Rob Scott's Weblog - Human Resources Management Systems : 7 ways to add value

I'm glad I continued searching his blog - another excellent post - and I've now subscribed to see what else comes next.

Mr. Scott's 7 requirements to extract value from your HRIS, and at this point, I agree with them all.

Rob Scott's Weblog - HR Strategy should not be like kissing your sister!

I'm on another 'HR Maturity' searchabout at the moment, and this one was very insightful. A very interesting article about how misunderstanding the HR maturity of your organization can lead to misalignment of the HR function with the organization's strategy and the resulting inefficiency that can bring.

When Good HR Metrics Go Bad - Case Study: Succession Planning at Wonka Industries

This is awesomely creative, and viewing the 'Charlie and the Chocolate Factory' story from this perspective is actually quite insightful ... I think - I'm still in the 'chuckling phase,' and haven't quite made it to the 'reflection phase.'

Taleo Blog - Talent Delivers Higher Earnings

Man, am I ever bad at keeping up with things.

Another great post from Taleo's Blog on the subject of talent management, providing evidence that developing and enacting a talent management strategy boosts business.

From the Hackett Group study:

TMMLs [talent management maturity leaders] also have a more advanced technology infrastructure to access talent-related information. Their talent management applications are better integrated, and talent reporting is more standardized, detailed and recurring.

Integrated and standardized. That'd be nice.

Ivey Business Journal - Succession Planning: Often Requested, Rarely Delivered

One of the elements of a sound workforce plan is, of course, succession planning.  This is an area that's new to me, but intuitively it is a no-brainer - or rather, that it is necessary is a no-brainer.  So I just found this, and I've enjoyed the first page, so I will continue reading.

I got a chuckle out of the inclusion of Herman Kahn's MEGO Factor (My Eyes Glazeth Over) - that's the first I've heard it, but it's so ... apt.

Another interesting tidbit: I found an organization's board-approved and published Succession Plan online, which had stated 'no candidates identified at this time' for every senior position, which leads to: It is better to have gone through the exercise and found no one than to avoid the task in fear of the same outcome.  I think.

Taleo Blog - Talent Retention

I read this a while back, but my last post referenced it again, so I gave it another look.  Interesting that their example - a study of IT workers - found that the majority placed a high priority on career development opportunities.

Taleo also issued a research paper on this topic, Talent Retention: Six Technology-Enabled Best Practices (see blog post for a link to download it), which identifies some key practices in retaining talented individuals, namely:

1. Recruit the right people in the first place.
2. Improve the line manager’s ability to manage.
3. Give employee’s constant feedback about clear, meaningful goals.
4. Empower employees to manage their own careers.
5. Proactively drive talent mobility.
6. Continuously measure and improve retention strategies.

Taleo Blog - Talent Skills Development

Taleo released the results of a training follow-up survey from one of its talent management skills training courses which suggests that the respondents see a link between their skill enhancement their ability to perform their job.

They also reference a recently released report by Bersin & Associates: Building a High-Performance Culture - Seven Performance Management Practices That Work (see Taleo's blog post for the document link). I've just started flipping through it, but it looks very intriguing so far.