Today Patersons Press Release hit the news wires announcing our newest partnership. Patersons offers a single global payroll solution across 120+ countries.  They employ a “hybrid” approach, meaning they have their own payroll in some countries and have entered into strong partnerships with best-of-breed, local payroll vendors in other countries.  They provide a single Web-based front-end for data management and they take responsibility for managing the interfaces back and forth between the HR front-end and each of the local country payroll engines.

Our expectation is that this solution will help our global clients meet their global payroll challenges:  Patersons provides the software (yes, it’s SaaS) and Jeitosa provides the project management, business process optimization, and technical support, such as conversions and other needed interfaces. We are looking forward to continuing to help our clients go global!

The tides are shifting on the age-old question for Human Capital Management (HCM): Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) Suite versus Best-of-Breed (BOB). The 1980’s movement toward a single vendor, single platform ERP system is altering its course toward modern, agile, single function, fully integrated systems. This change is being enabled with the growth of Web 2.0 — the method of software and service delivery via the Internet that is now penetrating all aspects of our work and personal lives.

In their article “Unbundling the Corporation,” McKinsey consultants John Hagel and Marc Singer contend that “the forces that fractured the computer industry are bearing down on all industries. In the face of changing interaction costs and the new economics of electronic networks, companies must ask themselves the most basic of all questions: what business are we in?”  The movement to outsource non-core functions to reduce ongoing costs and allow the company to focus on their core competencies is being made easier with the drastic cost reductions in communications and technology. Just look at the prices of cell phones and, in particular, netbooks, which now can do more than many desktops!

Because systems integration and human collaboration across space and time have never been easier or cheaper, it is now often more cost-effective to communicate across organizations than within one. Hence, we are seeing the un-bundling of the modern organization into separate and discreet functions — either outsourced, offshored or split off into shared services centers — so that each function can focus on what they do best. Hagel and Singer maintain that “activities that companies have always believed to be central to their business will suddenly be offered by new, specialized competitors that can undertake those activities better, faster, and more efficiently.”

This shift is causing the modern organization to un-bundle and then re-bundle their activities and infrastructure into more agile, nimble structures that can change and scale up or down as business needs dictate. So what does all this mean for the modern HR organization and for HR technology? HR has long been an organization that has worked across boundaries, and functions such as benefits and payroll have long been outsourced to third-parties. Yet, the un-bundling of HCM will have a much farther reaching impact. Beyond benefits, payroll, and call centers, we are seeing the un-bundling of HR services from RPO (recruitment process outsourcing) to off-boarding and the un-bundling of HR technology from licensed enterprise resource planning (ERP) software to subscription-based software-as-a-service (SaaS).

Adapting from Hagel and Singer’s model to HCM, the modern HR organization needs to focus on three key areas: employee relations, service delivery, and infrastructure and tools (see graphic below). These areas rarely match the company’s formal organizational structure, and each has different goals, different economies, and different competition and cultural underpinnings. HR business processes are typically cross-functional, stretching both horizontally and vertically across the organization; as they cross these different areas of the organization, the goals and expected results inevitably conflict. “Scope, speed, and scale can’t be optimized simultaneously; trade-offs must be made,” according to Hagel and Singer. Thus, it is by un-bundling HR and building dedicated teams to focus on specific areas — either within or outside the organization — that we can achieve the best results. Allow your recruiting partner to battle for the best talent, demand your benefits provider to provide the best-in-class, most flexible programs, and ensure your technology infrastructure is standardized, variable cost, and highly scalable.

Vinnie Mirchandani from Deal Architect is doing a series on the impact that technology has had/is having on hobbies and asked me to participate. You can read my take on technology and tennis here, as well as many other great posts such as the impact of technology of sailing, basketball, wine and beer making, gardening, chess, restoring antiquated books, and 30+ other interesting hobbies and life activities.  Many thanks to Vinnie for spearheading this great series!

Today is Ada Lovelace Day and I’m joining bloggers across the world to write a post about a person I admire in Technology. But first, here are a few words about Ada Lovelace, who is considered to be the first woman in technology:

“Ada Lovelace (1815 – 1852) is often referred to as the world’s first computer programmer. The daughter of the famous poet Lord Byron, and the admired intellect, Annabella Milbanke, Ada Lovelace represented the meeting of two alternative worlds: the romanticism and art of her father versus the rationality and science of her mother…. In her attempt to draw together these polar opposites…, Ada collaborated with the renowned mathematician and inventor, Charles Babbage.”

“Ada Lovelace’s reputation comes from her important work interpreting Charles Babbage’s Analytical Engine…. Ada translated Babbage’s paper on the principles of the Analytical Engine from French but in doing so she added lengthy notes and further level of understanding which perhaps even Babbage himself had not achieved. Babbage was impressed with her work, describing her as ‘the Enchantress of Numbers’…. Ada had understood the significance of the Analytical Engine and its implications for computational method. She saw that through the punched card input device the Analytical Engine opened up a whole new opportunity for designing machines that could manipulate symbols rather than just numbers. Her achievements are even more exceptional given the attitudes of Victorian Britain towards the intellectual pursuits of women.”

Like Ada, Row Henson is (one of) the first women in HR Technology.  Row has been involved in Human Resources and Human Resource Management Systems for the past three decades. Retired from full-time employment, splitting her time between her homes in Altanta and southern France, Row continues to be very involved in the Human Resource field. She is currently a PeopleSoft fellow, providing thought leadership, input, and advice on the company’s HRMS product line — a natural role for her after serving eight years at PeopleSoft as Vice President of HRMS global product strategy where she was involved in setting the direction for the company’s flagship Human Resources product line. She was voted one of the “Top Ten Women in Technology” by Computer Currents, received IHRIM’s (International Association for Human Resource Information Management) coveted Summit Award for lifetime achievement in her field, and was named the first Visionary of HR Technology at the Annual HR Technology Conference.

I had the pleasure to work with Row in 1997 when we were both living in Paris.  She joined the IHRIM Journal Editorial Advisory Board as I co-founded it, and we have continued to collaborate on articles, presentations, and publications in the field of HR Technology over the years. Among her many professional contributions, she was one of the early advocates raising the bar for HR technology beyond purely administrative and transactional processing to more strategic workforce management issues. Row is not only an admirable HR technologist, but also a wonderful, warm-hearted person, with a passion for travel, french food and wine, and a deep love for her dog.

In these difficult economic times, companies are continuing to look for ways to reduce costs and keep the workforce engaged in spite of layoffs all around us.  Leveraging Web 2.0 technologies is clearly one solution that addresses both of these issues.  McKinsey has just published a great article on “Six Ways to Make Web 2.0. Work” (February 2009) (sorry, premium membership required).  I’ll summarize them here, because I think these are vital activities for anyone partaking on any type of new initiative — not only Web 2.0 initiatives:

1. “The transformation to a bottom-up culture needs help from the top.”  Every initiative needs executive support.  Executives need to walk the talk… not just talk the walk…  Executives must model the behavior they want to see — in the words of Mahatma Gandhi, they must “be the change they wish to see in the world.”

2. “The best uses come from users—but they require help to scale.”  People are eternally creative.  They will find new uses for the technology or process being implemented that will exceed the ideas and plans of even the best management and/or deployment teams.  Seek out these uses and reward and support continual innovation. 

3. “What’s in the workflow is what gets used.”  Any new effort needs to be integrated into the day-to-day activities of the users.  Anything that is perceived as “extra” work on top of an already over-full plate will be rejected and ignored.  The new effort must become an integral component in getting a normal day’s work done effectively.

4. “Appeal to the participants’ egos and needs—not just their wallets.“  Setting performance metrics based on contribution may not always be the most effective way to incent behavior.  Creative individuals will find ways to “game the system” and quality will suffer at the expense of quantity.  Public recognition can be a strong and less expensive incentive.

5. “The right solution comes from the right participants.”  It is vital to identify the stakeholders involved in the effort and to support the “players” and “change agents” and to mitigate the influences of the “cynics” and “detractors”. Gaining involvement and buy-in from decision-makers and influencers is critical to the success of any initiative.

6. “Balance the top-down and self-management of risk.”  Fear of the unknown and concerns over compliance and exposure must be balanced with the effectiveness being sought through the new initiative.  Having HR, IT, Finance, and Legal all a part of the project ensures that all sides are properly represented in making the right decision.