Success(fully)Connect(ing)
Day 2 of SuccessConnect ran parallel with the Inform Impact pre-conference workshops with more delegates arriving at the picture-perfect conference location. While SuccessFactors was running sessions on creating a high performance work environment, achieving goal management excellence and employee central, Inform held workshops such as Measuring the ROI of Human Capital, Bridging the Gap: Taking Analytics from Page to Practice and PowerUp iᶟ. A common theme across all events was the importance of human capital. Carolyn Littlefield, Senior Product Marketing Manager, in her session on Employee Central: Next Generation Core HR described people as a company’s most strategic asset and emphasised the significance of being able to have access to accurate and reliable information about your employees – whenever, wherever! The Employee Central module improves this access to employee information and further empowers collaboration across the enterprise. I think that this particular session really showed that the SuccessFactors modules are developed with the customer in mind so that the functionalities are relevant but easy to understand and use at the same time. As a result, managers do not need to read a manual to be able to use the tools and don’t really require any training at all as the tools selectively expose the user to the information and steps that are relevant to them.
The customers also took center stage at Tony Ashton’s session ‘PowerUp iᶟ’. Tony presented the most recent ‘powered by Inform’ product releases and how the product capability has changed over the past two years. He then encouraged attendants to provide their feedback, discuss their ideas on what they would like to see included in the tools and how the communication about new product releases could be improved. This session was therefore not only a chance for customers to learn more about recent product releases but it was also an opportunity to improve our understanding of our customers and their needs.
The day was rounded up by another cocktail party – although this time drinks weren’t served in the shark aquarium, participants were treated to a little casino event with a lot of Las Vegas flair. This event, organised by Adele Bernard, was a great opportunity for SuccessConnect and Inform Conference attendants as well as staff to mingle, network and schmooze over some drinks, nibbles and, of course, some gambling!
The next morning marked the official beginning of the 20th Annual Inform Conference. The conference was kicked off with an attention grabbing picture slideshow summarising some twenty years of Inform conferences. The man who needs no introduction – Peter Howes – then took to the stage. After welcoming everyone to the conference, Peter talked about the past, the presence and the future of the HR industry and how the HR mindset developed over the years. He concluded that the HR profession currently needs stronger skills in the interpretation and use of workforce data and that in the future the industry will require increasing automation of predictive analytics. I think there was not a person in the audience who could not sense Peter’s passion and commitment to his work and business. Peter then introduced Lars Dalgaard who told an interesting story of their first dinner meeting. As Peter had run late for their meeting and Lars had arrived extra early, Lars was left with sufficient time to actually read through all the folders on Infohrm and Peter Howes which he claims shaped the rest of the meeting. The rest of this keynote presentation focused on introducing SuccessFactors and what it is that they do. Lars even put on his Australian accent when talking about Inform “dar-tar” (data) to better connect with the local audience. It was definitely an inspiring and engaging session to kickstart the Inform Conference!
SuccessConnect at the Gold Coast: Sun, Sand and Sharks
SuccessConnect participants arrived to a cool breeze, sunny skies and a beautiful resort on the beach – the perfect location to talk about strategy execution? I think so!
Lars Dalgaard kicked off SuccessConnect at the Sheraton Mirage, Gold Coast yesterday by introducing SuccessFactors and highlighting some key advantages of Software as a Service, social business software and innovation. He ensured the audience that SuccessFactors “will find a way to make you successful”. Lars then introduced Anastasia Ellerby, Vice President Inform Services, to talk about a brand new module for SuccessFactors customers, the BizX Insights. This module allows decision makers to analyse data on a large variety of dimensions in order to make more effective, speedy and confident decisions. Dmitri Krakovsky, Vice President of Global Product Management, then wowed the audience with the latest module innovations.
After a well deserved morning tea break with coffee and Lamingtons (traditional Australian cakes), participants were treated to an insightful presentation by Dr Friedrich Froeschl, CEO and founder of HI TEC INVEST, who described some of the major hurdles in successful strategy execution which he has encountered in his career. To summarise his key ‘take away’ messages: execution is something that needs to happen at all levels of the organisation, strategy planning and execution are not two separate things – they should occur simultaneously, execution is a process not a single action and SuccessFactors can help its customers speed up the execution process. While talking about his experience as CIO at Siemens, Dr Froeschl did not talk favourably about SAP and instead continuously emphasised the important role of SuccessFactors in successful strategy execution. He finished the presentation by emphasising the importance of having a winner’s attitude and showed a picture of Lars Dalgaard who, according to Dr Froeschl, has made SuccessFactors successful because of his positive ‘can do’ attitude.
The cocktail reception at Sea World that evening was probably the highlight of the day for most participants. Drinks and nibbles were served in the shark aquarium! And as if it wasn’t enough to be looking at all kinds of beautiful fish, rays and sharks while nibbling on sushi, oysters, prawns and deep fried bananas wrapped in prosciutto (!!), the winners of the SuccessAwards were announced by SuccessFactors staff inside the shark tank! That’s right, two brave employees scuba-dived with the sharks and held up signs with the names of the award winners. Congratulations to all our winners!
Stay tuned for photos and more updates from SuccessConnect and the Inform 20th Anniversary Conference.
SuccessConnect San Francisco
Lars Dalgaard- CEO, SuccessFactors
Carlin Wiegner- CEO, Cubetree
Lars introduced Carlin and he did an amazing demo of Cubetree. By using Cubetree, Carlin demonstrated how to see group comments on a resume and how one could ultimately be in two meetings at once. After Carlin, Lars introduced Calibration, and the new launch of a new Goal Execution function, as part of the Goal Management Module. Calibration, the industry’s first solution for streamlining and simplifying the calibration process at enterprises for improved business results through more impactful talent initiatives. The Goal Execution helps companies make sure that people are working on the right things at all times by bringing awareness, visibility and tracking of progress against company goals into the daily work of employees. Lars and Dmitri did a quick demo of the new Goal Execution function by showing the execution map and status update function. The recruiting demo has some great new features, which Lars’ showed off by scoring a potential candidate off stage on his Blackberry, and the improvement on turnaround time for candidate feedback. Peter Howes and Brian Kelly from Inform took the stage next. Peter talked about the history of Inform, GBMC, and BizX Insights. The keynote ended with Lars discussing Employee Central.
Peter Howes- CEO, Inform & Brian Kelly- President, North America
SuccessConnect 2010 in San Francisco had a huge surprise in store for everyone. An extra keynote speaker was added! Dr. Chip Heath, a Professor at Stanford University School of Business and author of best seller “Made to Stick” and “Switch” gave a great lunch keynote. Nothing but excitement here in the city by the bay.
SuccessConnect NYC
Lars Dalgaard - CEO, SuccessFactors
SuccessConnect 2010 had an amazing kickoff today in New York. Lars opened up his keynote using a big spinning “Wheel of Success” to determine what to talk about, all while holding his son, Lars Jr. right by his side. The “Wheel of Success” had topics ranging from a “Funny Lars Story” to “Insight for Impact”, and proved to be very entertaining and informing.
Lars introduced Calibration and the new launch of a new Goal Execution function, as part of the Goal Management Module. Calibration, the industry’s first solution for streamlining and simplifying the calibration process at enterprises for improved business results through more impactful talent initiatives. The Goal Execution helps companies make sure that people are working on the right things at all times by bringing awareness, visibility and tracking of progress against company goals into the daily work of employees.
Dmitri Krakovsky - VP, Product Management
Dmitri demoed the new products with a cool touch screen for everyone to see. The recruiting demo has some great new features, which Lars’ showed off by scoring a potential candidate off stage on his Blackberry. The keynote ended with Carlin Wiegner surprising everyone with a demo of Cubetree.
We are also thrilled to have had full houses in both bootcamp training sessions today, prior to our SuccessConnect kickoff and keynote! Over 30 companies participated in these paid training sessions, both on our “Introduction to SuccessFactory” class and on “Performance Fundamentals- Effective Goal Setting”. Let’s keep it coming New York!
Additional updates over on twitter.com/SuccessFactors
More photos available over on the SuccessFactors Facebook page
How connected are you?
In the recent global Connectivity Scorecard produced by Professor L. Waverman from London Business School in collaboration with LECG and Nokia Siemens Networks they have again studied how countries stack up when it comes to “Useful connectivity”
Connectivity Scorecard is a global ICT index – the first of its kind to rank 50 countries not only on their deployment of ICT infrastructure but also to measure the extent to which governments, businesses and consumers make use of connectivity technologies to enhance social and economic prosperity, so called “useful connectivity”.
Connectivity Scorecard 2010 highlights the continued need for investment in information and communications technology (ICT) to stimulate a return to economic growth. Here is the top 10 list for 2010. If you’re interested in comparing the development over time I suggest you visit their homepage and download the whole report.
1 Sweden 7,95
2 USA 7,77
3 Norway 7,74
4 Denmark 7,54
5 Netherlands 7,52
6 Finland 7,26
7 Australia 7,04
8 UK 7,03
9 Canada 7,02
10 Japan 6,73
With the winter Olympics just starting I was hoping that this list would be as contagious to the medal count as is a flu in a kindergarten. Bring it on.
Doing more with less
In a recent research study conducted by the Conference Board it’s concluded that in 2009 the global productivity fell by 1% on average which is the first time in 19 years it’s declined as measured as output per worked hour. On a global basis it is expected to grow by more than 2% in 2010.
There are significant differences between different regions that are noteworthy. In the US productivity (in per hour terms) actually grew 2.5%. This was explained by how companies in the US quicker and more drastically reduced their workforce to make the cost side of the productivity equation smaller. Productivity growth in the US is projected at 3%.
It’s interesting to contrast this to the European productivity growth that turned negative in 2009 where output per hour fell 1 percent.
“These are unusually large differences in productivity growth between the United States and Europe,” said Bart van Ark, chief economist of The Conference Board. “U.S. employers have reacted much more strongly to the recession than their European counterparts in terms of cutting jobs and hours. In 2010, both Europe and the United States will see higher productivity growth coming out of recession. However, a jobless productivity recovery is the most likely scenario in both regions.”
It’s also very interesting to see how for example the Chinese market at the same time had a productivity growth of 8.2%.
Good luck with your growth and productivity gains in 2010.
On SuccessFactors
To execute you need to make sure your staff knows what to do and are doing it. At some level it’s that simple.
I read this blog from a recent customer of ours http://www.core3solutions.com/home/ A small niche IT -solutions provider.
For them the answer is to leverage our Business Execution software.
By the way you have to check out Roxie – their Director of Entertainment
Enterprise 2.0?
What do you really know about your employees? Of course you know their basic employment information – Name, SSN, Race, Sex, etc… You may even have some insight into their performance levels, but do you know enough to confidently say that “we do/do not have to correct human resources to execute our strategy?” If the answer is no, then why not? The irony is that I would bet that somewhere in your organization you have a record of all tangible assets – every desk, laptop, truck, and printer that your company owns. Beyond simply that, I would also bet that someone could probably tell me when those assets are due for maintenance, lease renewal, or replacement. How is it possible that an organization likely knows more about their fleet of trucks, than they do their fleet of drivers? It’s simple really. You can liquidate, depreciate, and amortize your hard assets. There is no shortage of regulations on how to do so, when to do so, and (for those that slept through General Accounting class) why we even do so in the first place. Intangible assets on the other hand aren’t as simple. You can’t sell or trade them (except in Professional Sports), you can’t depreciate them over time, and other than basic labor laws, they really don’t come with many instructions. This is fine except for the fact that these intangible assets are generating a highly disproportionate amount of value for your company and shareholders. Your ability to grow revenues, reduce costs, create shareholder value, and successfully execute your company strategy is directly related to your willingness and ability to truly know your talent.
So how do you do it? Here’s a hint, why not simply imitate processes that they engage in during their time outside of the office? In the very new future your company is going to have to shift to Enterprise 2.0 much like the internet shifted to Web 2.0. Your employees are very good at sharing ideas, collaborating across functional lines, and engaging in valuable conversations with their peers. The problem is that they’re doing this in their personal lives much more than their professional ones. Take Facebook for instance. In one week this year, and estimated 5 million people posted “25 Things about Me” to their profiles. That’s literally 125 million facts that people shared in 7 days. Were all of those items valuable? Of course not, but what if Companies could harness that type of collaboration? Do they even know 5 things about their People? I’m not talking about their dog’s name, but do they know who speaks Mandarin, has a background in Investment Banking, or aspires to be a Chief Strategy Officer? What would that type of knowledge sharing and collaboration do for team building? Goal Setting? Or just the overall ability to Execute? The potential value is almost limitless, but only if companies start to realize that this level of collaboration only happens in an environment of transparency, one without the traditional barriers of silos and org charts that “compartmentalizes” their workforce. The companies that understand Enterprise 2.0 are likely to be the “winners” in the coming decade.
…but if I don’t know what to do?
Last week I was talking about instant feedback as a means to drive engagement and productivity. I just read this new piece of research from the UK where they YouGov surveyed 2100 employees and found that actually only 24 per cent said that their employer had clearly articulated their 2010 objectives to the workforce, while a third (32 per cent) even doubted there was a plan for their business at all.
According to an adviser David MacLeod to the group behind this research Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (Bis) there’s a huge loss at stake.
“This is just one example of how poor employee engagement can put the brakes on improved business performance. If leaders don’t explain where the business is going and what it’s seeking to achieve, how can people be motivated or know what they’re meant to contribute? Clear goals are a key ingredient for achieving performance and productivity – but worryingly this research suggests many employers haven’t yet grasped this for 2010.”
MacLeod further said that the financial benefit of engaging with staff is very real – if employer actions raise engagement by just 10 per cent, they could typically increase profits by up to £1,500 per employee per year.
Well I don’t know the details behind this particular study but it’s very consistent with tons of other research on the topic of the financial benefit from increasing people’s engagement levels from helping them know what to do. After all who’d argue that not knowing where the company’s heading nor not knowing what to do would make any sense at all.
Full post on the study results can be found here.
How am I doing?
There’s no shortage of reading and research married with opinions on how important it is to make sure your workforce is engaged in their job. It makes perfect sense so no real need to argue about its importance. Of course you do a better job if you care for what you do.
What is more important of course is to understand what drives individuals commitment or engagement levels. We know that understanding how what you do on a daily basis matters to the company and your customers is a key factor. What if you could get instant feedback on how you’re doing. I mean instant like in sports when people applaud or buh every move.
I just got back from a business trip to China and at the new airport in Beijing when going through customs you get the opportunity to provide instant feedback to the passport officer on duty. Talk about taking this seriously empowering the customer to provide instant feedback and the company in this case the government of China to take instant action to resolve any immediate issues as well constantly learn how to improve and become better.
On a side note if you’ve been through Heathrow lately I’m sure you understand and sympathize with me when I say that we all would want a way to provide feedback and help them improve as well. Happy travels!
