After a couple of really busy weeks gearing up for, attending and then decompressing from a software partner's largest event of the year (i.e. long days, red-eye flights and talking myself out of a voice), I needed to seek out a best girlfriend for a relaxing one to one conversation, a glass of wine and a chat about something other than work.
We opted for a swank downtown hotel bar where the musings about the cost of the decor provided a good start to not talk about work. But, alas...when you love your career, some aspect of work eventually hits the table. This time, it was my pal (a senior administrator in a public company) saying to me, "I don't know how we got here but our performance management system is horrible. I am one of the most senior people and should be setting an example but I refuse to use it - it's that bad!". Then she added, "What's worse is that I don't even know how to get your help. The system is managed by colleagues in another department and I can't bring myself to tell them how bad this is. We need an intervention but they can't know I requested this." Needless to say, another glass of wine was a first step in the plan...
Why do I share this personal tid-bit on an HR forum? I provide it as a most recent example of the #1 reason HR departments are settling for blah HR systems:
1) Internal politics - yes, we are all unique humans with our perspectives, egos, ideas, goals, etc... and therefore, we operate within organizational systems where the norms aren't always easy to navigate. It's heart-wrenching though to encounter organizations who have a will (and a budget) to innovate and yet struggle to succeed due to internal politics. There are solutions to help align groups and develop a path forward that everyone can appreciate and buy into. What's most important is being able to identify whether internal politics are holding your company back from delivering an excellent candidate, employee or contractor experience.
2) Budget - ranking behind politics but often related...and often disguised by the word "priorities". There is always money that can be diverted from low impact projects into high impacts ones. I won't say much more other than....make sure your HR system is not one of the low impact projects that funding is diverted away from! If people truly are your greatest asset, the ROI for your internal business case can certainly be found and articulated so that you can influence your way to an appropriate investment.
3) Skills & Experience - with an ever increasing skills shortage, sheer people shortage and younger workforce, there are often complex projects being led by small teams of employees who have been somewhat "thrown in the deep end". I find myself on the right-hand side of the age bell curve in most boardrooms these days and also find myself marvelling at the young talent around the table. While I appreciate their talent, I also feel for these folks in the early stages of their management careers who are working overly hard without the due number of people actually required for the task, or any previous experience with similar projects. Most talent implementation teams are simply too under-resourced for optimal success...and the consequence becomes a "blah" solution getting deployed to meet a project deadline - and then scarce resources are off to another project and no optimization occurs.
4) Perceptions of the confines of SaaS - This is a finalist on my list these days as I have been engaged in a number of really passionate conversations about customized IT solutions. IT professionals who have been around over the last decade have learned the hard way that customizations to an on-premise application became a really bad idea. Many applications ended up like a house of cards - unstable and sometimes impossible to upgrade because of the customizations. The industry's answer was SaaS - software that clients couldn't touch and change...until the coming of APIs and web services that make extensions to SaaS solutions a very welcome solution. This is a bit more technical than a typical HR chat so I will cut this short and simply say...don't assume that the software you've licensed "is what it is"... there are options to tie custom functionality to a SaaS solution, integrate another 3rd party solution with a SaaS platform, or even change the whole look/feel of your SaaS software without ever touching your core configuration.
So...don't settle. Write down the top three things that you don't like about your HR solution and post them here in an industry dialogue, email me, meet with your SaaS provider - just don't settle and be that friend who confesses over a glass of wine that you hate your HR system and refuse to use it!
