I’ve been busy travelling to several customer sites to talk about new talent management projects. I am very encouraged by what I’m hearing, especially with respect to the way HR leaders are engaging in the process of creating the right kind of ‘bridge’ between process and technology to solve critical business problems.
As I wrote about in my recent post from the cruise ship, many of the companies that jumped into talent management early are now struggling to reap some of the long-term benefits of integration and the use of competencies in collecting data. But the last three meetings I’ve attended with VPs of HR (in the last three weeks, by the way), I’ve noticed consistency in the longer-term thinking that seems to be taking place. And some of these customers have point solutions installed — others are just getting started. But the story is the same — we have to look at the broad range of issues (with surprising focus on building a reusable competency infrastructure) FIRST — then look at business process, then technology. Now for some, that will require reworking that technology. For others, it’s a great opportunity to select a well integrated suite of products with an embedded competency framework (sorry, I couldn’t stop myself!).
The benefits of such an approach are broad and game-changing. Some, like John Ingham in a recent post suggest that the implications are dramatic and could be costing organizations billions. If it’s true, and companies can really master all elements of good talent management (people, process, AND technology), there should be competitive advantage for those that do.
And if my unscientific data is any indicator, perhaps there’s a trend. Time will tell, and I’ll be watching.
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1 response so far ↓
Barry Johansen // May 11, 2008 at 8:58 pm |
The integration of competencies must start before we work to integrate our technologies. A well integrated talent management system must be founded on solid job and competency models, otherwise we run the risk of simply automating a bad process (Insert you’re favorite metaphor: “Old wine in a new bottle, garbage in, garbage out, creating bad data faster……”).
The good news is that when organizations start to explore the advantages and leverage that can be created by an integrated strategic human capital management system, the underlying problems become obvious. Organizations are forced to re-examine the philosophy, assumptions, and processes, as well as how technology can integrate and enable these factors.
It would be hard to overstate the importance of a solid competency model as the foundation of this process. Everything we do in terms of strategic human capital management–recruiting/selection, performance management, learning & development, succession planning, and compensation management relies on a well defined job and competency model.
Building a competency & job model is not a trivial exercise and takes time. While it is possible to buy a job model and/or competency library, most are limited in scope (for example, limited to “leadership”). To gain full advantage of a strategic and integrated HCMS any purchased model will need to be adjusted to fit the unique needs of the organization and, in many cased, expanded to encompass additional roles and functions.
Ideally this should be done before a strategic/integrated HMS is selected and launched.