I had the pleasure of attending a breakout session called “Navigating the Immigration Landscape in 2015”.  As someone who has led HR departments where immigration played a role in our hiring, I was excited for the opportunity to hear the latest information.  According to Montserrat Miller, attorney at Arnall Golden Gregory LLP, there are several programs HR leaders should be familiar with.  In 2012, the President stated a series of actions he planned to take over the course of time (recommended by the Dept of Homeland Security) to implement immigration reform.  The two most controversial program components are:

• Expansion of DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals)
• Extend DAPA (Deferred Action to Parents of US Citizens and Lawful Permanent Residents).

If you’re not familiar with DACA, in 2012 the Secretary of Homeland Security announced that children who arrived in the US as undocumented could apply to defer deportation if they met some specific criteria.  If approved, they could have certain consideration such as being eligible for work authorization for a two-year period as well as Social Security numbers.  Even though they can work under DACA, they do not have lawful status. There are a host of criteria that you can find along with information on applying and if you’re an employer, resources for your organization.

The other program decision was to extend DAPA (Deferred Action to Parents of US Citizens and Lawful Permanent Residents).  This program temporarily protects millions of immigrants who come to the US and are not documented.  The program is controversial because it blocks the deportation of these immigrants.  Ms. Miller gave insights on each of the programs and let attendees know that these are important programs to stay apprised of since it could affect some of your employees.

Along with the immigration updates, Ms. Miller shared information that HR and recruiting leaders should be aware of.  A shocking fact is that eleven states are now giving State Driver’s Licenses to people who are undocumented.  As employers, we should not assume that just because an individual has a driver’s license he/ she has authorization to work in the US.  Using diligence around your I-9 process, typically through E-Verify, is the way to ensure you don’t make hiring mistakes in your intake process.

The speakers then pivoted to discuss the terms of new ways of working.  According to Jason Fry, there is a fast growing population of employees who will never work in your organization’s offices.  He shared a graph from the Wall Street Journal that showed in 2010, there were over 1.4M employees in management, business and financial positions working from home.  This was a 41% change from 2000.

Since HR leaders will come across remote workers, they were tips provided for handling these types of workers from a compliance standpoint.

• When completing an I-9, you need to ensure you have a trusted agent in that employee’s city to act as an authorized representative of your company.  This can include a lawyer, notary or onsite management employee.
• Always make sure you observe the 3-day rule, even with remote employees.
• Ensure that all authorized representatives have your Standard Operating Procedures for completing the I-9.  Failure to complete accurately can result in multiple fines per form if audited.

The final word on immigration and compliance remains being diligent in all interactions you have with potential employees when it comes to documentation.  Having a clear understanding of your state and federal rules will help ensure your compliance.  Additionally, having a partner who can keep you apprised of any legislative changes is a key recommendation.  I hope you’ll look for more blog posts from the Equifax Forum 15.  Thank you to Equifax for inviting several of our analysts.

-Trish McFarlane, VP and Principal Analyst, Human Resources, Brandon Hall Group @TrishMcFarlane

The post The Importance of Immigration Reform & Navigating Employer Status appeared first on BrandonHallGroup.

This episode focuses on Brandon Hall Group’s latest learning research, with my guest David Wentworth, Senior Learning Analyst at Brandon Hall Group since 2012. His focus has always been on emerging technologies, with a current concentration on social and mobile learning. Dave joins me to discuss a two research studies related to Learning Management Systems Trends and Training Benchmarking.

We talk about the purpose and benefits of the LMS Trends Survey and what he’s hoping to learn once the results are in. Dave also lets listeners know how they can get involved in participating in the survey and what they can expect after their participation.  He mentions several areas organizations dislike about their current LMS and some of the changes that vendors are making to respond to organizational needs.

Dave also talks about his upcoming Training Benchmarking Study and the impact of things like cost, logistics and mobile technologies on training.  I hope you’ll join us for this discussion and be sure to weigh in with your comments.  Thanks for listening!

–Trish McFarlane, VP and Principal Analyst,
Human Resources, Brandon Hall Group
@TrishMcFarlane

The post HCMx Radio: Brandon Hall Group’s Latest Learning Research appeared first on BrandonHallGroup.

My guest is Jay Shaw, CEO and Managing Director of NetDimensions.  Jay co-founded NetDimensions after more than a decade with NASDAQ-listed The Princeton Review (TPR). Jay’s experience includes running TPR operations in the US and Asia, in which capacity he held executive responsibility for organizing and delivering both academic and corporate training programs on a commercial basis. Jay taught English in China in 1984 and 1985. Jay is responsible for general group management and sales.

I talked with Jay about the move that the world is taking toward continued simplicity, from the way we schedule our time, the way we make purchases, to the way we interact with our technology at home or at work. He gives his views on the role simplicity plays in the technology space and describes whether it is better in terms of meeting what customers want or need.  He also speaks to the variance in the needs different organizations have as they purchase and use technology.

We also discuss the layers of misunderstanding when you think about the needless complexity vs. required complexity. Needless complexity could include automating bad processes or overly staged processes. Required complexity could involve highly regulated industries or specific reporting for regulators. We also touch on the needs of first-time buyers compared to those of experienced buyers. It all leads to a lively and informative discussion. I hope you’ll join us and also share your thoughts.

–Trish McFarlane, VP and Principal Human Resources Analyst, Brandon Hall Group

The post HCMx Radio: When Simplicity is Coveted, What’s the Value of Complexity? appeared first on BrandonHallGroup.

Each year Ultimate holds a user event, held last week in Las Vegas, to highlight the continued direction of the company and share their unique approach to designing tools with the end-user in mind, not the HR or recruiting leader. This is a shift from what many competitors do.  While it’s important to ensure the recruiting team, compensation analyst, or HR Director understands the functions and capabilities of the software, for Ultimate, the critical role is that of the employee or the manager. With a focus on simplicity in design and ability to use, Ultimate is able to add features without adding complexity.

Last year’s event included advancements in recruitment, payroll, onboarding and potential predictors. You can read about that here.  This year, there was an air of change in the approach of sharing.  While there are plenty of enhancements to the solution, as highlighted in the 2015 roadmap, there was also a common thread of expanding partnerships of all types.  This thread ran throughout many of the discussions during the event.  As my colleague Ben Eubanks shared in an earlier post, the big announcement was the new go-to-market partnership with NetSuite. I encourage you to read his post for more details.

So, what else is new for 2015?  Ultimate Software has a fairly aggressive road map as you’ll see below. That said, Cecile Alper-Leroux and other leaders on the Ultimate Software team took time to explain how the heavy investment in R&D, $112 million in 2015, combined with the product development team’s people-centric approach, will bring solutions to market more quickly.

Other than having a clear message that leads to the overarching strategy, Ultimate focuses on having the right tool at the right time. This ability to leverage the right technology helps make the solution more flexible and future-proofs the data store. Additionally, Ultimate has approached micro-services differently from its competition. Instead of having a mobile approach, they keep the focus on person first.  By doing this, they build solutions with experiences that give the customers choice. That means that the solutions can be used on very specific, personal devices as a consequence of focus on the person.

–Trish McFarlane, VP and Principal Human Resources Analyst, Brandon Hall Group

The post Ultimate Software’s People-Centric Roadmap appeared first on BrandonHallGroup.

Have you seen the Comcast TV ad starring Emily, the blind girl who describes how she sees The Wizard of Oz?  It was released during the Super Bowl, and you can still see shorter versions of the ad running with four longer versions available on YouTube.  The ad brings this girl’s “vision” of Oz to life for us and because she is blind, it’s quite different from the images we’ve seen over the years.

Seeing how a well-known story can be interpreted differently makes me think about the way businesses handle brand messaging. Every organization has a strategy for how they project their brand.  Companies spend billions each year creating brand messages designed to resonate with potential buyers and to keep re-engaging current customers. Marketing departments research what their target audience buys, how much it spends, what competitors stress, and how their organization can use brand messaging to beat the competition.

In a similar fashion, employers focus on creating a cohesive link between their brand messaging and the messages that are created and promoted with job candidates and employees.

However, employers cannot control messaging like they did in the past. Much like Emily, customers, employees — and even potential candidates — can take a company’s message and twist and change it through social media. In fact, over time, the message that evolves via social can become the REAL brand. While some companies have struggled through negative online content, many are finding great benefit to what is being shared, and this all strengthens their employee and customer value propositions.

Talent Acquisition Analyst Kyle Lagunas recently shared Brandon Hall Group’s interpretation of Employee Value Proposition in his blog, Employee Value Proposition: Back in Vogue.

As it relates to HCM, Brandon Hall Group is interested in the evolution of the Employee Value Proposition. We’ll be focusing some of our research on this topic in the second quarter and will be sharing our results and analysis in blogs, reports and infographics.  We already know from our experience with our clients that this is a topic of growing importance for business leaders.  We hope you’ll stay tuned and participate in our upcoming survey. In the meantime, check out the value of our membership by registering for a free trial.  You’ll get a peek at the type of studies we conduct and the results we share that will help drive your business decisions.

–Trish McFarlane, VP and Principal Analyst,
Human Resources Practice, Brandon Hall Group
@TrishMcFarlane

The post The Complexities of Employer Brand Messaging appeared first on BrandonHallGroup.

There are many ways to try to give this realistic job description. One of the most effective ways is to use simulation when recruiting for a role and to continue to use simulation in ongoing training as the role develops and progresses.  In the latest episode of HCMx Radio, I reach out to my colleague, Ben Eubanks, to talk about his recent research and ideas on simulation in recruiting and training.  Ben posted on the topic recently and also shared some of his tips in the embedded video, so I encourage you to click through for that.  Then, listen to our discussion on HCMx Radio.

In this episode, we talk about how HR leaders can learn and take action using case studies and how Brandon Hall Group members can access award-winning case studies.  We then jump into the importance of simulation in the recruiting function.  Ben comes up with some challenging questions for talent acquisition leaders and recruiters.  He then jumped into how shocking it is that we rely so heavily on interview questions instead of simulation, even though simulation will give you much more relevant information.  We talked about using simulation for jobs from administrative to factory positions and then turned to management roles.

Listen to HCMx Radio Now

(subscribers click through to listen to the embedded episode)

We hope you’ll find the discussion interesting and useful.  Please feel free to comment and let me know if you’ve found success using simulation in recruiting or training.  We’d love to hear what is working for you.

–Trish McFarlane, VP and Principal Analyst,
Human Resources Practice, Brandon Hall Group
@TrishMcFarlane

The post HCMx Radio: The Benefit of Simulation in Recruiting and Training appeared first on BrandonHallGroup.

“The brain likes to have a say in the future.”~ David Rock

I heard that quote recently in a session on The Neuroscience of Driving Performance.  David Rock (@DavidRock101 on Twitter and author of Your Brain at Work) led an insightful session at PeopleFluent Wisdom that made me think about leadership and style in ways I had never considered. As background, Rock is a consultant and leadership coach who is the CEO of Results Coaching Systems. He has written other books and materials on the subject of coaching, leadership and the way the brain works.

The message he shared was that we all grow more when we believe in change. Believe in change? Yes, believe it or not, there are people who do not believe people can change.  They believe that we are born a certain way, with specific dispositions. This idea of being born with a fixed mindset is very limiting as a leader and as an employee. If you have a fixed mindset, you believe you are born the way you are and cannot change. Therefore, you don’t see opportunities to improve with effort. You don’t want feedback and setting stretch goals is a disaster. Furthermore, other people’s success is a problem for you. If you are this type of leader, employees will come to you with checklists of completed tasks and projects because they realize they have to constantly “prove” to you that they are working.

The opposite is the leaders who have a growth mindset. If you have a growth mindset you believe people can grow and change with effort. Growth mindset individuals show an enhanced neural response reflecting greater attention to making mistakes relative to those with a fixed mindset.  They love stretch goals and are constantly trying new, innovative ideas.  If you are this type of leader, it translates into teams who want to innovate and improve on current ideas and processes.

Why is this important?

One reason is that in our workplaces, we experience leaders and colleagues with these opposing views and approaches.  This type of diversity in approach can negatively impact performance of the individual, the team and, if left unchecked, the organization.  In Brandon Hall Group’s 2014 State of Performance Management Survey, 34% of global organizations said that executives do not hold leaders accountable for performance. In our 2014 State of Talent Management Survey, results showed that 39% of global organizations plan to increase or significantly increase their focus next year on holding managers accountable.

So leader accountability is a major first step in improving performance management. The second step should be promoting the growth mindset with leaders.  This can lead to an ongoing performance development process that involves an ongoing dialogue between employee and manager, and peer-to-peer feedback as well. The bottom line is that we all grow more when we believe in change.

–Trish McFarlane, VP and Principal Analyst, Human Resources, Brandon Hall Group
@TrishMcFarlane

The post The Neuroscience of Driving Performance appeared first on BrandonHallGroup.

We’ve written many times about engagement and recognition in past Brandon Hall Group blogs.  I told you about the importance of compliments as a way to recognize employees and drive higher engagement.  Madeline Laurano, VP of Talent Acquisition/ Principal Analyst, reminded us to keep recognition simple so that it becomes part of the day-to-day routine.  Additionally, following her fall 2014 Employee Engagement Study, Madeline told us about creating a culture of recognition.

According to Madeline:

“By focusing on recognition, companies can help to boost employee engagement. In fact, recognition was cited as the most valuable tool for engaging employees over engagement surveys, wellness programs, and coaching and mentoring. Unlike traditional incentive programs that strengthen employee satisfaction for the short-term, a culture of recognition ensures that employee engagement levels are sustainable for the long-term. It requires companies to think about recognizing employees’ contributions continuously and not just at one point in time. Recognition should also include peer-to-peer initiatives where the power of relationships can help to drive engagement levels. Recognition — more than any other tool — is what can motivate employees and make them feel appreciated.”

With all this focus on recognition, the recent Fast Company article by Adele Peters, This Billboard Cheers If You Walk by It Instead of Drive, caught my eye. It’s the story of Susan Weigold, who had the concept of using a billboard to cheer for people as they walk or run by as a way of motivating them to continue exercising. According to the article, “She envisions the design fitting into a larger program that would connect people for community support as they exercise. “For me, it was all about making people believe that their actions were significant,” she says. “In the short term, it’s a cheering crowd. In the long term, it was grouping people together so that their little bit of effort adds up to something.”

While just a concept at this point, I began thinking of ways to apply this in the workplace to recognize all sorts of employee behaviors.  You could create small desk versions that would cheer for the employee when they did well on a project.  You could have larger versions in your conference room to cheer after a good presentation or meeting. The uses are limitless.  While these concepts may be a little “out there,” I challenge you to start thinking of ways that no one else is using to recognize your employees.

Are you already using recognition tools as a way to cheer on your employees for desired behaviors?  I’d love to hear what is working and what your concepts are.

–Trish McFarlane, VP and Principal Analyst,
Human Resources, Brandon Hall Group
@Trish McFarlane

The post 3 Cheers for Recognition appeared first on BrandonHallGroup.

• Those that have not quite met the mark in terms of a well-thought-out product or solution
• And those that not only have a great idea and funding, but have more customers interested than they can handle.

It’s a good problem to have, but what do you do when you have too much success too fast?

The first thing to do is develop a solid workforce plan.  As we’ve likely all experienced in companies where there is no real plan in place, having one can make the difference between failure and keeping up with customer demands and becoming a successful organization.  In her blog, Failing to Plan is Planning to Fail, VP and Principal Analyst for Workforce Management Mollie Lombardi lays out three things to know when considering creating a workforce plan:

• Analytics and planning go hand-in-hand. The plan, made using the organization’s data and analytics, will enable the leaders to think critically about the next steps for the organization.
• Make workforce planning a business issue. Having leaders create the workforce plan will make them more involved in understanding the KSAs needed in order to meet the demands of a growing company.
• Start the conversation. Far too many organizations simply have hope that they will find the talent they need as they grow and evolve. But organizations need to start thinking and planning today – because we all know what can happen if you fail to plan.

So, when creating your workforce plan, where should you focus first?  According to the Brandon Hall Group 2014 Workforce Management Study, 32% of organizations focused on schedule planning based on operational needs. Close behind were headcount at 26% and skill gap analysis at 23%.  The most surprising result was that 19% of organizations surveyed had NO formal workforce plan in place.

There are a few startups I’ve talked to recently that seem to understand the importance of having a workforce plan to address their growing company needs.  One is Brand Amper.

Brand Amper, recently named an Awesome New Startup by The HR Technology Conference, is a SaaS branding solution specifically designed to meet the demands of managing and building a brand on LinkedIn and other social platforms, where the voice of employee trumps the voice of the company. Brand Amper represents a new “lean” branding process that has the advantage of being much faster and cost-effective than traditional, antiquated processes.

Unlike online social profile optimization services, Brand Amper is a tool that provides a way for employees to represent the organization by sharing their own stories and relationships with the company.  It captures what employees say when not being guided by the company and puts the focus solely on the employee. These stories and related analytics allow the company to see what aspects of the company brand are resonating in real time.

With fast growth due to increasing client interests, CEO Jason Seiden and co-founder Lisa Cervenka had to consider workforce planning as the company expanded So far, they have been able to take that plan and put it into action to anticipate the growing demands of the market.

I asked Seiden how important workforce planning is to a new company.

“I think it is an important piece.  For a growing firm especially, it’s something that’s baked in to literally every decision we make, from legal organization structure, to workflow, to funding, to operations, to what clients we take on and when. Having the right people, right team/culture, and right systems gives you the health you need to overcome many inevitable biz challenges. Having the wrong workforce plan, however, is like having compromised health. Now, even a small operational challenge might sink you!”

With that in mind, how is your organization handling workforce planning?  Do you have a plan? Should you be thinking more like a start-up and ensuring that you have the right plan in place to support your organization’s goals?  I’d love to hear your thoughts and questions.

–Trish McFarlane, VP and Principal Analyst,
Human Resources, Brandon Hall Group
@TrishMcFarlane

The post When Success Comes Fast, It’s Workforce Planning to the Rescue appeared first on BrandonHallGroup.

• Survey questions make you think
• Survey writers create questions to get you to think carefully about a process, a product or a solution to your problems
• The survey can leave you wanting to know more
• You could get something free like a report or whitepaper to use in your organization

I wanted to take these ideas to HCMx Radio.  In this episode, I talk with my guest and the lead analyst on the HCM Technology Trends survey, Mollie Lombardi. Mollie is the VP and Principal Analyst/Workforce Management at Brandon Hall Group, and we discussed how high-performing organizations are approaching technology, trends she sees in technology this year, as well as her ideas on how HR leaders and practitioners benefit from participating in surveys.

With the pace of changes in HR Technology, some HR professionals can become intimidated about their skills and abilities.  It often seems overwhelming to think about how to learn about HR technology and then to keep abreast of all the new developments.  Mollie and I discuss some techniques of how to handle this. We’ll give you some concrete ways to partner in your organization so that you can move your HR department forward from a data analytics perspective.  We wrap with information on how to obtain a summary of the HCM Technology Trends highlights. You can still participate in the survey by clicking here.

We hope you’ll listen to this newest episode and let us know if you’ve seen benefits from participating in surveys as well!

–Trish McFarlane, VP and Principal Analyst,
Human Resources, Brandon Hall Group
@TrishMcFarlane

The post HCMx Radio: HCM Technology Trends appeared first on BrandonHallGroup.