In this month’s Jeitocast Karen Beaman interviews Steve Parker on how HR Shared Services can help achieve greater efficiencies and effectiveness.  Steve talks about how it’s important to realize that not every high-volume, transaction-based activity is necessarily a good candidate to move into a shared services group.  The most effective use of the HR Shared Services balances three components together to determine what should be transitioned:

1. move non-strategic, non-business unit critical activities that will scale appropriately to Shared Services while making sure the business units can still operate effectively,
2. make sure expertise exists within your Shared Services staff to handle the activities in a cost-effective manner with improved quality,
3. re-engineer or streamline processes before moving them to Shared Servcies to take advantage of process improvement and standardization.

If you can’t standardize a process, you need to give some second thoughts to moving it into an Shared Services group.  Many failures in the delivery of services from the Shared Services function can be tied back to non-standard, one-off processes that cannot be effectively managed by the Shared Services group.

Given today’s economic environment, companies are under pressure to do more with less.  Often this involves standing up a Shared Services function.  But unless care is taken to ensure that the right processes are identified, standardized, optimized, and that the Shared Services staff is adequately trained to handle them, the result can often be more costly and less efficient.

 

 How can HR shared services achieve greater efficiencies and effectiveness [20:50m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

In this Jeitocast Karen Beaman interviews Dr. Donald Harris, renowned data privacy expert, on the question of what is a global data privacy policy and why a company needs one. There are 40+ countries around the world with comprehensive privacy laws. Without a data privacy policy in place to ensure compliance with these laws, the company will not be able to get the data they need to support common HR processes and programs, to provide stock options, to manage compensation, to perform career planning and leadership development, and so on. A global Data Privacy Policy provides the opportunity to drive common standards and common approaches to HR data and process design. Listen to Don’s Jeitocast to learn more…

 

 What is a global data privacy policy? [17:30m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

In this Jeitocast, Karen Beaman interviews Alsen Hsein, Senior China Advisor with Jeitosa Group based in Shanghai. Alsen has been working in China for the last 40 years, and seen the the legal and regulatory environment change significantly. The biggest challenge that China will be facing for the coming four to five years is in acquiring and retaining talented and experienced managers. Current projections are that China needs 75,000 manager level individuals just to fill their current open positions. Alsen talks about some of the strategies that Chinese companies are implementing to help meet their talent challenges.

 

 What's changing in the HR landscape in China? [19:26m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

In this Jeitocast, Karen Beaman interviews John Macy, Senior Global Advisor for Jeitosa Group in Asia Pacific and founder of Competitive Edge Technology, on the subject of SOA and services / component architectures. John is also the founder of Human Resource Component Software Application Standard (HR-CSAS) which defines the component structure for Human Resource Management Systems.

As we know, no one system can ever meet all of a customer’s needs, so the issue becomes integration. SOA or Service Oriented Architecture allows what the technologists call a “loose coupling” between components or services. That means it doesn’t really matter what programming language a component is built with and what platform it uses. “In theory, a client can go to the market and find the right mix of products that suits their needs and assemble them into one consolidated system using SOA features.” John talks about how SOA is changing to the way we do business by enabling a modular, Lego-like approach to building systems. The real value of web services and component architectures for HR systems is the ability to easily integrate a diverse mix of products into one consolidated system.

It’s important to stress, however, that care must be taken in the evaluation and selection of SOA products. There are some products on the market, like Dave Duffield’s new Workday product, that are built from the ground-up using native SOA and web technologies. There are many others “posing” as SOA products that are really just SOA “wrappers” around 20- or 30-year old technology. So be sure to look under the covers before making your decision.

Web services and SOA technology is becoming mainstream. Some predictions about SOA indicate that by 2008 80% of new business applications built will use SOA. For those considering the move to an SOA platform, John provides six basic steps to help companies get started on their SOA journey.

 

 What is a component based architecture? [19:20m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

In this Jeitocast, Karen Beaman interviews Dr. Jac Fitz-Enz, President and Founder of Human Capital Source on the subject of using human resource metrics to determine business value. Dr. Jac is working on the next generation of workforce analytics by investigating what effects investing in people have on the business because, as Jac says, “it’s people who make the difference.”

His Workforce Intelligence Report (published twice a year) surveyed 750 companies, supported with data from 70 research institutions, to discuss how, when, where, and in which way investments in people are making a difference. The report provides many examples of business value being created through investments in human capital.

Dr. Jac’s latest project is the Predictive Initiative, which is developing a Predictive Model, along with applications, implementation tools, and a measurement system that focuses on future. The goal of this initiative is to understand how to predict what is most likely to happen if we try one thing or another… because “the only thing you can manage is the future. You certainly can’t manage the past.”

To get started with HR metrics, Dr. Jac describes three levels in demonstrating business value:

1- Internal Efficiency looks at the efficiency of the human resource operation — what does it cost to do the things we do, e.g., cost of hire, cost of training programs, total compensation as a percent of revenue, time various processes take, quality in terms of errors, customer reaction.

There are five ways to look at HR services: cost, time, quantity, quality, and human reaction. If you build a matrix with these categories across the top as columns and with the various HR services we provide (staffing, compensation, benefits, employee relations, learning and development) as the rows along the side, you end up with set of cells which can be evaluated in terms of internal efficiency.

2- External Effectiveness assesses the overall effectiveness of the internal metrics, e.g., handling calls quicker, answering calls more effectively, reduced number of call-backs.

3- Business Outcomes determines the effect of HR activities on the business financials through margin improvement, revenue growth, customer retention, etc.

Dr. Jac explains that the biggest obstacle to success with metrics is the HR department themselves: “we have found the enemy and he is us.” HR has to get over their own prohibitions in order to be successful with metrics. HR needs to learn that it’s not a great mystery, it’s very doable, it needs to be done, and it’s all learnable. (Dr. Jac himself was a political science major.)

 

 How do I use my human resource metrics to determine business value? [20:19m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download