#HRTechEurope Integrated Talent Management Technology

 

   There were a couple of differences between HR Technology Europe and an unconnected US based conference of the same name that I attended recently.  One of these differences was that there was more focus on core HR management systems and less on talent / human capital management and particularly integration between these systems.

I suspect that this was simply due to the lower state of maturity in Europe, shown in the CedarCornerstone research, and not much of a surprise to anyone (I will admit through that one surprise for me was the number of HR technology people who attended this conference – HR Tech is clearly a much more advanced profession in Europe than I had thought).  Eg there was some suggestion that the key need is data integration, not technology integration, which I think reflects this more transactional focus.

I did however want to address integration in talent management technology, simply because I’ve been looking at integration in talent management recently, and technology is obviously yet another aspect within this.

And it was addressed at the conference, eg Katherine Jones from Bersin noted their research which found that 33% of organisations would trade functionality for higher integration (but this was 2009, and US data, and will have changed a lot since then, and in Europe).  Katherine also noted the importance of an integrated employee profile as the new employee system of record (ESR) – something that had also come out at the Social Workplace conference – the other conference that I was chairing this week.

Lexy Martin wasn’t able to attend the conference but the CedarCrestone provides good up-to-date and localised findings with sound recommendations:

• ”In order to use technology to truly optimse  the workforce contribution to the organisation, it is imperative that all functionality needs to be unified end-to-end and integrated within an ecosytem.
• For the integrated talent management arena, we see two predominant approaches:
1. European organisataions are utilising the talent management capability provided by their core syste, of record vendor, with PeopleSoft the dominant choice.
2. The other approach is the use of a best-of-breed integrated talent management solution of multiple talent management components provided by vendors such as Cornerstone On-Demand, Lumesse, and SuccessFactors.

 

CedarCrestone’s main conclusions are drawn from their worldwide survey report.  These include:

• Standardise processes where it makes sense
• Standardise data handling (minimise number of HRMS instances)
• Adopt an integrated talent management approach
• In 2011, that need not be an integrated talent management solution built on the same platform as your underlying ERP-based HRMS.  It can be an integrated talent management suite.  But one hallmark of the most successful organisations continues to be pervasive integration among processes, solutions and systems.  So if you choose an integrated talent management suite that is from a vendor other than your HRMS vendor, be prepared for integration activities.

 

Also see:

• The role of Recruitment in Integrated Talent Management
• HR, learning and integration
• #HRTechconf – meeting Kevin Oakes – and the need for integrated talent management

 

And

• The book: ‘The Executive Guide to Integrated Talent Management’ (Dave Ulrich, Ed Lawler, Peter Cappelli, a few others, and me)

 

Technorati Tags: HRTechEurope,integrated,HR,talent management,technology,conference,Katherine Jones,Bersin

 

• Consulting - Research - Speaking - Training - Writing
• Strategy - Talent - Engagement - Change and OD
• Contact me to create more value for your business
• jon [dot] ingham [at] strategic [dash] hcm [dot] com

.