HRMS Hot Spots

 HR Bytes - Blog by Amit Avasthi

It might be a bit early to say so, but a lot of indicators are promising an end to the deeply feared phenomenon of global recession. A phenomenon that shut the doors of many companies and also ended a lot of promising careers. The impact has been profound more so because we are all a part of "connected" world order

Throughout this period, academicians and practioners have been giving different advices on how to tide the crisis. But with the end of the turmoil near in sight its time to look back, reflect, change and quickly adapt to the new world.

Folks, finally some good news i am all set to start blogging. As I had shared in my previous post, i was awaiting clearance from my employer to start blogging again.
With the clearance now in place, am ready to blog again

I have been getting mails inquiring if I would not be blogging anymore ? I must apologise to the readers of this blog for not being able to post new blog post. As most of you are aware I have just joined my new job, so i am still in the process of getting more clarity around the policy to ensure that i can blog smoothly.
Till then I would request you all to bear with me. :-)

Thanks

While listening to my 5 and 7 year old daughters play the game that they were making up as they went along, I got an eerie sense of similarities between the conversation that they were having and the ones that I imagine go on in many HR departments:

To begin with, I would like to apologize for the long duration where I could not send posts, I got a lot of emails from people asking about the reason, to share with you it was due to a change which was keeping me occupied. In my blog,I have talked about so many trends and changes that organization faces in today's environment.

I have been a big fan of Cedar Crestone survey for its sheer ability to combine HR and Technology so well.
Last year results were amazing, those who missed it can have a look at the results here

Recently, I presented on the above topic at a Seminar. I was absolutely thrilled by the kind of questions I got in response to this topic, there were HR managers who wanted to know how to go about Cost cutting, there were others who wanted to know whom to layoff, yet there were others who shared their own experiences and what they had done.
I would like to share this from two perspective in two articles

a. From a HR perspective in this article

b. From a HR IT perspective in my next article.

For those of us on the web it was hard to avoid the competition between Ashton Kutcher and CNN to see who could get 1,000,000 followers on Twitter first. (For anybody that has not seen the information on it, just Google "Ashton CNN" and you will get plenty of hits.) So big deal... a media giant and a celebrity are playing out on the internet... what does that mean to us?

Performance Appraisal and Management have been close to the heart of many HR professionals because this is what is suppose to align business and individual goals. Sadly, as many of us may not like to really accept it, its a process which has become more like a compulsory year end event.

Gautam blogged on a interesting subject here what he talks about is how recruiters are using status update to innovatively advertise vacancies.
He also points out to the fact that they are bypassing the LinkedIn Job facility which is a paid service.

My thought on this article came from a very useful post I saw on John Ingham's blog here.
It quotes a number of studies and reports to show how Talent Management has shifted from the priorities of CEO. Its not a good news if you are a fan of HR fraternity like I am. I would like to take a different perspective on things.

With the recent downturn, employees across world are becoming insecure about their jobs, they are thronging networking sites and in the process, little known sites too have become popular, while taking users of sites like LinkedIn to a little over 35 million. Even Facebook, which was vastly recognised for its social networking has crossed 175 Million users. A trend reflected here

A McKinsey Quarterly article about how to manage talent in downturn here, points to an interesting case in point - Often the easiest is not the best.
The article talks about how organizations should carefully look at redesigning jobs and roles to effectively allow their employees not just to stay in the organization but also increase their productivity and improve their morale.

I would like to place on record my sincere thanks and gratitude to the support that I got from everybody through messages, posts during this period. It certainly helped me get motivated enough to start blogging again.Though it did take a long time for me to start blogging again, I am glad I am back.
So here I am back to Blogging, and with a promise to bring you more and best of HR Bytes in the days to come.
Thanks again for all the support

Many job candidates list certifications as a part of their resume - Certified Project Planner, Certified Public Accountant, A+ certifications, Oracle Certifications ... - the list could go on all day. The question is, do recruiters take the time to verify these certifications? What is the process that is gone through to double check if the candidate is truly certified? It is enough trouble for recruiters to go through to verify a candidates College degrees and those requests are fairly common and processes well spelled out.

After a customer requested information from me on implementing Pay cards in Oracle Payroll, I decided to look into this process more closely. Looking at information on the American Payroll Association site, there is a paper (http://legacy.americanpayroll.org/pdfs/pt5f/f1005.PDF) that has the following information:

11th Jan would remain etched in my memory forever. I lost my source of inspiration, and also an inspiration for this blog - my beloved mother. This blog would remain silent for sometime to come, that also explains my previous irregular blogging.
While I gather strength and courage to get back to blogging, I would request the patrons of this blog to bear with me.

President Elect Barack Obama takes over the President of US in a few days from now. While there are huge expectations, there is also a story of how wonderfully the whole campaign was driven
I came across this article in Harvard Business Publishing,Senator Obama has shown how powerful management innovation can lead to a successful transformation.

My name is Karla Dixon. I have been working with Oracle Human Resources support for 10 years. Before that I worked in a variety of industries using my degree in Human Resources Management and my curiosity about new technologies. This space will look at the changing environment for Human Capital Management and technologies that are included in those changes for better or worse.

Look forward to seeing your comments and feedback.

Came across this press release from Gartner and I thought its a wonderful piece of information capturing the need for building employer brand and use of software and Social Networking tools to manage talent.
I would present my two takes on the article here.

William Tincup just published my blog story here. Thanks William !!!

When I started, I never thought I would become a regular blogger.
I think blogging as a medium of expression of thoughts is very powerful and can leverage big ideas and explore thoughts of communities like never before.
I just hope to continue my humble efforts of sharing what I know and what I claim to know.

I thought I would update you with some changes to my blog.
I have just joined Google connect, and its a useful tool to keep people connected.
You can also follow me on my blog and stay connected with all the updates
Comments and feedback are welcome on my blog Wall.
(All these tabs are available on my blog homepage)
Look forward to hearing from you.

I am often being asked this question these days " What impact would the slowdown have on HR technology investments" and " what's the advice for HR on technology these days" ??
While I did write an article on impact of slowdown , but to be honest and fair that was just the beginning of what we are now witnessing as a global phenomenon. The impact has been so encompassing and profound that companies have put a freeze on IT investments, what was presumably what used to be called as business enablers have now taken backseat.

Nothing could have been worse than your CEO asking you to cut the flab !!!
These are tough times indeed and HR / Talent / People are the first to bear the brunt.
Isn't it ironical that the function that has been trying to prove that people investment is like investment in capital is asked to cut down headcounts in tough times.
This holds true more because organizations have little to do with the cost of human capital, and returns also include intangible. How does HR ensure in such times that it does not loose critical talent ?.

I had blogged about the Cedar Crestone HR Survey here

CedarCrestone has released the results of its HR Systems survey, the FIRST one to be conducted in APAC. CedarCrestone has been doing this worldwide survey for the last 11 years, covering major trends and providing insights into the latest practices and adoption of HR technology.

The Coverage

What globalisation can do is amazing and the fallout of a recession is even more amazing. Jobs are getting wiped by scores. The other day I was speaking with a few of my friends who are thought leaders in the HR community and they seem to be unanimous that these are really tough times.Nobody seemed to have a real answer as to what's best but it does have a cultural connotation something that I would like to stress upon later in this article

First the iPhone, and now gPhone. It seems that we are just about to enter a new world of mobile computing where enterprises would be surprised, in some cases overwhelmed by the way such technologies can impact them.

Technology is growing by leaps and bounds, and in this lies the opportunity to make the workplace even more connected.

Its time for organizations to realise that connectivity and convergence of different forms of technology is no more a myth but a reality. More so, such a convergence can permanently change the landscape of how we work.