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Reveille and Hyperbole:
Adicio, the Internet's leading developer of web-based classified advertising solutions, announced the launch of the CareerCast Southwest Regional Network, an alliance of job sites throughout California, Nevada and Arizona.
The new network enables employers to reach hard-to-find candidates in the region via partnerships with other regional network sites. Among the online job sites joining the new network are the San Diego Union-Tribune, Riverside Press-Enterprise, Orange County Register, Ventura County Star, Las Vegas Review-Journal, East Valley Tribune (Phoenix/Mesa), Scottsdale Tribune, Barstow Desert Dispatch, Victorville Daily Press and Hesperia Star.
Taleo (TLEO),
the leading provider of on demand talent management solutions, announced
that Taleo Reporting and Analytics(TM) was named one of Human Resource Executive
magazine's Top 10 HR Products of the Year for 2006. Taleo will be honored in an
awards ceremony this week at the 2006 HR Technology Conference & Exposition in
Chicago. Selected from hundreds of entries, Taleo Reporting and Analytics was
selected as a winner based on its innovation, value, and business benefits
delivered to organizations looking to gain deeper insight into their global
talent management programs. Deltek, the leading provider
of enterprise management software for project-focused organizations, announced
that national nonprofit firm, The Environmental
Careers Organization, Inc. (ECO) has deployed Deltek Costpoint®, Deltek's
industry-leading enterprise resource planning solution designed specifically for
sophisticated, project-driven organizations, in just two and a half months. ECO
recruits, places and manages 600 to 1,000 ECO interns every year. ECO employees
will utilize Costpoint to track, manage and report on every aspect of their
projects including planning, estimating, proposals, budgets, expenses, indirect
costs, purchasing, billing, regulatory compliance and business performance.
You Should Know:
Global:
Google's New SearchMash Test Site
Google's gained a new unbranded site called
SearchMash where it
plans to test user interface ideas without Google's brand
somehow skewing the tests. Below, more about the site and
comments from Google about it.Currently, SearchMash allows you to perform a search and get
web and image results presented side-by-side. It's similar to
how A9 has long allowed side-by-side results, ironically a
feature that A9 has made much harder to implement after a
recent redesign over there. (Clickz)
Newspaper Self-Help Guide Aims to Shake Up Old Habits
As newspaper publishers become convinced current online growth rates will not
counteract the downward spiral of print readership and ad revenues, more and
more solutions are being brought to the table. The latest is a self-help
strategy of sorts from newspaper business training organization The American
Press Institute (API) and education consulting and training firm Innosight. The
step-by-step guide aims to help newspaper publishers move away from the
news-heavy, display and classified ad-driven model of the past to one that
serves local communities and advertisers in a variety of ways. (ClickZ
News)
Human resources
From Wikipedia, the
free encyclopedia
This article is
about human resources, as it applies to business,
labor, and economies. For information about the French film
Human Resources see
Ressources humaines; for information on the Doctor Who
radio drama Human Resources, see
Human Resources (Doctor Who audio) Human resources
has at least two meanings depending on context. The original
usage derives from
political economy and
economics, where it was traditionally called
labor, one of three
factors of production. The more common usage within
corporations and
businesses refers to the individuals within the firm, and to
the portion of the firm's organization that deals with hiring,
firing, training, and other personnel issues. This article will
address both definitions.
(Wikipedia)
Who's Afraid of Big, Bad Outsourcing?
Its stigma as a menace to service is fading, from both the company and customer
end, according to a recent report; customers want service quality, no matter
where it comes from.
"Can I help you with your problem?" means the same thing all over the world. A
new report from Jupiter Research finds that despite the hype around customers'
aversion to outsourcing, only 17 percent of online customers say that it affects
their purchase decisions. According to the study, consumers are much more
concerned with the quality of the service than where its coming from. The
report, "Customer Service Outsourcing," focused on the state and proliferation
of outsourcing today and found that although the level of outsourcing customer
service continues to remain relatively flat, the attitudes companies and
consumers display concerning outsourcing is shifting. (DestinationCRM)
Outsourcing "fundamental" to business
Outsourcing can be "fundamental" to a company's business model and long term
plans, according to ComputerWeekly.com. Functions such as accounting or IT
support have seen a boom in outsourcing in recent years and outsourcing can be
used to improve productivity as well as capacity. Important issues must be
considered by a company looking to achieve success in outsourcing,
businessknowhow.com states: "Outsourcing can be a strategic tool for making your
business more productive and profitable - if you know when to take advantage of
it."
Functions that are ideally suited to outsourcing including sectors that are
highly specialised and technical. (ihotdesk)
Just Say "Know"
It's a scenario scary enough to induce night sweats in even the steeliest CIO.
Your CEO, just back from a conference in Phoenix, strides into your office.
Yesterday, he played golf with the vice president of sales for one of the big IT
services companies and now he's telling you that this company could take over
most of your IT functions and cut your company's IT budget in half. Not only
that, they can deliver better services levels. After all, it's what they do! (CIO)
Kenya:
Kenya: Outsourcing - the Latent Goldmine
Kenya is slowly coming to terms with the enormous potential of Business Process
Outsourcing (BPO). At a two-day conference held last week in Nairobi, organised
by the Africa Information and Technology Events and Conferences (Aitec) under
the auspices of the Ministry of Information and Communications, it emerged that
Kenya was well placed to tap into the business expected to be worth US$145
billion globally by 2008. (The
East African Standard (Nairobi)
UK:
RecruiterMagazine.com
US:
Building a cheaper workforce
Wal-Mart is pushing to create a cheaper, more flexible workforce by capping
wages, using more part-time workers and scheduling more workers on nights and
weekends. Host Kai Ryssdal talks to New York Times reporter Steve Greenhouse.
(Marketplace)
Small firms employ almost half of Texas' private-sector workforce
More than 98 percent of businesses in Texas are small businesses, according to a
report released Monday by the Small Business Administration's Office of
Advocacy. Collectively, these businesses employed 3.84 million Texans, or
47.7 percent of the total non-farm private-sector workforce. All data is from
2005. (Austin
Business Journal)
U.S. Government Workforce To Get Smart Identifications Cards
The U.S. government will soon be issuing new, high-technology identification
cards to more than ten million people in the federal work force. The move is
prompting a debate over whether the work I.D.s represent the first step toward a
national identification card. (VOA)
Report: Young Workforce Is 'Ill-Prepared'
As the baby boom generation slowly exits the U.S. workplace, a new report says
the incoming generation is sorely lacking in much needed workplace skills --
both basic academic and more advanced "applied" skills. The report is based on
an detailed survey of 431 human resource officials that was conducted in April
and May 2006 by the Conference Board, Corporate Voices for Working Families, the
Partnership for 21st Century Skills, and the Society for Human Resource
Management. Its objective was to examine employers' views on the readiness of
new entrants to the U.S. workforce -- recently hired graduates from high
schools, two-year colleges or technical schools, and four-year colleges. (SmartPros)
How to find seasonal help without seasonal headaches
Shoppers may gripe about it, but there's a reason why retailers are putting up
the Christmas decorations while the Halloween candy is still on the shelf.
Starting this month and continuing through the end of December, retailers are
ramping up to make the most of their peak season. Quite simply, the fourth
quarter can make or break a retailer's performance for the year. The holiday
season accounts for anywhere from 25 to 40 percent of retailers' total annual
sales. As they stock up on boughs of holly and what they hope will be this
year's hottest-selling items, retailers are adding something else: staff. The
National Retail Federation reports that retailers hired approximately 524,000
additional employees for the last two months of 2005. The numbers are expected
to be similar this year. (DCVelocity)
Deep Release:
Large companies in search of competitiveness by
outsourcing human resources management
More and more large companies have outsourced their
human resources management. In addition to cost savings, the reason behind the
outsourcing decision is often the wish to concentrate on personnel development
instead of management routines.
Over €5 billion is spent on human resources management routines in the Nordic
regions every year. Less than ten per cent of Nordic companies, including those
in Finland, acquire human resources routine services from specialised service
providers. The corresponding figure in Germany is 30 per cent. In the United
States, 60 per cent of companies have found outsourcing the best solution.
The figure is also growing rapidly in the Nordic region because savings of 20-30
per cent can easily be gained by allowing an outside partner take over the
responsibility for management routines. The saved €1-1.5 billion can be used to
increase competitiveness as the money is directed to personnel development and
training instead of routine tasks.
"The Nordic companies use 63 per cent of their human resources management to
run routine tasks. Only 37 per cent is used for personnel development and
competence management. The figures should at least be the other way round.
Hence, more and more companies have outsourced the routines to be managed to an
outside partner," says Tero Ansio, Deputy CEO of Personec, the leading HR
outsourcing company in the Nordic region.
According to surveys conducted by Personec, the costs accumulated from salary
management can even be tenfold, depending on the company. One third of Finnish
large and middle-sized companies and public organisations are not even aware of
their salary management costs.
OP Bank Group and DHL have increased their efficiency in salary calculations by
outsourcing
OP Bank Group and DHL in Norway, among others, have outsourced their human
resources management. In most cases, the outsourcing relates to payroll
management. Personec is responsible for the payroll management for 9,000 people
at the OP Bank Group, whose objective for the cooperation with Personec is to
receive competent service, system development and cost savings. Silja Line
outsourced payroll management of its land personnel to Personec.
Personec is also responsible for the
daily HR tasks relating to employment management for approximately 12,000
workers at TietoEnator. In the Nordic region, this is the first case of
outsourcing that concerns human resources management that covers four countries.
Deeper Still:
£63 Million Settlement Highlights Problems with IT Outsourcing
Introduction
It was announced last week that major IT supplier Accenture would exit two
regional contracts under the NHS National Programme for IT. These contracts were
only one year into a 10 year term with a value of £2 billion. Accenture is to
repay £63 million of sums already received from the NHS in a settlement deal. It
could have been much worse for the supplier, with the company having made a £240
million provision for potential losses and a reported maximum liability under
the contracts of £1 billion.
This is clearly not good business for the supplier but also hugely disruptive
to the potential success of the overall programme and value to the taxpayer.
With the huge amount of resources devoted to putting together these projects,
both in the public and private sector, it prompts the question; why are so many
technically failures?
The statistics
As someone involved in working on these deals on a day to day basis (although
hopefully the more successful ones) the research makes depressing reading.
For example, 8 out 10 organisations attempt to renegotiate their outsourcing
deal. Why such a high proportion? In my view there is a combination of factors:
an organisation has realised it has outsourced the wrong type of service; or
they have not been clear enough about the objectives for outsourcing; or
business goals have changed.
It surprises me that 15% of outsourcing contracts are renegotiated within 12
months, given the amount of management effort and external advisers fees are
required to reach an agreement. Why is this?
In research conducted by Compass, 80% of respondents cite poor governance as
the reason for failure, i.e. the strategy was right, the contract was fine, but
the parties failed to operate it properly and build a good business
relationship. This is frustrating and surely avoidable.
Other recent examples: Tax Credits, poor IT or poor culture?
The statistics can hide the real picture and it is useful to look behind the
headlines at what happened with other high profile projects. Although many of
the reported failures are in the public sector (primarily because of the size of
these projects and public interest scrutiny) the private sector also has much to
learn.
Take the HMRC tax credits scheme, initially the system could not cope with
the volume of applications and half a million of the poorest households were
given too much in the way of tax credits in 2003-2004, which lead to the
headache of clawing back the overpayments. More recently the system has proved
vulnerable to organised fraud.
HMRC blamed EDS for providing inadequate IT systems. EDS blamed the
overpayments on complex policy rather than the implementation of the system and
the Revenue for changing its mind while the project was put in place. Ultimately
EDS settled out of court for a reported £71 million.
Clearly technology problems were a factor, but were there other fundamental
issues with the culture of the customer? OGC did a gateway review of the tax
credits system in 2002 and warned that it was a high risk project. Legacy
systems have been described as complex, unreliable and fragmented. For example,
each of the 72 tax offices process self-assessment forms differently (sometimes
there are even different processes within tax offices).
The Child Support Agency: reform through new technology?
The Child Support Agency was beset by technology problems and some have
suggested that their major outsourcing project was actually an attempt to reform
the CSA through new technology. The system was intended to be fully functional
by 2003, but ended up being a factor in the closure of the agency itself which
was announced earlier this year.
Ministers blamed EDS as the technology supplier for the agency's problems,
however, government reports showed there was an inability to make cultural
change. There was a lack of consultation on CSA reforms and design of systems,
for example the new system contained no "notepad" where conversations with
members of the public could be recorded.
It is likely that a major reason for the failure of the project was that
there was too much focus on technology and not enough emphasis on cultural
change. For example, the new system was designed to be less flexible to
encourage case handling over the phone, however no additional training was
provided to staff.
The CSA project is a classic example of where cultural change was not
addressed, staff were oversold the benefits of the technology, each grade of
staff being sceptical that those above them understood the issues.
What about the private sector?
The private sector does not make the headlines in the same way as the public
sector, however, a number of high profile private sector outsourcing deals have
been brought back in house which has led to discussions re a new insourcing
trend.
For example, Cable & Wireless terminated a 10 year, £1.8 billion deal for IT
infrastructure and customer billing citing a desire for more influence over
technology decisions.
JP Morgan Chase cancelled a £2.7 billion project and reintegrated its
infrastructure including data centres and helpdesk services. Prudential and
Sainsbury's have also both brought major projects back in house.
Did these projects go wrong? Was there poor performance? In most cases the
businesses acknowledged that the deals were not producing the expected benefits
and they wanted more control over rapidly changing markets.
Different contracts?
I would like to see a more widespread adoption of partnership style
contracts. The IT and outsourcing industry is currently paying the price for
taking advantage of naïve customers in earlier times. The customers then wised
up and have sought very onerous contracts.
The problem with this hardball approach is that if there are initial problems
with the project (almost inevitable) then the tough contracting method engages
the wrong side of a commercial organisation to get things resolved. A supplier
who has a financial upside to solve problems is much more effective than one
that is worried about legal action. At some point the supplier will make a
decision to walk away from the contract, this is not in the interests of either
party as the NHS procurement team may have come to realise.
A recent report published by OGC cites complaints about increasingly onerous
terms and conditions that have caused many suppliers to be more selective about
the projects they bid for and qualify out of others. I hope that these comments
are taken on board and the market settles at a more reasonable position.
So what's the answer?
Unsurprisingly there is no easy answer, although a good business plan for the
project and decent due diligence are good starting points.
Another common trap to fall into is to fail to seek end user buy-in
(particularly difficult in the public sector where there is more resistance to
change). This criticism has been levied at the NHS project.
However, if you believe the statistics, the single most effective thing that
can be done to ensure success is investing in an end to end governance process,
built into the contract and operated religiously with experienced people
throughout.
About the Author
Stephen Ollerenshaw is a co-founder and director of Technology Law Alliance,
a leading niche IT and outsourcing law firm established to provide high quality
specialist legal advice as an alternative to large law firms. He has worked on
behalf of some of the largest companies in this sector. He has extensive
experience of high value IT and business process outsourcing projects carried
out in a number of industries, and has been seconded to the legal team of one of
the world's largest IT suppliers. He has been rated by Chambers & Partner as a
leading practitioner in the field of technology law.
Email: stephen.ollerenshaw@TLawA.co.uk
Tel: 0870 730 5552
Coming Soon:
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$999
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2006 SHRM Workplace Diversity Conference
October 16-18, 2006
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and Spa
Los Angeles, California
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9th Annual Talent Acquisition & Staffing Summit
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Hunt Scanlon Advisors present
"Defining
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New
York city
October 18 - 20, 2006
New York Palace
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HR.com's Employers of Excellence 2006
October 25 - 27,
2006
Red Rock Resort
Las Vegas, Nevada
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HR-XML Consortium's
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Barcelona, Spain
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8th
Annual Corporate University Week
Design, Deliver & Evaluate Effective Training
November 13-16, 2006
Disney's Contemporary Resort, Orlando FL.
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Bangalore HR Summit 2006
December 15 & 16, 2006
Leela Palace, Airport Road, Bangalore-1,India
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