Small businesses have the same people and talent challenges that big companies do and can reap the same benefits from HR technology. The HR software available to HR leaders today makes managing people and performance easier and more effective. The bottom line is that HR software:

The 1960's called; they want their Succession Planning binder back. When you think of bringing together all of the succession planning data collected on talent review forms does it make you want to fall from a building on Madison Avenue like Don Draper? Surely, Don would have looked quite favorably on a talent management system that gave him solid ground to promote Pete to Partner, and that would provide an eager Peggy with a specific career road map. Unfortunately, the vintage talent development process mostly consisted of discussions over cigarettes and martinis at the Old Boys' Club. If succession data even existed in hard copy, it certainly was not made readily accessible to leadership in the rigorous, networked, and easily digestible format it is today.

Ban the Binder Series Part 2:

Clouding the Talent Assessment in Succession Planning

The moment you ditch the binder, you begin helping your organization to realize all of the potential and benefits of a well-built succession planning process. From cultivating talent through mentor driven development programs, to challenging high-potentials with stretch assignments so that they may assume more risk and reap more rewards, to securing resources to build new training models that maximize leadership growth – the perks of a well-planned succession planning process will make you wonder why it has (quite literally) been shelved for so long.

What seems like MANY years ago, while in my first corporate HR job, I was thrilled to be given the opportunity to lead the company’s succession planning process. In years past, succession planning had been a behind-the-scenes, secretive process but senior leaders were open to building a new process focused upon development.  Wow – I was excited.  What’s more, we created a powerful Microsoft Access tool to store the talent assessment data (albeit, I had to bring in temps to hand enter the assessment data that was collected on expensively printed surveys) and allowed us to search and track leaders across the company.  We were at the fore front!  I thought that I had at last seen the end of the Succession Planning Binder/s.  Oh, how I was wrong.

It’s mid-January….. have you kept your New Year’s resolutions?

The classic research on goal setting and motivation theory states that individuals are more likely to be motivated to perform by creating their own specific goals and working toward those performance goals while receiving feedback on their progress. This theory is summarized using the anagram, SMART, which means Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound (also see our whitepaper: SMART Performance Goals).

Ah August, the time of year we don’t feel quite as guilty about taking a short respite from our usual caffeinated daily dash. Like many of you, I set aside some of that downtime to catch up on the stack of magazines piling up on my kitchen counter.  Obviously, if I choose to recycle them before at least giving them a quick scan, I will miss something earth-shatteringly important! Something like the July issue of Wired where the cover story – The Mental Machine by Thomas Goetz – discusses how technology is rekindling the use of feedback loops to change behavior. I was quite intrigued to read further as my long buried dissertation research explored how this very theory could explain behavioral change following 360 degree feedback.

An Interview with Lead Developer, Yuriy Shikhanovich on the evolution of employee performance management technology.

Once upon a time, in a dark corner cubicle, across from the fax machine and Goliath copier, sat a young bright-eyed intern sorting through stacks of paper and occasionally stopping to peck some data into Excel 3.1. She feverishly worked to enter the 360 degree feedback results into the spreadsheet so that she could begin analyzing the manager’s data.