In this Jeitocast, Karen Beaman interviews Kelvin Gray from Workday, to discuss the question: What is the best technology for HR? Kelvin talks about three key characteristics that are key to building and deploying effective HR applications today:

Flexible – applications need to be easily modifiable to meet ever changing business demands… Object technology allows organizations to define “loosely coupled” business processes and that are easy to change and move around as business needs dictate.

Accessible – systems should not be islands of information, rather data needs to be accessible and easily shared across applications… Web services is a group of technologies that facilitate application integration because they are built on de facto standards.

Secure – we live in an era of heightened security concerns, hence the privacy and the protection of personal information is paramount — Data Encryption must be in the underlying architecture of the data base to ensure the greatest possible security for the HR system.

As I’ve talked about elsewhere¹, this new technology paradigm is bringing about a change in our business environment. Applications are now moving out of the back-office to the front-office. Rather than transactional efficiency and historical reporting, applications today are focusing on effectiveness and aiding the line-manager’s decision-making process. Likewise, as never before in history, we now see up to four different generations working together simultaneously in the workplace: Retirees/Veterans, Baby Boomers, Gen Xers, and the New Millennials. This technology paradigm shift, in concert with the changing workforce, is placing greater demands than ever on our HR applications to meet the needs of multiple types of users in the workforce, with widely differing sets of expectations for the applications they use in their day-to-day work.

These are certainly challenging and dynamic times for HR technology professionals.

¹ “The Promise of Web Services: Why SOA means Better HR Service.” By Karen Beaman and John Macy. IHRIM Journal. July/August 2006.

 

 What is the best technology for HR? [16:57m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

I recently read an article about how doing business in China means turning the old adage, “Think Global, Act Local,” on its head. Frankly, it occurs to me that this inverse thinking, “Think Local, Act Global”¹ applies not only to working in China, and that many companies go about globalization completely the wrong way. In thinking globally first, organizations have ended up forcing standards and practices on local operations that are at best ineffective, because they simply aren’t relevant, or at worse counterproductive, because they’re demotivating and maybe even unethical or illegal in that culture. It is only by thinking locally first and truly understanding the specific business situation, the cultural context, the political/legal environment, the market pressures, and the competitive challenges that can you really hope to integrate the local business needs into an effective global solution.

The authors of this article go on to say, “The ‘think local, act global’ strategy implies a need for seemingly contradictory management skills. Managers do need to be local in their understanding, but they also must be global in their behavior. They must have real global experience and a mature understanding of (and appreciation for) MNCs’ global business conduct.”

To help you in your globalization journey, following is a list of The Behavioral Mistakes of Multinationals that global leaders must seek to avoid if they want to be effective in the world of Global 2.0:

1. Don’t apply double standards
2. Know the law and follow it
3. Don’t bend the rules
4. Avoid making symbolic moves
5. Avoid aggressive tactics over intellectual property
6. Guard against management insensitivity
7. Don’t strip-mine the profits
8. Don’t use local operations as “test labs”

We all need to challenge the status quo a bit more often and invert our thinking sometimes if we want to achieve breakthrough results.
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¹“The Challenge for Multinational Corporations in China: Think Local, Act Global.” By Seung Ho Park and Wilfried R. Vanhonacker. MIT Sloan Management Review. 31 May 2007.

The buying spree that private equity firms have been on over the last few years continues with Ceridian being the latest one to hit the HR market space.

Ceridian to be acquired for $5.3 billion in cash

Private equity shop THL Partners and title insurance outfit Fidelity National Financial will divvy up company.

CNNMoney, 30 May 2007

This move underscores the significant change that’s happening in HR technology — specifically the movement to Web 2.0, SOA, and SaaS architectures that’s been spurred on by vendors such as Salesforce.com and Dave Duffield’s new Workday. Ceridian suffers from a large client base on aging technology, making it virtually impossible for them to innovate and re-build their systems without significant disruption to their current clients. Yet it’s clear that they have to upgrade their technology if they want to remain a player in the market. Going private takes them out of the public eye, away from Wall Street’s pressures of quarter-on-quarter earnings, and allows them to make the investments they need to upgrade their technology.

“Private equity firms buy companies with mostly borrowed money, take them out of the public spotlight and retool them with the aim of selling them for a profit later.” CNNMoney.com May 15, 2007

Ceridian users should be excited by the opportunity this could bring!

What do you think? What are you doing about SOA and SaaS?