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Karen Beaman
Looking Forward to 2007
As is common this time of year, I’d like to put forward my own projections for 2007. Here are the top five trends that I believe we’ll be hearing a lot about in 2007:
1. Sourcing Strategies — Software as as Service (Saas) will become the de facto approach for systems deployment. The infrastructure is being proven through companies such as Salesforce.com and Dave Duffield’s new venture Workday. Companies are tired of the “upgrade treadmill” and established vendors like Oracle and SAP will struggle to respond.
2. Talent Management — Performance Management will be a fundamental aspect in most HCM deployments. Shareholders are increasingly holding their executives accountable for performance, and HR executives will have to step up to the plate. Performance management software will the most frequently deployed application over the coming year.
3. Social Networks — Our global, mobile, virtual world will continue to evolve as much of our “water cooler talk” will continue to move to the Web via blogging, tagging, and advanced search algorithms using natural language syntax. VOIP and chat software will continue to expand into more aspects of our business and personal life.
4. Globalization — While most global companies are now well situated in Europe, there will be increasing movement toward Asia, in particular China. As the Web technologies mature, and as English, the lingua franca for business, continues to expand, it will become increasingly easier to work across global borders bringing more challenges and cultural conflicts.
5. Workforce – The aging baby boomer population, increasing numbers of immigrants, and ongoing use of offshoring to lower cost environments will continue to have a profound impact on our workforce. Line managers and human resources professionals will need to expand their repertories to develop the facility to manage an increasingly diverse workforce.
Many of these things will not come as a surprise to anyone — life/business, afterall, really is an evolution — revolutions in a true sense are rare.
From an EMEA perspective, I can say that all these 5 elements are very valid in EMEA, as well. Especially the sourcing strategies are key business drivers, as many companies in EMEA either consider to replace their traditional technology into more modern systems or are facing major upgrades/updates in their existing HRMS (e.g. PeopleSoft->Fusion). The benfits of Software as a Service opens a lot more flexibility in replacing existing solutions, which will increase the number of ’system-changers’ in EMEA. With our broad, global knowledge, we could help corporations on this journey and especially bring in our deep global knowledge, e.g. in the area of international data protection.
Comment by Christian Adlung — January 8, 2007 @ 1:33 am
My two cents: In 2007 companies will not be compelled by anything back office. There is no willing to invest in applications for context functions like HR. Companies feel that they have done that and want to target their spend on technology for business processes simplicity.
With the maturing of the Web, increased bandwidth, and the emergence of new Web technologies and tools, we are now seeing, the swell of the Ubiquitous Computing Wave, or what some are calling, Web 2.0. Web services is shifting the landscape from single-company environment services to multi-tenant environment services.
Ultimately, success in 2007 is tied with the ones that help companies transition from an application-centric to a business-process-centric environment enabled by SOA and Web services. That could start by streamlining a context function like on boarding.
Comment by Luiz Henrique de Oliveira — January 9, 2007 @ 12:06 pm
Luiz: I beg to differ.
Perhaps it is valid not to be a believer in technology sourcing or talent management processes as they are tied to the back office. However, the other elements of HR (and I’m specifically thinking about #5 - the workforce) is as “front office” as you can get. And with the workforce, one must think about talent and the shaping of that resource.
Success might be tied to transitions to SOA and web services, but I don’t think that success is directly attributable to these technologies. At the end of the day, it’s people who still do the work. Computers just move the data. (stolen from “the Toyota Way” - I don’t have the reference on hand).
Comment by systematicHR — January 9, 2007 @ 6:26 pm
The Talent Management HCM deployment wave will indeed focus on Performance Management. Several vendors have carved out significant and growing profitable lines in performance management, and their momentum will accelerate. I predict yet another round of frustration with performance management, as has happened multiple times over the past several decades. Why? As HR and consulting professionals, we know that a strong tension exists in performance management between ‘what people do’ and ‘the results of their efforts’. Business leaders want improvements in the results, and all too often, use the newest wave of tools to ratchet up individual accountability for results. Frustration and failure happen when people rightfully declare that they aren’t in control of many aspects affecting the results (economic conditions, competitors’ actions, technology investments, business processes, organizational strategy, leadership practices, etc., in addition to individual contributions). The only part an individual can control directly is behavior (what I do). A delicate balancing act between measuring behavioral performance and business outcomes underpins sustained success in performance management, but ‘it ain’t easy’! And, the newest wave of Web 2.0 HCM tools haven’t fundamentally shifted anyone’s thinking on this tension.
Comment by Ken Hedberg — January 19, 2007 @ 5:33 am
Ken, I completely agree. The best tools in the world aren’t going to help if people aren’t going to use them. The old adage, “you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t force him to drink,” never rang truer. So while sales of Performance Management systems may be greater than in other areas of HCM, that doesn’t mean companies will effectively use the new tool. What we need is a shift to Whole Performance Thinking — (in the spirit of Lynne Morton’s Whole Change Thinking, which “looks at considerations of change separately and together, in order to see how the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. It uses an integrated approach, rather than a linear one.” Lynne Morton, 2004. “Whole Change Thinking”, In Out of Site: An Inside Look at HR Outsourcing. Edited by Karen V. Beaman. Austin TX: IHRIM Press). Effective tools in this space must help individuals understand the full performance situation — from each of the individual components (economic situation, competitor actions, technology investments, financial impacts, individual actions, etc.) to the combined, integrated effect of each of the components working together — in order to effectively and holistically evaluate performance. It is only then that we can take the emotion out of the process and truly manage performance. But “it ain’t easy!” as you say. Thanks for your comments.
Comment by karen — January 20, 2007 @ 6:32 am