Human Resources

Mohammad Anas Wahaj | 28 oct 2014

'Digital Natives' (or Generation Z), growing up with technologically intensive environment that includes social, mobile, cloud, multi-media technologies etc will be entering the workforce in the next decade. Unlike the Millennials (or Generation Y), who were raised in 1990's with dial-up networks and monophonic ringtones, Digital Natives are used to super-fast hardware and software readily available on screen. They are more entrepreneurial and probably lack the employer loyalty demonstrated by earlier generations. According to research by Sparks & Honey, people of this generation spend 41% of their free time with computers or mobile devices. So if these expectations are not met by their future employers they might take away their energy, enthusiasm and expertise to someone who does or they might just prefer to create their own start-up. According to Dan Schawbel, founder of Millennial Branding, self-reliance is another defining difference of the upcoming generation - 'While millennials seek mentors, Generation Z is more about helping themselves.' The Digital Natives (DN) will find the business environment with traditional hierarchical management models as stifling and affecting their creative abilities. With involvement of social media in recruitment process and companies creating 'employer brands' through sharing information about their culture, opportunities and how they treat their employees, the next generation will be more aware of their employers. If companies don't keep their promises, the DNs will not hesitate to switch loyalties. Moreover considering their obsession with social media and sharing opinions on it, they will also make sure that they publicly post negative opinions about a bad employer. As wikia.com study found that 55% of DNs use social networks primarily to share their opinions. The coming of DNs to the workforce will be an opportunity for employers to benefit from their strengths, but at the same time they need to make sure that they provide right combination of engagement strategies and technology tools for better employment experience and utilization of potential. Moreover companies have to invest in user-friendly mobile technologies and collaboration tools not only for the new generation but for all generation of employees to be more productive. Read on...

diginomica: Is your HR strategy ready for the Digital Natives?
Author: Andy Campbell

Mohammad Anas Wahaj | 27 oct 2014

Technology is impacting human resources (HR) function of businesses in big way with the HR software space being a US$ 15 billion market. Innovations in HR technology is leading to investments from venture capital and private equity firms - top 50 HR technology deals this year were above US$ 560 million & top 50 learning and educational technology deals were over US$ 800 million. Some of the areas of interest for startups include social & referral recruiting, talent analytics, assessment science, online learning and mid-market core HR systems. Moreover new tools and applications are also being developed to help manage employee communications, engagement, recognition and workplace wellness. All these innovations and investments in HR technology are creating disruptions and shifts in this space and businesses can't ignore them. Ten significant disruptions are - (1) Shift from Systems of Record to Employee Systems of Engagement (2) Mobile is everything: Build mobile Apps not just 'mobile Versions' (3) Analytics-driven, science based solutions. Data analysis is now the solution, not the product (4) The science of leadership, assessment, and psychology evolves with Big Data (5) Sensing, crowdsourcing, and The Internet of Things. Systems become more real-time (6) Radical changes to recruiting as social and referral based recruiting becomes the norm (7) Dramatic changes to performance management and talent mobility. Agile, transparent practices are a new area of focus (8) Learning Management systems change and market expands (9) HRMS and Talent Management merge: ERP vendors catching up (10) Technology savvy vendors will likely outpace their peers. Read on...

Forbes: The Top 10 Disruptions In HR Technology: Ignore Them At Your Peril
Author: Josh Bersin

Mohammad Anas Wahaj | 20 oct 2014

The high startup failure rate is a common business knowledge and when Google is searched for the keyword phrase 'success rate startups', its very clear from some of the headlines that pop out - "The Venture Capital Secret: 3 Out of 4 Start-Ups Fail", "A Startup's Odds Of Success Are Very Low", "Why 90% of Startups Fail" etc. But this doesn't stop entrepreneurs from pursuing their visions and ideas, and according to the April 2014 Kauffman Index of Entrepreneurial Activity, 0.28 percent of adults per month started a new business in 2013 in US. In addition to these basic requirements to start a business - hard work, a strong offering and a solid plan of action, Ron Yekutiel (Co-founder & CEO of Kaltura Inc) suggests 5Es of entrepreneurship that should be applied to provide a solid foundation to a new business - (1) Envision (Ideas, Opportunity, Plan) (2) Enlist (People, Human Resources) (3) Embark (Take Initiative) (4) Execute (Action, Manage) (5) Evolve (Embrace Change, Adapt). Read on...

Entrepreneur: The 5 Pillars, or 'Fingers,' of Successful Entrepreneurship
Author: Ron Yekutiel

Mohammad Anas Wahaj | 19 oct 2014

Market availability of tangibles follows the basic economic principle of supply and demand, but when it comes to intangibles like leadership, it seems that the world continues to remain in short supply. Leaders are hard to find and can't be developed and traded as commodity when required. Traditionally two sources are considered for leadership supply - military and those who rose up from nothing, overcame hardships and built leadership skills through the school of life. But still the supply doesn't actually meet the demand. Professor James Bailey of George Washington University suggests a third source, professional athletes, that fits the framework of leadership qualities. He provides five reasons for their leadership credibility - (1) Professional athletes are determined (2) They just don't preach teamwork but actually practice it (3) They appreciate followership (4) They are cognitively complex. They grasp the dynamic flow of many inter-related variables, simultaneously played (5) They know what it's like to work under pressure and perform well. Read on...

Lessons on Leadership: Finding the Next Generation of Leaders
Author: James Bailey

Mohammad Anas Wahaj | 17 oct 2014

According to Cisco, a networking solutions company, venture capital firms are expected to invest US$ 1.6 billion on 'Internet Of Things' (IoT) technologies this year. While speaking at the IoT World Forum, Cisco's chief globalization officer, Wim Elfrink, said, '13.69 billion things are connected virtually by October 2014 and it is estimated that 50 billion objects to be connected by 2020.' With IoT consumers are looking for intelligence from connected devices, equipment and infrastructure. The startups in IoT continues to grow from just 13 in 2013 to 189 this year. At present nearly 300000 people are involved in jobs related to IoT. As IoT is evolving and billions of devices are getting connected to each other there are issues and challenges related to security and availability of skilled & educated workforce in the area of networking. Read on...

The Times of India: VC firms likely to invest over $1.6 billion in Internet of Things in 2014
Author: NA

Mohammad Anas Wahaj | 15 oct 2014

To fully and effectively adopt and integrate latest technologies in a healthcare system requires understanding and cooperation of all the stakeholders. Clinical staff is a critical component of the healthcare ecosystem. Hospitals must involve frontline staff and seek their suggestions and feedback while beginning to implement new IT system. Julia Ball, assistant director of Nursing at University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust (UHL), explains how their hospital pursued implementation of mobile technology successfully by listening and involving their frontline staff. According to her, their CEO, John Adler, in order to achieve their strategy of becoming 'paper light' obtained feedback from staff that voiced frustration regarding the amount of time spent on paper work and the resulting impact on patient care and suggested use of less paper and more technology support in their work. Nursing staff of selected wards was provided with iPads and iPhones to effectively and efficiently record observations and this data has been instantly shared with all staff responsible for the patient's care. This provides targeted flow of information to specific services and clinicians that can timely respond to a particular patient's needs and requirements. The new process provides more time for nurses to be with patients and provide better care. The staff of these selected pioneering wards thus became the champion for the new system and, advocated and supported the management's strategy for a paperless and technology-enabled environment. Read on...

the guardian: Involving hospital staff is key to implementing new technology
Author: Julia Ball

Mohammad Anas Wahaj | 10 oct 2014

Social media presence provides organizations multiple opportunities to better connect and interact with their audience and customers. Social media analytics gives them insights about what their customers think and how to serve them better. But the challenge is to process and make sense of this huge data effectively. The text is unstructured and requires use of specialized natural language processing techniques and tools for analysis and data inflow is continuous. According to Sarah Biller, president of Capital Market Exchange, 'It's a misnomer that all this data is at our fingertips now and big data has made it available. Organizations need talented individuals in-house who can normalize and structure all the data being collected so it can be run through analytics engines.' Lack of available talent in the field is further adding to the woes. Jiri Medlen, senior text analytics specialist at PayPal, says 'ROI from social media sentiment analysis can be questionable.' He adds, 'The biggest question is what to do with this kind of data. How is this going to impact the bottom line of the company? We still have to answer the question of value.' Another challenge is related to technical difficulties with social media data. According to Usama Fayyad, Chief Data Officer at Barclays PLC, the rapid streaming and unstructured nature of social data makes integrating it into analytics systems a big headache. Early tests of social media analytics applications showed promise, but dealing with the complexity of the unstructured data proved difficult. We really don't know how to deal with variety. You can enhance any data set with all this and it makes it better. But it's a monster.' Read on...

TechTarget: Social media analysis has promise -- but also pitfalls to avoid
Author: Ed Burns

Mohammad Anas Wahaj | 10 oct 2014

As big data requirements of companies in finance, retail, healthcare, education etc continues to grow, there will be corresponding growth of companies providing innovative analytics tools and services to store, analyze and monetize the big data. This inturn propels the need of workers at various levels to have big data talent and skills. Business leaders with strong understanding of business, analytics, technology and communications skills would be in high demand. A 2011 report of McKinsey estimated that by 2018, about 140000 to 180000 big data jobs will remain unfilled due to lack of experience and expertise. The 2014 CDO Talent Map predicted that the number of Chief Digital Officers will double this year increasing to 1000 by the end of 2014 and the number of Chief Data Officers will be more than 200 by year end. Due to this imminent need of big data talent, both educational institutions and technology corporations are collaborating on curriculum and project-based learning opportunities for students. Large number of universities globally are incorporating new courses related to predictive analytics, machine learning, data analysis and infrastructure. These initiatives range from full degree programs and addition of new courses in existing curriculum, to short-term skill-specific certificate courses that are available online. Moreover, professional organizations are also offering free courses, training programs and hands-on learning projects to fulfill the knowledge and learning needs of their members. Read on...

Umbel Blog: Big Data Equals Big Jobs: New Educational Programs to Help You Snag the Sexiest Jobs in the Industry
Author: Thrupthi Reddy

Mohammad Anas Wahaj | 01 oct 2014

From traditional perspective, human resources (HR) handles relationship of the employees with the organization, while marketing handles dynamics of interaction between customers and organization. But the value of brand experience for both consumers and employees, alongwith technological advancements is bridging the gap between these two critical components of any business. The notion 'happy employees can make customers happier' is becoming more real. Convergence of HR and marketing will facilitate a learning exchange between the two and create new paradigms for organization's benefit. HR can effectively pursue strategies for talent acquisition much in the same way that marketing works toward seeking customers and can develop employment value proposition (EVP). Social media is facilitating new connection between organizations and consumers. These technologies can be leveraged by HR for interaction with prospective employees and to develop effective recruitment strategies. HR should learn from marketing to embrace change and be early adopters. Read on...

Human Resources: When HR meets marketing
Author: Anthony J. James

Mohammad Anas Wahaj | 30 sep 2014

Either you are a big global brand, a B2B enterprise or a small business, in today's technology powered business world, an effective digital strategy is required to stay ahead and succeed. Aaron Kahlow, CEO of Online Marketing Institute, provides a list with in-depth analysis of essential digital planning ideas that should be kept in mind for the coming year 2015 - (1) Go Big on One Content Idea (2) Use Big Data in Little Ways (3) Make Time for Technology (4) Get Real: Re-Learn Best Practices (5) Target or Die an Irrelevant Death (6) Advertise More, Hope Less (7) Invest in Yourself, Invest in Your People. Read on...

Business 2 Community: The 7 Essential Digital Planning Ideas for Breakthrough Results in 2015
Author: Aaron Kahlow

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