Nov 26
This week I finally made it to Social HR Camp (after scheduling conflicts in past years) and got to hear about all kinds of cutting-edge HR/People tech making its way onto the market. It was an exciting and interesting event. Also this week, I had dinner with a friend who shared that her 600 person organization still does payroll manually. She had the carbon paper pay slip to prove it. Reader, I nearly choked on my focaccia bread.
It wouldn’t have occured to me to write about technology this week, even after attending Adam Alter’s talk about addictive tech at Rotman on Monday, which made such a big impression on me. Then Austin Kleon’s weekly newsletter landed in my inbox headed by this image, and it felt like a sign.
Last Monday I was part of a panel at an event titled “Keeping HR Human in a Digital World”. It was a great panel with diverse viewpoints and experience, and a lively audience that stuck around to ask questions and chat.
A question that wasn’t asked, but maybe should have been is:
“What do we even mean by ‘digital’?”
Certainly we all know the literal meaning of ‘digital’, and based on the discussion at this event, we definitely get that a digital world means one with lots of technology…but how is that different than last year, or 5 years ago, or even 10?
A weekly post in which I share thoughts provoked by (some of) the great content I came across this week(ish).
A weekly post in which I share (some of) the most thought-provoking content I read this week(ish), which I am too lazy to write full blog posts about.
At a recent author’s talk at the University of Toronto, Joshua Gans opened discussion about his latest book ‘Disruption Dilemma’ by observing:
“People now want to be called disruptive, even when what they are doing is not, and that is a problem.”
He’s right, of course. If I have to listen to one more person tell me that their business idea is ”like Uber, but for X” and then proceed to explain something that is completely and entirely un-Uberesque, I am going to start carrying an airhorn.
“It’s like Uber, but for pet foo-MEEEEEEHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!
As HR evolves, one of the many challenges we face as a profession is how best to deliver value to our organizations in ways that are aligned with the leaner, fast-moving nature of today’s business landscape. The wide adoption of HR technology, self-service models, and outsourcing are a few methods that the HR profession has increasingly turned to in an effort to place limits on the admin-focused work that has threatened to overwhelm our function. And yet…this kind of automation is unacknowledged as a delicate art; a balance must be sought. We need only look to the larger market for examples…
In recent years a handful of telecom and tech service companies have begun advertising the ease with which their customers can access a “real human being’ by phone as a key differentiator of their service. A real human- imagine! Read more
Have you tried a MOOC yet? That’s a Massive Open Online Course…but you’re forgiven if you thought it sounded like a new cheese snack for kids (They’re Moooocalicious!). It’s likely that 2012 will be remembered as the year that MOOCs hit the mainstream. Udacity, Coursera, MITx and edX- premier institutional organizations are offering their courses to anyone, free, online. Is this the future of education and learning? Does it signify that open education ideals have been realized?
Hello everyone. My name is Jane…and I’m a late adopter. Yes, it’s true. I’m ashamed to admit this, but until last year I still had…a flip phone. It feels good to finally tell someone.
The truth is that I’ve always been late to the party. Cell phones, Facebook, Linked In- I boarded the bus late on all of these. Believe it or not, I may have been the only person on Earth in 2002 that somehow still didn’t know that Haley Joel Osment could see dead people.
I recently had the opportunity to evaluate a new candidate assessment tool that is about to go into Beta. I love doing stuff like this. Poor guy that was charged with collecting my feedback ended up answering two pages of my questions before he got to ask his J Now, using tests as part of the selection process is nothing new, but it certainly feels as though there has been a renewed and vigorous focus on candidate assessments within the HR Technology landscape of late. Maybe the sluggish economy has created a heightened sensitivity amongst employers to the costs and risks associated with making a bad hire. Or maybe the sweet promises that the proponents of Big Data keep whispering in our general direction has made us hungry to know how all that info can help rid us of doubt about whether our top candidate is really The One.
Talent Vanguard 