you rolling out in your upcoming releases?

NH: Quantum Workplace just launched text analytics, giving managers the ability to make sense of employee comments at the click of a button.

If you’re in the market for an engagement software or would like to see your company be honored as one of the best companies to work for, find out what it takes to get you there and visit their booth at #SHRM18! You can find out more about Quantum Workplace at http://www.quantumworkplace.com.

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Predictive Analytics in HR: Do you have the data needed to back that up?

Some organizations have begun to use predictive analytics as part of their hiring process. I filled out questionnaires used for analytics while applying for HR Manager positions. Supposedly, there are no right or wrong answers. The employer just wants to know “how we are wired” to move on to the next phase.

An excerpt from one of these questionnaires appears below. Section one lists one hundred ten adjectives from which the applicant chooses to describe him/herself.  Section two presents the same list and asks that the applicant use them to describe how one should behave in their current work environment.

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Do you really know how your predictive analytics are supposed to work? It has a growing presence in talent acquisition but has never been proven effective in this context. We do know that these algorithms must draw from a wealth of data to reach any meaningful conclusion. Does your company have enough data to determine who will make a great hire?

I applied for two positions for which the hiring manager applied this methodology. A “thumbs up” from the predictive assessment was required to move on to the next step in the process. Despite claims of “It’s not pass or fail,” I never received a follow-up call after either test. When I asked for feedback, none was provided.

The test is pass or fail. Don’t believe otherwise.

You passed if you are called to the next phase. You failed if you aren’t.

The soul-sucking part of this assembly line process lies in the fact that there is no way to know where you went wrong. You are selecting adjectives with no situational context. Does it really make sense to exclude a candidate because of vacuous word selection? If someone did this manually, they would be considered a crackpot, but because the actual logic is hidden within an automatically executed algorithm, the result is treated as gospel. This is not logical, or rational, or in keeping with any expert understanding of computer science. It is nothing but snake oil software.

Depending on our age, our culture, upbringings, education, and experience, the way we answer these surveys will vary. When implementing this type of strategy do you really know what you’re looking for as a recruiter or as an organization? Do you know what kind of mental-wiring you’re looking for?

I am at a point in my life and my career that I picked the same words for Section 1 & 2. If I was younger and new to the workforce my answers will be different. If this was supposed to be no right or wrong answers, nor is it pass or fail, what is the point of this process? Why spend the money on this assessment if you’re only trying to detect how a person is wired? Wouldn’t this be at some point a discriminatory/prejudicial process that may impact people based on age, gender, ethnicity, and disability since how we answer may predict these things?  Not knowing which section is given more weight and how we are scored, how do we improve or meet the implicit expectations?

I met a couple of data scientists who use predictive analytics in a variety of business domains. One works for a health insurance company, and I can see how datasets available to insurers could drive useful analytical outcomes. Unfortunately, they also took on the task of extending these methods for use in talent acquisition. Neither has ever actually worked in the recruiting field! We need to stop letting non-HR people define the essential decision-making processes we use to do our jobs! Would you let someone with no HR expertise walk up to your desk, rifle through your files, and start ordering around? Let’s wake up to the fact that this is exactly what’s being done, being blinded by those who package the clueless interference in a piece of software and label it “analytics.”

I’m not a fan of any personality assessments. I don’t think they are useful indicators of who we are as professionals or indicative of what we bring to the table. If anyone out there has rigorous studies they can quote to contrary, I’ll gladly listen to them, but I’m not holding my breath. The business world has a long and infamous history of rabidly seizing upon trendy practices without a shred of evidence that attests to their effectiveness.

I’m also not a fan of hiring for cultural fit, because what constitutes cultural fit should and will evolve over time. A static, inflexible notion of cultural fit is a surefire way to achieve organizational sclerosis. If we want to assess our candidates, let’s assess the skills they bring to the table After all, isn’t our current concern about skills gap, and not some nebulous black-box notion of “how we are wired?”

Predictive analytics is the practice of extracting information from existing data sets in order to determine patterns and predict future outcomes and trends. Predictive analytics does not tell you what will happen in the future (wabopedia.com).

The Data: “Lack of good data is the most common barrier to organizations seeking to employ predictive analytics” (hbr.org).

To make predictions about what kind of employees we should employ, we need these kinds of data points:

  • Characteristics and accomplishments of current employees
  • Characteristics and accomplishment of past employees.
  • Reasons employees stayed
  • Reasons employees left

If you lack this kind of data, along with some means to feed it into the analytical model, then the analytical model is useless. If you’re a small-medium company or a start-up, it’s particularly likely that this is the case.

The reason predictive analytics work in domains such as sales is the wealth of data available to the model. The same goes for healthcare.

The same just can’t be said of talent acquisition. Period. Even worse, applying these algorithms may lead to bias and perhaps discrimination, if the outcome includes disproportionate impact on protective groups. If you can’t open the black box, how do we know there’s not a bigot inside? The software vendors pushing this snake oil provide nothing but vacuous hand-waving when they assure us this isn’t the case. This is why many HR pros who are also practicing attorneys don’t like assessments that fail to actually measure person’s ability to do the job.

Your Predictive Analytic Model Sucks!

As I mentioned earlier on, I have taken the predictive analytics tests twice. This was in the Summer of 2017. Both of those employers have since re-posted those jobs on multiple occasions. I never reapplied because they haven’t changed their requirements. I got a call from an external recruiter yesterday and she thought that I was a perfect candidate for their client based on my resume. When she told me who the client was, I laughed and told her that I’d already been disqualified without an interview. I let her know that I appreciate her thinking of me and wished her luck!

Clearly, the employer is failing to realize that their predictive analytic model sucks! My husband who is a software enterprise architect thinks they got scammed into buying a technology that was full of promise but failed to deliver. If they admit to drinking snake oil it will reflect badly on those involved in the decision, so backing down isn’t an option.

I’m not claiming their model sucks because I didn’t get the job. I’m saying this because they’ve been trying to fill this position since the summer of 2017. They have hired multiple staffing agency to help them fill this position every time it gets reposted. There are a plenty of great HR managers in the Midlands. This is not about a skills gap.

When will the employers utilizing these products wake up to the fact that they’re cheating themselves out of great hires? By leaving the HR Manager post vacant, the company I applied to is leaving themselves vulnerable to compliance issues.

Meet your candidates.

Have the conversation.

Stop hiding behind junk software that reduces your workload by doing your work badly.

Photo Credit: media.licdn.com

#HR #TalentAcquisition #HRTech #PredictiveAnalytics