A post over at Vendorprisey (with a very clever title) got me thinking about Software as a Service (SaaS) again. So often, conversations about SaaS involve an argument about what is and what is not considered SaaS. 

To a certain extent these discussions can be helpful -helping to classify different solutions into categories that imply certain attributes and benefits. But to regular folks, the nomenclature is irrelevant – it’s the benefits that matter.

It made me consider how to uncover the benefits amidst all the technology talk. So here’s a first attempt at some simple questions any layperson can ask to make sure they get the most our of a technology solution. If you have any suggestions – shout ‘em out. 

1. Who manages the technology infrastructure?
If it’s your company, then you’ll be responsible for ensuring the system is available and speedy, functioning correctly, secure, up-to-date, scalable and integrated. If its your vendor, all that becomes their concern – and you can focus purely on results.

2. How do updates and enhancements get made and how often?
Good software is like a living thing. It should grow and get stronger and more capable over time. When your vendor updates the system or enhances it with new capabilities – every customer should get the benefits and have the option to take advantage. The second part is the frequency of updates – in general, more is better. You want your vendor to be constantly improving what they deliver to you and you want to be able to take advantage of it way more often than 1 time per year.

3. Who is making the system work the way it needs to?
This gets at the “customization vs. configurability” issue.  If the answer is a software engineer or programmer it means you are going the customization route. Software code has to be written or edited to get the system to work the right way. This is a big red flag. I’ll explain in a minute. If the answer is a domain expert (in our case, an HR practitioner) – you’re in better shape. It means your solution is being configured to suit your needs from a huge menu of available options.

Why is configured better than customized? The result may be the same – a system that supports your processes the way you want it to – but the devil, as always, is in the details. With a customized solution – you’re on your own. You’ve got a unique bit of software that’ll have its own quirks – so when it comes to supporting, updating and maintaining it – there are unique challenges every time. With a configured solution, everyone is working from the same core – even though every customer’s solution is completely different..

4. Is this about technology or business results? 
If it’s clear that the planning for your roll out is all about the technology – what servers, what installation, what integration, etc – then you’re going to end up solving a technology problem, not a business problem. Finding a partner that can help you focus on the business results of your efforts is the only way to achieve your business goals.

Dubs makes the very good point that satisfaction and engagement are not the same thing in his post on the “top 10 employee satisfaction indicators.” He has a point. After all, who cares if employees are happy, so long as they’re engaged with their work. But satisfaction does play a role in engagement. Even if the traditional markers of engagement (right tools, personal growth, common purpose, etc) are in place, it’s hard to see the benefits (more productive, profitable, customer-focused) if employees are caught up in nagging Dis-satisfiers.

This study on 2.2 million respondents at over 2,100 companies revealed some obvious and not so obvious elements of employee satisfaction:

1. Higher salaries – pay is the number one area in which employees seek change.
2. Internal pay equity, particularly having concerns with “pay compression” (the differential in pay between new and more tenured employees).
3. Benefits programs, particularly health/dental, retirement, and Paid Time Off/vacation days. Specifically, many employees feel that their health insurance costs too much, especially prescription drug programs.
4.“Over-management” (A common phrase seen in employee comments is “Too many chiefs, not enough Indians”).
5. Pay increase guidelines should place greater emphasis on merit.
6. The Human Resource department needs to be more responsive to their questions and/or concerns.
7. Favoritism.
8. Improved communication and availability (both from their supervisors and upper management).
9. Workloads are too heavy and/or departments are under-staffed.
10. Facility cleanliness.

If I asked you to guess what would be on this list, I’d wager you could get most of these right. Just about everyone wants to be paid more (1), to be paid fairly (unless they’re paid more) (2), to have more and better benefits (3), to work less (9) and to know more (8).

With that said, a couple of these answers jump out at me. First, #5 – Pay increase guidelines should place greater emphasis on merit. It’s almost as if employees are asking to have pay linked to performance. Second, #7 – Favoritism. How to eliminate favoritism? Have an objective mechanism for measuring and rewarding performance.

So even in a rather obvious setting, some insight can reveal itself. While it’s unlikely that you can easily do anything about the majority of these complaints, #5 and #7 give you a toe hold on the way to improving satisfaction and engagement.

A colleague sent me this article which encourages us all to get hip to the dangers of jargon. According to a survey by YouGov, 40+% of people think phrases like “blue sky thinking,” and “getting our ducks in a row,” makes bosses look “untrustworthy and weak.”

But, perhaps even more interestingly,  people apparently have this stuff on the brain, because someone else sent me this clip from the Wall Street Journal talking about the next set of annoying words we all will be using shortly. Here’s the scoop:

Jargon OUT:

rightsizing, digitization, war for talent

Jargon IN:

delayering, web 2.0, knowledge acquisition, unsiloing

I guess it all sort of depends what world you’re living in – I don’t sense that “war for talent” is on the wane. Not even a little bit.