systematicHR

The intersection between HR strategy and HR technology

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I think it was back in 2004 that I was writing about “DavesNextMove.com.”  PeopleSoft had just gotten acquired by Oracle, and Dave Duffield was sitting around with $1B but no job.  At the same time, SuccessFactors was building up some pretty good steam, about to start having bad implementations because their stuff was so much cooler than everyone else’s that their deployments could not keep up with the sales.  RecruitMax had made their conversion to Vurv which was then bought by Taleo (if memory serves me correct).  It was also around 2003 or 2004 that I got my first work issued Blackberry.  Before that, my personal device was purely for phone calls.  10 years ago, we were just starting to get cloudy and mobile.  DavesNextMove.com became Workday.  SuccessFactors much later got bought by SAP to fuel their cloud HCM offerings, and Taleo by Oracle to bolster their cloud HCM.

The point being… that was 10 years ago.  If you are not already in the cloud, you’re somewhere between 5-10 years behind the times.

None of us can imagine being on our 2004 Motorola flip phone, so why is it ok that we’re still talking about deploying cloud technology today?  I still go to clients that tell me they are getting ready for PeopleSoft 9.3.  A recent conversation with a large employer informed me that a client on Oracle EBS had no intention of getting off of it.  If you are on-premise for HCM, chances you installed it between 1998 and 2008.  I tell you what – you can have your 10-15 year old technology.  Send me your iPhone, and I’ll send you a 10 year old flip phone.  It’ll be great.

By the way.  PeopleSoft was founded in 1987 and the underlying architecture has remained pretty much the same.  Where were you in 1987?  I was just starting high school.

The point being… your employees and managers hate you.  

You really think they don’t know that their employee and manager self service technology predates Amazon.com’s initial user interface?

Wait, if I’m telling you to get over the cloud, where exactly are you supposed to be?  All the cool stuff right now is in consumer driven technology.  Think Uber.  I don’t call a taxi service that controls where the cabs go.  I get on an app and the consumer controls the experience without a middleman.  Same with AirBnB.  Come to think about it, same with Quora.  Ask anything and a community of users will tell you how it is.  Hang on, we’ve been rating products to help other consumers on Amazon for years.  How many of us read the product description on Amazon?  Maybe a few of us, but pretty much 100% of us check the consumer star ratings first.

The same thing is happening in HR.  Companies like Careerify are helping employees control the recruiting process.  Instead of recruiting organizations pleading with employees to provide referrals, the technology advises the employee putting them in complete control.  Companies like Betterworks are making goals and feedback real time, collaborative, and truly valuable.  At the HR Technology conference this year, ADP and Workday were talking about machine learning where their tools will help employees predict what to do next faster and better than your HR people.

The point being…  HR isn’t the facilitator anymore.  If you are, then you’re not adding value where you should be.  HR should be sitting around analyzing what is happening, not managing it.  The power to create, transact, and collaborate is squarely in the hands of employees and managers now.  Time to give them the technology to do it.  

And if you’re still not in the cloud, you’re 10 years behind your competitors.

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2 responses to “Get Over the Cloud”

  1. Ron Katz Avatar

    Great piece Dubs! Too many HR professionals are reluctant to move ahead with the times (I’ve been guilty of it myself sometimes) and are ready with lots of excuses (“employee privacy”, “security”, “budget”). The truth is we need to take advantage of every technical advancement that our organizations are deploying. Would you give up your ATS and go back to having resumes faxed to your office? Thanks for stating it so plainly.

  2. systematicHR Avatar

    Ron, just today, I was talking to a client who told me their new college hires really can’t figure out how to use a fax machine. They look at it and it mystifies them! LOL. We gotta get over it cuz the world is moving along…