Jamie Corn's Talent Management NewsBlog

Best practices on how to connect with C-Level Execs

2012-02-03T05:51:00.000-08:00

Interesting article I came across, it was written as a collaborative effort by an Executive Council focused on CIO's, but really, the same principles apply to anyone sitting in the C-Suite. The survey drew results from over 250 executives across the US. Here is the advice they had to help them minimize the clutter and provide more relevant interactions: - research your call lists to

THE BIG SWITCH is on for the Enterprise, SAP really just doesn’t have a focus

2011-12-24T15:05:00.000-08:00

The market buzz around SAP seems to be at an all-time high. Their ERP solution roadmaps seem to be at an all-time crossroads. So (as Naomi Bloom says), in which direction lies the “The Yellow Brick Road”. According to Gartner and ERP analysts Naomi Boom, Ray Wang, Phil Wainwright, Nick Carr, and everyone else….the Yellow Brick Road now ends at “The Cloud”. Switching to SAP? , You know they

The Big Switch, what's this book all about

2011-12-17T14:15:00.000-08:00

What is at the heart of the “Big Switch”? To me, this book is about the disruptive change of technology.To some, disruption might only be about changing from being a Yankees fan to a Mets fan. But to the cloud, it’s about the Internet grid that’s changing everything! This book by Nicholas Carr harkens back to the days of the water wheel and the generation of electricity by water power and the

Your CFO says revenues are up, let's hire more, but guess what?

2011-08-17T17:25:00.000-07:00

Your best employees will be leaving! Well, it’s time to check your succession binder - but that’s out of date and its only 6 weeks old. Then again, that presumes you even have a plan. In a recent 2011 SHRM poll, it’s not surprising that only 33% have a formal Succession Plan in place! Or the other problem occurs, you have a process, but most of the time it gets moved to

How do WE (sales folks) understand how YOU (the customer) select vendors?

2011-05-03T12:54:00.000-07:00

My thoughts were first stimulated by an article I read from enquiroresearch.com, on Mapping the Buyersphere, the subject being B2B buying decisions. Each decision by a buyer or the B2B customer focuses on one object from start to finish, minimizing fear through the elimination of inherent risks. So, what are the risks in making a corporate buy? There are risks to the organization and there are

Aggregating your Talents Profiles yields big results within organizations

2011-04-21T07:16:00.000-07:00

I read an interesting article from SHRM's HR magazine, in the technology section, that talks directly to the use of online talent portals within organizations that allow HR partners to align their workforce workforce more efficiently and allow for employees to manage their careers. In this article, Mercer Consulting's Kim Seals states "If I can get my talent profiles right, then I have a great

Mercer Consulting discusses the Advantages of SaaS

2011-02-04T07:29:00.000-08:00

I was thumbing through the latest edition of HR Technology magazine and found a report from the Human Capital Connect consulting team at Mercer Consulting. It is a great article that talks about the delivery platform known as Software as a Service or SaaS. Many companies are facing their technology decisions with knowingly limited IT resources and at the same time are being forced to maximize

War for Talent...there wasnt one for awhile, but now it's back!

2010-12-28T15:35:00.000-08:00

The Wall Street Journal recently published an article on the latest craze showing that all employers are in for a big shock on this rebound, the 'war for talent' it's finally happening. The first tell-tale sign is the number of new job postings which stand at 4.7 million compared to 2.7 million only one year ago. So employers ask, so what, the unemployment rate is going down, the economy is

One Page Talent Management- is there really such a thing?

2010-11-26T15:56:00.000-08:00

Recently read the book with the same title, written by Marc Effron and Miriam Ort. Their concept at the core is simple. All organizations take a process (in their case, they are analyzing talent processes), dissect the process, redesign it, place it up on a system and then build all kind of rules around the process. What the final result is, is an overly complex, unwieldy set of tools that try

Kirkpatrick model turned upside down...? Level 4 to 1

2010-11-21T06:33:00.000-08:00

Interesting article in November's edition of CLO magazine (www.clomedia.com) by Donald Kirkpatrick's son, Jim and his wife, on how the Kirkpatrick evaluation model which seems to have turned upside down like everything else in this crazy world. It use to be that you would conduct a Level 1 evaluation survey on the training that you provided in order to gauge people's reaction to the event. Then

A success story from my customer

2010-09-17T05:54:00.000-07:00

Client's objective, build a global system to manage learning and skills across the enterprise. Client= Global solutions provider Jeannette didn't know what she was in for when the company handed her the keys to the LMS. She started with 7000 folks, working as a part-time Super Admin. Over the next 12-18 months, she inherited another 15000 people across the globe, and BTW, they through

Best Practices on How to Connect with C level Execs

2010-04-13T18:55:00.000-07:00

Is your software tool a true SaaS or a 1/2 Saas?

2010-04-12T19:21:00.000-07:00

Here is a great article that talks about software applications that claim to be a Software as a Service delivery model...when in fact, they are really an on-demand ASP hosted model. Kind of hard to tell from a layman's perspective, but from a technical level, it's black and white. Do you have only one version? Do you have all of your customer on the most current and only version of your product?

The Kirkpatrick Model: some facts on the past, present and future

2010-01-18T09:34:00.000-08:00

It started in 1959 when Don Kirkpatrick wrote a series of four articles, each related to one subject at a time: he categorized them into reaction, learning, behavior, and results. His first article was on reactions to learning (level 1). Then, he wrote about the learning itself and to what degree did the participates acquire the intended knowledge, skills and attitudes based on their

Book Review: The Groundswell- everything is about social networking today

2009-10-10T13:15:00.001-07:00

My inspiration for this blog rant comes from a book "Groundswell" by charlene li and josh bernoff from forrester research. Are you doing these things?- looking it up on a wiki (www.wikipedia.com)- tag it with del.icio.us (http://delicious.com/)- find a widget that will do it- will you Digg this (www.digg.com)- can you friend me- let's mash these up on one pageThis is the groundswell! And you say

Why are companies moving away from older learning systems?

2009-09-30T06:45:00.000-07:00

Why is this happening all of a sudden? Is this a case of follow the leader? Why migrate to another system when you have spent lots of money in getting the first one correctly positioned?I'd like to inject my thoughts into this market phenom in a series of short articles on the best practices in selecting your 2nd or even 3rd Learning Management System.People get tired of their systems, people

So, what is a good (no, great) product demo?

2009-08-10T17:12:00.000-07:00

We'll take a look at some of the best practices for presenting a product and for viewing a product presentation...The best way to start a demo is the way you will end the demo. Heh, I didn't make this up but the theory is that you most remember the last most important thing you saw and most presentations 'end' with the best thing you will see. So, why not show the best up front, cement that

I was thinking "Why am I important to my customers?" it is the word 'custom'

2009-05-01T08:27:00.000-07:00

So everyone has some importance to someone...we hope. In the course of what I do everyday, selling complicated software solutions to large companies and their HR organizations, I look to build relationships and trust with the prospective 'customers' that I work with, daily, weekly, monthly, yearly. Some call your prospects who purchase services or product from you a 'client.Firstly, I like to

Investing in Talent Management: what's needed to enhance your ROI

2009-03-22T13:05:00.000-07:00

What Provides Positive Return from Your Investment? Integrate Your Learning and Performance to Achieve Talent Management-The talent management suite covers the employee lifecycle from onboarding through learning management through performance measurement and succession planning and into a pay-per-perfromance culture. Assessing employee performance in isolation is often not enough – you should be

WSJ highlights what talent managers know: keep developing, keep training THROUGHOUT THE CRISIS

2009-02-10T15:15:00.000-08:00

Some of the sound bites from this article are beginning to sound all too familiar. I thought all of the talent managers would want to read a synopsis of what Dana Mattioli had to say in her "Theory & Practice" column published on 2/9/09Those of us who remember the previous downturns all too well, see the same things happening again. Companies historically cut leadership-development programs

So...I was inspired to write more from a reader- like a self review or analysis

2008-12-16T18:28:00.001-08:00

I just did an interesting thing...I reviewed my salesmanship from 2007 vs. my performance from 2008. "Very, very Interesting"...someone once said that from a famous movie. As a salesperson...I am gauged on my performance. And my performance this year was entirely different..and better, than last year. Incredibly so, somehow all of the pieces just fell into place. Selling software solutions

I Want to Have My Performance PRE-Review

2008-10-21T16:37:00.000-07:00

Well it's getting to be that time of the year...you sit down, answer a bunch of sections of your performance review, provide some cogent commentary, hit the send button and DING!, your manager has a task assigned to them via email. So, they log into the portal, start their review of your performance over the past year...seeing all of your thoughts and comments, they append their own subjective

Building a salesperson's self-development plan from your customers

2008-08-10T07:45:00.001-07:00

I don't know why I didn't think of this sooner. I have a sales coach that supports me, helping to analyze my actions during the sales process. It's very focused on what we are doing now and what we should do next. But I just realized that I should know what has worked best in the past and what has not worked. I can sit down and write out what went right on the project I won, what went wrong on

Article: Managing Careers and employee development planning

2008-07-29T06:26:00.000-07:00

Published June 2008Performance Management - The Two Faces of Career ManagementCharles Coy of Cornerstone OnDemand Until recently, it was the sole responsibility of employees to plan their career management strategies. They might quietly seek out new positions outside an organization or hope to be among the select few groomed for a higher position internally. Inevitably, those who did not want to

Succession Planning: Extending Beyond The Executive Suite

2008-06-27T04:59:00.001-07:00

Succession PlanningPublished June 2008The Succession FixCindy Marsh, Ph.D., L.P. The purpose of a succession plan is to decrease interruptions and negative business impact in the event a leader leaves the organization. Traditionally, succession efforts focused only on C-suite-level positions, but pivotal non-C-suite roles also should be included in a comprehensive succession plan. For most

Product Training for Employees and Your Value Chain

2008-04-28T17:11:00.000-07:00

Published April 2008Best Methods for Product-Based Training by Lindsay Edmonds WickmanWhen it comes to launching a new product, the learning function should do more than develop training. It should be involved in strategic planning from the very beginning. As soon as the salesperson initiates conversation with a potential customer, the clock starts ticking. The representative has seconds to

Customizing Talent Mgmt to the Individual: article

2008-04-28T17:07:00.000-07:00

Published April 2008Make Every Person Count: Customizing Talent Managementby David Smith and Susan CantrellMost HR practitioners would agree people learn in different ways, are motivated by different rewards and perform at various levels. Yet, for the most part, they design and apply talent management practices as if everyone were the same.In an era of workforce abundance, a general talent

Why Bother With Succession Plans?

2008-04-07T05:59:00.000-07:00

Succession Planning - Published March 2008Creating Consistency: Enterprise-Wide Succession Plansby Agatha Gilmore When its CEO left, the Northeast Georgia Health System (NGHS) celebrated his 40 years at the company.When its COO left, the company celebrated his 27 years at the organization.When several other 20-plus-year executives left, senior executives at NGHS started to panic."We went from a

Advantages of Software as a Service over ASP

2008-03-19T09:26:00.000-07:00

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A Sweet Spot: Competencies and Learning

2008-03-17T18:48:00.000-07:00

Published March 2008Influencing Competency ManagementBrian SummerfieldRecent research from the Aberdeen Group showed that best-in-class performers are up to 86 percent more likely than “laggard” companies to know which skills and traits make top performers. This statistic points to a relationship between understanding what core competencies are for the various roles within the workforce and how

Let's be strategic and integrate our systems

2008-02-17T05:40:00.000-08:00

published February 2008Integrating Talent Management Systems Strategically by Leighanne LevensalerWith the increased emphasis on talent management, companies are looking to integrate at least some of these systems, while adding solutions for other processes, such as workforce planning, succession planning, recruiting and competency management. In response to the interest, software vendors of all

Why You Can Love An Integrated Talent Management System...

2007-10-27T08:42:00.000-07:00

You need a Great Services & Support Team Get a vendor where each person, each department is devoted to providing the highest level of service. Service and support for customers is the highest priority to ensure continuous subscription renewals and helps to ensure subscription renewals.On-demand, Software as a Service (SaaS) There is no hardware, software, middleware, databases, or business

How Does AJAX help our web experience?

2007-10-05T05:35:00.000-07:00

A reprint As Web applications become more sophisticated, users can easily develop Web pages, create a blog, and upload their audios and videos easily. Today web users are becoming the news by reporting current events faster then the professional news media and with more insight. AJAX software implementations make interacting with the web interfaces faster, and can allow for widget type

Technospeak: I have tried to figure out ASP vs SaaS, well here it is

2007-09-20T14:55:00.000-07:00

Software-as-a-Service (SaaS)Broadly speaking, SaaS application maturity can be expressed using a model with four distinct levels. Each level is distinguished from the previous one by the addition of one of the three attributes listed above. Level I: Ad Hoc/Custom (this is a typical ASP hosted model) The first level of maturity

Great Book: "Mobilizing Minds" the topic is Organizational Talent

2007-08-29T10:45:00.000-07:00

Written by McKinsey principals Bryan and Joyce...So here is my synopsis or understanding of the subject matter presented...Organizational design is today's key to unlocking the opportunities of the 21s century…Why? It's all about mind power!Companies can consciously design and build organizational interventions that can dramatically improve their ability to ‘mobilize mind power’ - to create

Great Read on High Potential Employees- Why You Need Them to Stay

2007-08-16T12:59:00.000-07:00

Retaining High Potentials by Norman Schippers (Talent Management Magazine) According to a recent study by the Society for Human Resource Management, 12 percent of the workforce, on average, voluntarily resigned January through August 2006. More-current statistics do not look any more promising — a February 2007 survey by Salary.com revealed that nearly 66 percent of tenured employees (people who

How Does a Best Practice become Better?

2007-08-14T14:40:00.000-07:00

The notion of a best practice is not new. Frederick Taylor (1919)[1] said as much nearly 100 years ago: “among the various methods and implements used in each element of each trade there is always one method and one implement which is quicker and better than any of the rest”. This viewpoint came to be known as the "one best way" (Kanigel, 1997)[2]. History, however, is filled with examples of

Where did the Likert Scale come from?

2007-08-14T14:33:00.000-07:00

The American educator and organizational psychologist Rensis Likert (pronounced 'Lick-urt') (1903–1981) is best known for his research on management styles. He developed Likert Scales and the Linking pin model.A Likert scale (pronounced 'lick-urt') is a type of psychometric response scale often used in questionnaires, and is the most widely used scale in survey research. When responding to a

Why is web 2.0 different?

2007-08-01T16:22:00.000-07:00

Although the term suggests a new version of the World Wide Web, it does not refer to an update to Web technical specifications, but to changes in the ways software developers and end-users use the web as a platform. According to Tim O'Reilly, "Web 2.0 is the business revolution in the computer industry caused by the move to the internet as platform, and an attempt to understand the rules for

Who is Donald Kirkpatrick and why are there 4 levels?

2007-08-01T14:58:00.000-07:00

Donald Kirkpatrick is known for creating the training evaluation model. This model consists of four levels of learning evaluation. Kirkpatrick's ideas were first published in 1959, in a series of articles in the US Training and Development Journal. The four levels of Kirkpatrick's evaluation model essentially measure: reaction of student - what they thought and felt about the traininglearning -

What does SCORM really mean?

2007-08-01T14:49:00.000-07:00

SCORM is a word (an acronym really) used extensively in the education and learning world to describe an online course that has been packaged up for transportation to other learning systems. It's knd of like an email sent from Lotus being received in an outlook box, while it travels through the Internet it is packaged up so as to not be disturbed. Sharable Content Object Reference Model (SCORM)

Where did the term "Talent Management" come from?

2007-08-01T14:01:00.000-07:00

This term is usually associated with competency-based human resource management practices. Talent management decisions are often driven by a set of organizational core competencies as well as position-specific competencies. The competency set may include knowledge, skills, experience, and personal traits (demonstrated through defined behaviors). Older competency models might also contain

Interesting Talent Management Article - July 2007

2007-07-26T11:26:00.000-07:00

Performance Management: "Driving HR Application Adoptions" by Michael George from Talent Management Magazine July, 2007 From HDTV to iPods, we flock to the newest technological gadgets in our personal lives. Yet, within the workplace, we often oppose changes to the way we work. Talent managers need to combat employees' unwillingness to adopt new HR technologies and create an organization

Interesting Talent Management Article- July 2007

2007-07-26T11:20:00.000-07:00

Learning Solutions: " A World of Differences: Train and Maintain Your Global Workforce" from CLO Magazine by Wendy Farrell - July 2007 When companies expand globally, their workforce becomes increasingly diverse, with employees who speak multiple languages and who come from distinct cultures that might have different business priorities and ways of working. These differences can place

Related Talent Management Wikis, Blogs, Videos

2007-07-26T11:18:00.000-07:00

Kaplan and Norton founded the Balanced Scorecard Collaborative, read more at their blog https://www.bscol.com/community/forum/index.cfm?forumid=4. The Balanced Scorecard Collaborative is a Palladium company and dedicated to the worldwide awareness, use, enhancement, and integrity of the Balanced Scorecard (BSC) as a value-added management process.