Competencies are the language of talent management.  They provide guidance to managers and direct reports alike on the behaviors that are expected.  They also are a way to assess those behaviors, whether for the purpose of hiring, development, or performance appraisal.  Yet, for all that can potentially be right about competencies, so much can also potentially be wrong.  In many organizations we talk to, competencies are too numerous, ill-defined, or too complex.  The result is the competencies are infrequently used and ultimately cast aside.  Therefore, we have to ask ourselves, "Are competencies dead?" We are currently in the midst of a new research initiative on this question (and we’d like your help on it - see details below).  Our initial research reveals, no, competencies are not dead - in many organizations they are alive and well, working as intended.  In the organizations that are not using them effectively, though, the competencies seem to be collapsing under their own weight, dying a very slow death.  These organizations have "zombie competencies" - or "zompetencies," if you like.    So, how do leaders keep their organizations from creating zompetencies?  Here are a few suggestions: Design for criticality:  Focus on what is essential to success - not every competency necessary for doing a job.   Design for impact:  Focus on competencies that align to the organization’s business strategy and greatest areas of need.  If your organization is making a major transformation from one focused on execution to one focused on innovation, competencies should be a part of the bedrock of the change effort. Design for simplicity:  Constantly ask yourself if the competencies are necessary or can be expressed more simply.  Further, in an effort to reduce competencies, do not combine two competencies into one.  "Visionary leadership and tactical execution" is not one competency. Design for acceptance:  Avoid the trap of developing competencies in a vacuum.  Competencies need to be broadly socialized and amended as they are developed, to ensure both broad understanding and agreement on their content.  Ultimately, managers and direct reports need to understand the competencies, what they mean, and how to use them - and integrate them into how they talk about talent on a regular basis.  How does your organization keep competencies alive and well?  Or how has it gotten rid of zompetencies in the past?  We are currently looking for examples of effective approaches to competency models and how they support talent management.  Please email me at sgarr@deloitte.com if you have any examples from your or other organizations you can share. Special thanks to Joe Folkman and Candace Atamanik for their contribution to some of the concepts in this blog.

Impressive this year is the software creator’s mantra "develop for mobile first." Our survey of providers indicated that solutions are created and in the market for every area of talent:  learning, rewards, performance management and appraisal approval, succession and hiring management and many more.  Even core HR. Even content authoring tools. There is employee self-service and managerial self-service, and for hourly workers, the ability to clock in and clock out—all on their mobile phones. And the applications available for mobile use in HR vary in both number and sophistication. Oracle offers a company directory, Organization Navigator, predictive analytics, goal management, talent profile, and a personalizable dashboard on mobile devices. SumTotal offers a Smartphone app for every one of the 18 content areas we surveyed.  Close to 70 percent of the providers surveyed have mobile learning management capabilities today. Nine of 48 support the ability to supervise people and take notes on the experience for sharing later. Mobile apps are pretty much everywhere. But are companies actually using them for human capital management?  We decided that would be an interesting question to pursue! What is your company’s stance on HCM apps on Smartphones?  Do you use them today? Will you add mobile apps in the year ahead?  Or do you have no need nor plans to deploy mobile HR apps in the future? Whatever your stance, please let us hear from you!  Take this short survey (just a few minutes, promise!) on use and intended use of human capital related apps on Smartphones by clicking on the link below.     This publication contains general information only and Deloitte is not, by means of this publication, rendering accounting, business, financial, investment, legal, tax, or other professional advice or services. This publication is not a substitute for such professional advice or services, nor should it be used as a basis for any decision or action that may affect your business. Before making any decision or taking any action that may affect your business, you should consult a qualified professional advisor. Deloitte shall not be responsible for any loss sustained by any person who relies on this publication. As used in this document, "Deloitte" means Deloitte Consulting LLP, a subsidiary of Deloitte LLP. Please see www.deloitte.com/us/about for a detailed description of the legal structure of Deloitte LLP and its subsidiaries. Certain services may not be available to attest clients under the rules and regulations of public accounting. Copyright © 2014 Deloitte Development LLC. All rights reserved.  

How is your week going?  If you are anything like many of the people I have spoken with this week, you are having one of the most productive weeks of the year.  Your focus is like a laser, your to-do list is pared back, and your eyes are on the prize:  to finish up the most critical items before the end of the year.  So, I have to ask you:  why is every week not more like this one? The likely answer is that in other weeks you lack the goal clarity that is helping you focus now.  Our new research, High-Impact Performance Management: Using Goals to Focus the 21st-Century (Not a Bersin member?  Click here for the summary), which we launched yesterday, supports this hypothesis: that many employees lack the clarity they need.  Here are a few findings from the study: Though 76 percent of organizations cascade goals, only 36 percent of organizations have a standard, enterprise-wide approach, which often results in inconsistencies in approach and, potentially, the goals themselves. While more than half (51 percent) of senior leaders convene a series of meetings throughout the year to discuss goals with business leaders, only six percent of team managers /  middle managers receive their goals in the same way, which can result in inconsistent goal messaging.  Though nearly 60 percent of organizations said senior leaders revise their goals during the course of the year, only 36 percent of respondents indicated middle managers make similar revisions to align to new directions being defined by their supervisors.  This can result in the organization’s leaders thinking the company is headed in one direction, but the day-to-day actions of employees taking it in an entirely different one. Our research finds that having that goal clarity - both at the start of the year and on a continuous basis - is a critical factor in predicting business performance.  Specifically, we found that employees with a high level of goal clarity were four times more likely to score in the top quartile of business performance.  Further, organizations that have employees revise or review their goals quarterly or more frequently were three-and-a-half times more likely to score in the top quartile of business performance. This new research summarizes the current state of goal-setting and management, including an overview of common goal-setting practices; a review of the academic debate around goals; our analysis of the challenges of modern goal-setting and management; current trends in goal-setting and revising; and the three key principles and seven related practices that our data indicate are critical to effective goal management (see Figure 1). Figure 1:  Three Principles and Seven Practices for Effective Goal Management Source:  "High-Impact Performance Management: Using Goals to Focus the 21st-Century," Stacia Sherman Garr / Bersin by Deloitte, December 2014. I hope that if you are taking some time off in the coming weeks, that you have an opportunity to unplug and reflect.  When you come back to set your goals - and help your organization set its goals - for 2015, I suggest analyzing your organization’s current goal setting approach and asking yourself: To what extent does your organization’s goal setting process enable you and your employees to have that "end-of-year" clarity on your goals and objectives? To what extent do your organization’s systems, processes, and culture support continued clarity? What can you and your organization do differently to enable greater goal clarity, both in January and throughout the year? If you are able to move the dial on any of these elements, you truly will have given yourself and your employees a gift - the gift of clarity.

My colleague Robin Erickson, Ph.D. and I just completed a webinar called "Get Ready for 2015: Ten Top Actionable Talent Acquisition Trends." In the question and answer period at the end, one of the almost 1,000 registrants asked about the ability to actually apply for a job via a smartphone:  Will it make the recruiter’s job harder or easier? It’s a good question, isn’t it?  Is ease in applying for a job a goal?  If it is really easy, will recruiters just be flooded with junk applications?  Or should the act of applying be laborious enough that only the truly committed apply?  Is it different by industry? By age group? A poll during the webinar showed that over a quarter of participants used mobile in the recruiting process—but we really don’t know how many supported the ability to apply with a mobile phone.  And this moves us to the broader consideration—how do we in human capital management (HCM) plan to use smartphones with not only applicants but also with our existing employees? What is your company’s stance on HCM apps on smartphones?  Do you use them today? Will you add mobile aps in the year ahead?  Please let us hear from you!  Take this short survey (just a few minutes, promise!) on use and intended use of human capital related apps on Smartphones by clicking on the link below. https://bersin.qualtrics.com/SE/?SID=SV_4Oe9ZKgWotNWEVT&Source=BLG   This publication contains general information only and Deloitte is not, by means of this publication, rendering accounting, business, financial, investment, legal, tax, or other professional advice or services. This publication is not a substitute for such professional advice or services, nor should it be used as a basis for any decision or action that may affect your business. Before making any decision or taking any action that may affect your business, you should consult a qualified professional advisor. Deloitte shall not be responsible for any loss sustained by any person who relies on this publication. As used in this document, "Deloitte" means Deloitte Consulting LLP, a subsidiary of Deloitte LLP. Please see www.deloitte.com/us/about for a detailed description of the legal structure of Deloitte LLP and its subsidiaries. Certain services may not be available to attest clients under the rules and regulations of public accounting. Copyright © 2014 Deloitte Development LLC. All rights reserved.  

You know you will need to hire new employees in the new year—but are you ready? Will your competition out-engage you in your marketplace? And what will you do if you cannot find the talent you need when you need it?   This afternoon, my colleague Katherine Jones, Ph.D. and I presented a webinar that outlined ten actionable trends that we think will make a difference in talent acquisition (TA) in 2015. If you missed it, you can check out the live tweets at #PFLiveChat and here is a brief recap: Manage Your Employment Brand: Your employment brand reflects your organization and is your strongest asset for attracting new employees and continuously attracting/retaining the high-performers you don’t want to leave. Is your employment brand simply irresistible? And are your employees brand ambassadors for your organization? Craft a Strategic Social Media Campaign: Recruiters need to "go where the puck will be" and understand where candidates are spending their time (pssst: they’re not just on social networks and job boards!). Our recently published High-Impact Talent Acquisition (HITA) industry study found that mature TA functions are five times more likely to have an effective social media campaign.[1] And leading-edge companies have dedicated social media strategists to curate content. Develop a Candidate Experience Strategy: Just like in dating, recruiters should create a good first impression with candidates. Check out my September 28th blog, It’s All About the Candidate Experience, for some suggestions on how to differentiate your organization’s candidate experience. Reimagine the On-Line Application: Unfortunately technology hasn’t kept up as job seekers today are faced with first-generation hiring management systems. Face it: many applicants are searching for jobs on their mobile devices and they’re not going to fill out a 25-page application on their phone. Want to know what’s happening with mobile? Take a short survey and check back in a couple of months for the results. Reinvent Candidate Communications: Ever applied for a job and wondered if your resume went into a black hole? Or worse, applied for a job and received an auto-reject notification within minutes? In a world where we can personalize our M&M’s (yes, I did it for Christmas!) and even our phones know our names, recruiters should be sending personalized content to candidates. Make sure the messages are authentic and representative of your employment brand. Engage Hiring Managers: According to our HITA research, recruiters developing effective relationships with hiring managers is the most influential drive of TA performance outcomes—and a staggering 97% of mature TA functions report that they have strong relationships with hiring managers.[2] And guess what? Developing relationships doesn’t cost your organization much money—just time and mindfulness! Develop Talent Pipelines: Not to be overlooked, developing candidate pools is the second most influential driver of TA performance outcomes.[3] The task of recruiting has moved from the reactive filling of requisitions to proactively courting high-quality talent. Ultimately, with talent pools done well, recruiters can deliver talent on demand. Up the Ante on Onboarding: Did you know that 22% of staff turnover occur in the first 45 days of employment and that 4% of new employees leave after a disastrous first day?[4] Organizations should customize their onboarding programs for various job roles and generational groups, but should include a consistent experience and messaging. In addition, automation is critical to both efficiency and consistency, and some onboarding can be done online before the first day (aka "preboarding). Make Your Metrics Matter: Understanding the importance of metrics and analytics is a significant challenge for the talent acquisition function. With an array of metrics available, organizations should first decide what they want to measure, then determine if they have the technology in place to support the need. The next big thing? Going beyond historical reporting to predictive analytics. Plan for Global TA: Regardless of organizational maturity level, our research found that 68 percent of TA functions were not globally prepared.[5] TA leaders should consider their unique talent landscape—which includes candidate availability and engagement, as well as technology solution and services providers—as they look to take their functions to a global level.   So what else do you think will be important for Talent Acquisition in 2015? Feel free to add a comment below, connect with me on Twitter @RAEricksonPhD, or by email at rerickson@deloitte.com   [1] High-Impact Talent Acquisition, Key Findings and Maturity Model, Robin Erickson, Ph.D., Kim Lamoureux, Denise Moulton / Bersin by Deloitte, September 2014. [2] Ibid. [3] Ibid. [4] Help New Hires Succeed: Beat the Statistics, SHRM Presentation by The Wynhurst Group, April 2007, www.masteryworks.com.; Egon Zehnder International, 2007, as quoted in http://selectmetrix.com/ blogs/category/onramping/. [5] High-Impact Talent Acquisition, Key Findings and Maturity Model, Robin Erickson, Ph.D., Kim Lamoureux, Denise Moulton / Bersin by Deloitte, September 2014.       This publication contains general information only and Deloitte is not, by means of this publication, rendering accounting, business, financial, investment, legal, tax, or other professional advice or services. This publication is not a substitute for such professional advice or services, nor should it be used as a basis for any decision or action that may affect your business. Before making any decision or taking any action that may affect your business, you should consult a qualified professional advisor.   Deloitte shall not be responsible for any loss sustained by any person who relies on this publication. 

This year our Predictions for 2015 has some hard-hitting new ideas to consider - in this article I will give you some highlights, and you can download the report here. Top Line: Enormous Changes are Ahead 2015 is going to be a big year in the world of corporate talent. The economy has improved (near full employment in the US), the job market for technical and professional skills is hot, and technology is radically changing the whole nature of work. Thinking back over my 35 years as a working professional, I barely recognize what work is like today. I was joking with my children about how I used to go to work with a briefcase filled with papers, there were no computers, no voicemail, and only an office of people and a telephone to work with. We had a steno pool (people who typed letters for us), and I had an old-fashioned boss who sat in the corner office with his tie on and his jacket buttoned.  He was really a wonderful manager, but it was all about "doing your job" and getting a good performance appraisal. Today we work at home, in coffee shops, on airplanes, and often late at night. We interact with people all over the world easily, and we have tools and technologies at our fingertips to find information, write, communicate, and analyze data like never before. And thanks to the growth of cognitive computing technologies, we will all soon have thinking machines in our phones, machines that monitor where we are, what work to do, what customer problems to solve, and even what HR problems to address. Much of this transition has been positive, but much has also been difficult. Many of us are "overwhelmed employees" and our research shows that employee engagement and retention is at an all time low. While many people are still looking for work, more and more people are getting fed up with the 24/7 work environment around us, so they go to social websites like LinkedIn or Glassdoor and jobs are offered to them. The concepts of "integrated talent management" are rapidly changing, with most HR practices being reinvented.  In fact I'd say that talent management as we've known it over the last ten years is about to go away and be reinvented, with a focus on what I call Engagement, Experience, and Environment.  (Read my latest article "Is Corporate Talent Management Dead?" if you want more on that topic in particular.) The ten predictions we write about for 2015 cover topics from employee engagement to new technologies for HR, a whole new focus on culture, renewed strategies to develop leadership, and the need to revitalize HR and invest much more heavily in analytics. But overall the big trend is this:  almost everything we've done traditionally in HR has to be adjusted (or re-engineered). The younger, more mobile, more agile workforce and workplace we now live in demands new approaches: flexible work policies, more focus on empowerment and skills development, a more humane work environment, and both financial and workplace benefits which are locally relevant. As we look at 2015, we see five fundamental shifts which dramatically impact corporate talent, leadership, and HR strategies. 1. Technology has removed the barrier between work and life. Companies have to focus on culture, environment and simplification. We are working all the time, emails and messages are streaming in 24/7, and information, conversations, and content is literally streaming at us wherever we go. The work "environment" we live in today is radically different: people work wherever they want, leading to a huge wave of open offices; over-work is a tremendous challenge, and people are not sure how to deal with the overwhelming amount of information they receive each day. Design thinking, simplification, and ease of use are the new mantras for corporate talent programs. 2. Employee engagement, culture, and leadership are lifeline issues. Glassdoor data shows a split in companies. There are huge segment of companies who are "highly engaged" and a similarly large number of companies whos employees are "actively disengaged." The highly engaged companies are attracting the best people, delivering greater customer service, and innovating better. These companies are focused on mission, culture, and leadership - and they understand that people are not "talent," they are people - with their own personal needs and aspirations. This focus on engagement has impacted everything we do, because ultimately employee engagement is all a business has. Companies have to rethink their coaching and development strategies, their career mobility strategies, and how they develop and select leaders. Today's leader focuses on "building a highly engaged team" not just "delivering on business results." Unfortunately our research shows that the gaps in corporate leadership are wider than ever. Research by Deloitte and others (highlighted in the report) will show you how leadership development, assessment, and coaching has to be a top focus for 2015. 3. Learning, capabilities, and skills are the currency of success. From both an individual and organizational standpoint, technical and professional capabilities are now the currency of success. If you can attract or develop better scientists, engineers, sales people, or functional experts you will beat your competition. And once you attract these people you must give them a compelling learning environment to stay current, as technology advances at an accelerating rate. L&D organizations and strategies have not kept up, and we are in an era where corporate learning is going through as much change is we witnessed in the early 2000s when e-learning hit the scene. 4.  HR as a function is at a crossroads and must reinvent itself. Underlying most of these issues is the need to reskill and re-energize HR. It's interesting that the US organizations SHRM and HCI are now competing to sell HR certifications. The problem is not one of certification, it's one of redefining what HR professionals do. Company after company I talk with is going through a restructure of their HR team, moving HR closer to the business, and reskilling generalists into finely tuned business consultants.  I believe this is a decade-long transition taking place within the HR function. 5.  Data is now integral to all decisions HR must make. Finally, we are entering a talent world where people data is now central to every decision we make. Organizations that are investing in analytics teams, analytics tools, and analytics expertise are going to far outperform their peers. Who to hire, who to promote, how much to pay, how to develop, what next job to take - all these decisions are now "data enabled" and we expect HR technology, which is becoming more integrated every day, to become more and more like "instrumentation of your organization"- giving you data to improve organizational performance every day. Read our predictions and join me on our webinar on Friday, January 23, 2015, at 2PM EST. (Register Here.) This is my eleventh year writing the Bersin Predictions for the coming year, and I think the changes ahead are more transformational than ever before. I hope you find the report educational, inspiring, and helpful as you plan your year. I am thankful to the world community of talent and HR leaders I get to work with every day. And as always I look forward to your comments and feedback.  (Click here to download report.)

  Does your organization have the technology it needs to meet your performance management goals?  Many do not. Companies we surveyed are looking closely at both how they manage and measure their employees’ performance -- and at the technologies they have in use today.    In our recent Bersin by Deloitte study of buyers, we learned that of companies purchasing new talent management software this year, 67 percent were planning to purchase performance management software, either for the first time or as a replacement for existing solutions.[1] [2]   Why? There are several factors:   Performance management is increasingly deemed critical in today’s organizations and the historical systems are not perceived as adequately supporting next-generation practices; The current installed systems are aging;  Companies may have multiple different systems and seek to consolidate into one corporate-wide platform.   Of those replacing existing software, fully 75 percent sought to replace a standalone performance management application with an integrated suite solution.   The majority of organizations we surveyed (74 percent) use one software solution for their performance management system, but respondents reported that as many as ten or more systems are used inside their organizations today.   The source of this software varies:  41 percent of respondents reported that their performance management solutions are self-developed; 38 percent are provided by a vendor (often a suite vendor, although the module may be stand-alone) and 21 percent use modules that are within their core HR systems.   In 19 percent of organizations, the software in use is aging -- seven or more years old. This is especially the case with large organizations, where 29 percent of organizations with more than 25,000 employees have owned their performance management system for more than seven years. Reliance on home-grown, self-developed solutions for performance management may well be part of the reason for the interest in procuring new applications in the near future; the lack of any technology solution, as noted by 15 percent of respondents may be another. And twelve percent of the population we surveyed noted that they did not have a formal performance management process at all.[3] If you are one of the many HR professionals looking at new technology to aid in the management of your employees’ performance, you may also be seeking criteria to help in the selection process. Our upcoming report "The Definitive Guide to Performance Management Software: 2015 -- A Roadmap to Performance Optimization and the Solutions that Support It" overviews the key features you will want to consider and the vendors that provide them. Look for this new report shortly!     This publication contains general information only and Deloitte is not, by means of this publication, rendering accounting, business, financial, investment, legal, tax, or other professional advice or services. This publication is not a substitute for such professional advice or services, nor should it be used as a basis for any decision or action that may affect your business. Before making any decision or taking any action that may affect your business, you should consult a qualified professional advisor. Deloitte shall not be responsible for any loss sustained by any person who relies on this publication. As used in this document, "Deloitte" means Deloitte Consulting LLP, a subsidiary of Deloitte LLP. Please see www.deloitte.com/us/about for a detailed description of the legal structure of Deloitte LLP and its subsidiaries. Certain services may not be available to attest clients under the rules and regulations of public accounting. Copyright © 2014 Deloitte Development LLC. All rights reserved.           [1] Investments in Human Capital Management Systems 2014: What Technology Users Have and What They Will Buy in the Year Ahead. Katherine Jones. Bersin by Deloitte. April 2014. [2] The four application areas most often sought as an integrated via a suite rather than have as standalone solutions are recruiting, onboarding, learning and performance management. [3] Investments in Human Capital Management Systems 2014: What Technology Users Have and What They Will Buy in the Year Ahead. Katherine Jones. Bersin by Deloitte. April 2014.

Last week LinkedIn announced the acquisition of Lynda.com, a pioneering online learning company known for high-quality, expert-led video instruction. Lynda's content focuses on creative skills, technology, and over time moving into business skills. Lynda.com was founded in 1995 and originally produced high quality video courses on topics like Photoshop, web design, photography, and other digital design skills to consumers. As the brand become well known to consumers, people brought Lynda into their businesses (this is now a typical strategy for most online learning companies). So Lynda built out more corporate learning features and more business topics.  According to the company, Lynda generated around $150M in revenue in 2014, growing at 20-30% per year. About 2/3 of that comes from individual consumers and about 1/3 from sales to businesses. The company stated they plan to keep Lynda.com as an independent business unit but will start experiments to test integration with LinkedIn's sales force and other products. For me, this is a "back to the future" type of deal. The online learning market all started back in 1998 by companies like Skillsoft, CBT Systems, NetG, DigitalThink (my alma mater), and Ninth House Networks. These companies built online courses 15 years ago and had dreams of growing into billion dollar businesses which transformed corporate and other forms of learning. While many of them survived (Skillsoft acquired many of them), they were a bit early to market because the internet was not fully built out, online video was too slow, and people had a wide variety of incompatible browsers. Macromedia (now Adobe) Flash was the standard technology, which has been almost obsoleted by HTML 5 when Apple Inc. decided not to support Flash in its products. So while the concepts then are the same as they are today, the technology was a bit rough and that made the market grow more slowly. Today things have changed. Organizations like Khan Academy, Coursera, EdX, Udacity, as well as companies like Pluralsight, General Assembly, Grovo, and marketplaces like Udemy (where my 21st Century Talent Management Course resides) are growing like weeds. People are now comfortable viewing YouTube videos online and internet access is ubiquitous, so people all over the world are searching out and paying for courses on many platforms.  By the way, the oldest vendor of all, Skillsoft, is still well entrenched and now sells end-to-end learning content, online books, compliance and leadership training, and offers enterprise learning management software. Lynda's claim to fame was their high quality experience, "Hollywood-style" videos, authored by experts. I've visited Lynda's facilities and the company has movie-studio quality production facilities which make their content very polished and enjoyable to experience. In the early days of e-learning "experience" was king, but today there are a wide variety of learning experiences and I question whether that level of expense is necessary going forward. While the market is big and growing fast (the opportunity is well over $20 billion around the world, about half of which is in corporate buying centers), LinkedIn brings a special new punch. With the company's huge brand and set of users (500 million+ professionals), LinkedIn has the opportunity to dramatically expand the usage and availability of online learning (particularly for professional technical skills). The company can also use Lynda to fill in its strategy of being a "professional development network," rather than just a "professional recruiting and job seeking network."  (see CEO Jeff Weiner's blog, which primarily focuses on this area.) As exciting as this seems, the online learning market is very competitive and barriers to entry are low. While Lynda.com is a very successful and well developed offering, its clear they felt the competition. The competitors mentioned above are all very successful companies with their own strategies to build content for particular audiences, so LinkedIn will have to stay focused and make sure Lynda builds content that is most relevant and differentiated for their audience. One of the things I've learned about online learning over the years is that brand, distribution, and topic often trump "instructional quality" in value. People who take courses online often want to learn "a few things" and get accredited for the course - not really complete an end-to-end program like they would in school. Online learning gives people the ability to learn specific things quickly, jump back later for a refresher, and become an expert over time - rather than forcing them to sit down and do it all in a college semester. So rather than focus on "time" as the forcing factor in learning, one can focus on "expertise."  So when new experts post fantastic content, people tend to find it. While Lynda's direct revenues are not large relative to LinkedIn, this deal does shift the market in many ways. First, LinkedIn's sales force will eventually be able to sell this to corporate buyers, expanding the corporate adoption of these types of platforms. Second, LinkedIn will see increased opportunity to integrate learning into the LinkedIn platform, possibly making LinkedIn more of a "learning and professional development solution," as Weiner discusses. And third, the new traffic coming to Lynda.com could be a valuable source of LinkedIn advertising revenue, because people educating themselves are often looking for jobs. In talking with LinkedIn directly, they explained their strategy in very eloquent terms: "Now we can help people in a city locate jobs and opportunities, identify their gaps in skills, cirectly learn those skills through Lynda.com, and compete for and get these new jobs."  Can't really argue with that value proposition! The real shift here is a broad acceptance that online learning is now a big, legitimate market that any corporation should leverage.  When Skillsoft acquired SumTotal Systems I wrote a long article about the potential for platform and content vendors to merge.  This is a perfect example of that trend.  One could imagine that most of Lynda.com's competitors are now getting phone calls from other corporate platform and social networking companies. Even though Lynda was growing well alone with 20%+ growth rates (and Skillsoft and others are as well), now that LinkedIn enters the market buyers will be even more encouraged to participate, and the market itself will expand. The online learning business has its own particular challenges, and now LinkedIn has to focus on content quality, content marketing, LMS integration, assessment, and lots of other training topic. But the company has plenty of engineering expertise, and all this is quite achievable. Even more interestingly, LinkedIn may use its large mass of data to provide new types of content recommendations and certifications based on your career trajectory, which would be quite transformational in our industry. For corporate training and HR leaders, this is an important move and makes it even more important than ever to evaluate your online learning strategy and make sure you're looking at all the vendors carefully. 

Most organizations have a limited view of their workforces in terms of both headcount numbers and costs. While HR typically reports headcount figures, the task of calculating the cost of the workforce is often left to Finance. Unfortunately, many HR groups don’t have the expertise or credibility to report costs and therefore defer to their Finance counterparts. Headcount figures are important, no doubt, but this data alone only tells part of the story. Executives and line managers want to know how much they are spending on talent, and how different decisions will impact these costs. HR, in partnership with Finance, needs to take the initiative to calculate and report these costs. The HR leaders at ConAgra Foods did not shrink away from this challenge. Until recently, ConAgra Foods struggled to collect accurate data about its workforce. Information was spread across the organization in siloed systems and was often difficult to reconcile (sound familiar?) In a relatively short timeframe, however, ConAgra Foods’ HR team has been able to leverage technology solutions to provide both current and projected headcount as well as total workforce costs. To estimate these costs, the analytics team partnered with Finance (a key relationship for HR and analytics teams) to begin mapping all of the available data and processes. The company was using two principle systems: the HRIS, managed by HR, provided data on salary and benefits; and an ERP system, technically owned by Finance, provided cost data.  Neither system held all of the necessary costs or details for accurate planning, forecasting, and analysis.  The goal was to deliver all workforce cost data, regardless of source, to the cloud-based workforce planning system (Visier) to provide a complete picture of costs. To calculate the total cost of the workforce (TCOW), the team developed a visual taxonomy of the different data elements that contribute to this figure (see Figure 1). The four major categories include direct compensation, benefits, employer costs for labor, and workforce overhead. Each of these categories, in turn, has subcategories with specific data elements.  All of these need to be considered when calculating the total cost of workforce. Many times companies only look at payroll or compensation figures, but as this chart shows, that is only part of the total cost. With all of the data in one place, ConAgra Foods’ HR and Finance teams are now able to see the impact of spending at a minute level and understand what impact its workforce costs have on its financial plan. They can also run different scenarios, for example, modeling workforce costs between two different locations, or modeling the cost of entering new markets versus continuing operations as is. In the past, this would have been a highly manual, time-consuming, and error-prone task. If your HR organization is not able to do these types of analyses, it should work to get there. Increasingly business leaders are calling on HR to step up its game in using analytics to make better workforce decisions. Cost is a key component of these decisions. So if you don't have a strong relationship with your CFO, start building that relationship now. Figure 1: Total Cost of Workforce Taxonomy        

HR organizations got a boost in investment in 2014, with budgets up an average of 4% over the prior year. Much of the extra money went to increased headcount, with HR staffing up 3%, on average. Another big area of investment was HR technology, with one-fifth organizations saying they increased their spending on HR systems during 2014.  So how are these investments paying off? Unfortunately, for most organizations, not very well. In Deloitte’s newly-released study, just 36% of organizations rated their HR team's performance as either "good" or "excellent." And these ratings are not significantly better than in past years (see Figure 1.)   So for many organizations, the additional investments in HR technology, staffing, programs, and other intiatives have not paid off. But some HR groups are different, and HR leaders would do well to learn some lessons from these organizations. Our research describes a growth model in the maturity of HR capabilities. Most HR organizations start out as "compliance-driven" functions, focused on primary services such as payroll and benefits and meeting legal requirements. Over time, HR organizations need to expand their scope of initiatives and business alignment. At the highest stage of maturity, the "business-integrated" HR organization helps drive the business through workforce strategies and people data. These business-integrated HR functions do spend more than their less mature counterparts - $4,434 per employee, on average, as compared with just $2,112 among compliance-driven HR functions. But the difference is, their efforts are paying off. As evidence, business-integrated HR organizations have lower involuntary turnover compared to compliance-driven HR organizations (8% vs. 11%)—and each percentage point drop in turnover can be worth millions to a large organization. In addition, companies with business-integrated HR organizations have higher promotion rates, creating solid talent pipelines that enable them to take a long-term view of roles and future needs. So when HR organizations look at their budgets, they need to ensure their spending is helping to enhance their effectiveness. The Deloitte study recommends the following to help organizations get started: Design the HR organization to deliver solutions: For many businesses, it is time to redesign HR with a focus on consulting and service delivery, not just efficiency of administration. HR business partners must become trusted business advisors with the requisite skills to analyze, consult, and resolve critical business issues. Create business-integrated "networks of excellence." High-impact HR teams have different staffing models, relying more in specialists embedded in the business.  Recruitment, development, employee relations, and coaching are all strategic programs that should be centrally coordinated but locally implemented. When specialists in these areas live and work close to the business, their impact is greatly enhanced. Make HR a talent and leadership magnet: How do people get HR jobs in your company? If they accidentally move into HR, this may be holding you back. Create rigorous assessments for top HR staff and rotate high performers from the business into HR to create a magnet for strong leaders. Invest in HR development and skills as if the business depended on it:  Invest in professional development to make sure your HR team is constantly sharpening its own saw and developing the necessary skills to survive. Analytical skills are becoming a must for HR professionals, but many lack the ability to interpret data and communicate findings based on analytics.  Other capabilities to focus on include business acumen, consulting skills, and organizational design and change management. For more information, see Human Capital Trends 2015 and HR Factbook 2015.