When my opinion is solicited, I give it freely. But first I should not there is a synopsis of the discussion as it stands today at the bottom of this post. Posts in this discussion:
- Enterprise RSS, Web 2.0 and HR by Thomas Otter
- When Will HR Catch Onto the Wave? by Michael Specht
- In Response To “When Will HR Catch Onto the Wave?” by Thomas Otter
I’m not sure I agree with what Michael and Thomas have defined as the new world of HR. I’ll be completely honest with saying that I’m not sold on RSS and OPML as enterprise business technologies. Perhaps I don’t get it, or I don’t have the same level of vision, but I do see potential. Hoepfully in the next few years, someone can articulate a detailed vision of it’s specfic uses in an HR technology environment, but my vision of HR technology is slightly different as I’ll elaborate on below.Thomas points out recruiting applications and how they deploy job board integration with RSS type technologies. I agree this is good stuff, but it’s really the same old XML (no offense to XML) that has been around for years. When we talk about self service and HR portals, what I really care about is not pushing out content, but increasing transaction volumes. Sure content is important. And RSS makes communications much easier, but CMS (contnet management) hasn’t been too bad for a while (ask a communicator). The key behind communications on an HR portal is not the technology, it’s the communicator and the branding strategy behind it.
So I return to transactions. My big hope for the future of HR technology actually lies with Oracle Fusion and SAP Netweaver. While Fusion is probably a tad behind schedule, Netweaver has a solid spate of technology partners. The value that these SOA (service oriented architechture) platforms provide is an integration of process that goes outside of the core application suite.
What is interesting in this SOA discussion is not who adapts to the technology. Oracle and SAP are already building the foundational technologies, and the point solutions (niche players) simply have to adopt the technologies and recode their applications appropraitely. Therefore, in my view of the (short term) future of HR technology, every one of the major players will pretty much adapt.
Here’s the synopsis of the conversation so far. Thomas Otter started off with this:
Much of the HR technology discussion with customers here in Europe is still on whether to do Employee Self Service or not! Transaction processing is clearly moving to shared services and-or BPO… I’m not sure that many HR folks out there grasp how these socialising networks will fundamentally change recruiting, learning, succession,and intra-company networks and structures… These solutions are sure to shake up the enterprise apps space. The SAPs, Microsofts and Oracles will adapt. But this stuff will hit the niche HR guys hard, I’m not sure they can finance the shift. ((Otter, Thomas, March 22, 2006. “Enterprise RSS, Web 2.0 and HR.” Retrieved from on April 8, 2006.))
Michael Specht responded with:
However I kind of disagree with that the niche providers not being able to move to the new world. While the current band of niche providers may not move new entrants are more likely to get a jump on SAP and Oracle in the space. Small niche players can build and deploy point solutions to the SME market place rapidly, getting an enterprise solution based on an ERP toolset is a big undertaking. However “joe average HR” will not be ready to jump until SAP, Oracle and prodominantly Microsoft enter the market as then technologies will not have hit mainstream, this is 2 – 3 years away… ((Specht, Michael, April 6, 2006. “When Will HR Catch Onto the Wave?” Retrieved from on April 8, 2006.))
With Tomas Otter’s latest reply:
I meant the current niche players being more threatened by web 2.0 than the big guys. I think the recruiting space will be hit first, as the social networking side of web 2.0 has a direct impact on recruiting. Someone who has a neat recruiting app with basic job board integration and applicant tracking and 50-100 customers and not really profitable is going to find it hard to move to SOA, re-architect to support RSS feeds etc. Unlike the SAP’s and Oracle’s they probably can’t finance the shift. ((Otter, Thomas, April 6, 2006. “Reply To When Will HR Catch Onto the Wave?” Retrieved from on April 8, 2006.))
7 responses to “RSS SOA and the Future of HR Technology”
RSS SOA and the Future of HR Technology April 9, 2006 on 1:00 pm | by Systematic HR When my opinion is solicited, I give it freely. But first I should not there is a synopsis of the discussion as it stands today at the bottom of this post. Posts in this discussion: Enterprise RSS, Web 2.0
a more open workflow framework for interoperability? Not sure but anything is good if it allows business workflows to cross functional and organisational boundaries, workflow is the piping that holds business together. Double Dubs has as alwaysprovided us a great perspective on the conversation:- When we talk about self service and HR portals, what I really care about is not pushing out content, but increasing transaction volumes. Sure content is important. I kind of see RSS, OMPL, LiveClipboard and HR-XML as providing a method of enabling
DoubleDubs: “I’ll be completely honest with saying that I’m not sold on RSS and OPML as enterprise business technologies.” It’ll happen all around you whether you’re sold on it or not.
[…] This is in further response to the conversation thread developing between Michael, Dubs, James from Redmonk and I on changes in HR technology. (Michael has just posted again while I was doing some day job) […]
I agree that RSS is lacking in many ways for the applications you’re interested in, but I think it’s probably closer to the ideal than, say, HR-XML. It does a very few things and it does them simply and well. I agree that it’s the wrong foundation for a transactional system but I’d say the same thing about schemas that embed large amounts of domain-specific business logic.
If we consider just RSS and OPML, adoption has little to do with technical limitations. I believe that the technology required to implement RSS and OPML, at least in PeopleSoft, is trivial. I’ve written a bit about it on my blog at http://www.erpassociates.com/blogs/index.php?cat=29.
Not that there are no challenges (authentication and security are two biggies), but there’s enough that does work for a niche player to start identifying data sets that make sense with RSS and wrapping RSS tags around them. Some that come to mind are job postings, training opportunities, worklists, reports, new hires, terminations, paychecks, etc.
For each of the items I listed above, I’ve seen companies send e-mail messages to notify (hopefully) interested parties about them. RSS just seems like a natural extension of what organizations are already doing. Will it increase transaction volumes? Maybe. If your content and branding strategy are already good, it gives you another communication channel to take advantage of.
[…] Doubledubs Says: April 11th, 2006 at 12:40 am […]
[…] There’s been some interesting discussion at systematicHR.com about RSS and the use of other “web 2.0” technologies in business environments.As I stated at my site, I see a sue for RSS type feeds for recruiting and job posts, training courses, etc. but the actual use in transactional business processes simply isn’t there yet. For organizations that want to automate process and gain efficiencies, RSS simply doesn’t cut it. Does RSS simplify some small portions of the employee portal? Absolutely! Can it replace the transactional meat of a web services portal? Nowhere close… not yet anyway.-Dubs […]