Reflections on Technology, Transparency, and the Changing Culture of People and Work through the Eyes of a 20-Year-Old Survey Take a moment and look back to where you were 20 years ago, in 1997… I was a young mother, working on a graduate degree, applying for an internship that would eventually change my life. […]
Co-presenting with Earl Parks from Gallaudet University[i], the premier U.S. school for the deaf, was the highlight of my week at Oracle OpenWorld (OOW) 2016. Gallaudet was a major player in passing the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1980, which led to the adoption of universal design[ii], helping a great diversity of people, including me. The OOW presentation covered Gallaudet’s upgrade to PeopleSoft (PS) 9.2 and its deployment of the PS Fluid User Interface (UI). Read more
It might be hard to believe, but at one point in time, watching a favorite classic movie once a year was a real treat. Growing up in a little Ohio town in Midwest USA, not only did we walk to school uphill both ways in a snowstorm, but we also had a distinct lack of streaming videos. In the dark days of broadcast TV, one of my favorite annual events was watching Judy Garland in “The Wizard of Oz.” And yes, I understand that today there is a great deal of meaning placed on that movie for what it did and did not do well in handling sensitive political and social issues of the time—nonetheless, it also made a big impression on me.
Read more
The women in my family have faithfully passed down a very special skill from generation to generation. While other families pass down amazing cooking skills or timeless gardening capabilities, my family passes down bargain hunting. The polite terms are “frugal” and “thrifty,” but to each successive generation, the women of my family teach their bargain-hunting shopping skills—the art of tirelessly tracking down the best quality products at the lowest prices no matter the miles walked. I bring this up to share that shopping for my family is truly a sport. Read more
The passage of time is relative to the topic. When we think about our families, children, and partners, they grow and change so much in what seems like the blink of an eye, the years that pass by so quickly are expected. On the other hand, when looking back on our days at work, we are utterly shocked when we realize that we can begin to share work-related experiences in terms of decades. So, it is with some chagrin that I can honestly say that it has been more than a decade and a half since I was educated on the importance of the Workforce Management Application to an organization’s operation. Up till then, I had seen the direct value of Payroll applications, core HR data, learning solutions, and even early Talent solutions—but as a member of HR, it wasn’t until I was asked to work with the operations team for a large retail organization that I came to understand how central the Workforce Management applications were to all other areas of HR. Read more
Every year those “in the know” spend time gazing into the future (or their navel, depending on their creative process) with the hopes of picking out those pearls of wisdom that will enlighten and prepare their audience for the coming year. Every industry has its pundits, wise ones, and data collectors, each of them looking at the challenge from a different perspective; the HR community is certainly no different.
For 2015, we at Sierra-Cedar chose to forgo the crystal ball (or LCD monitor) for our predictions and instead have decided to share a few unpublished nuggets from the Sierra-Cedar 2014–2015 HR Systems Survey analysis, kicking off this Survey Says article series with our Survey participants’ actual plans for 2015. Read more
It never seems to fail that following the HR Technology® Conference in October, there’s an increase in blogs, articles, and overall commentary on HR analytics.
The articles usually follow this trajectory:
My fellow Sierra-Cedar colleagues are likely saying, “What’s the big deal about a 17-year-old survey just on HR Technology?” Since I’ve spent 25% of my life on it, for me, it’s a lot. Read more
As we launch the 17th annual CedarCrestone 2014–2015 HR Systems Survey, it’s appropriate to reflect on the past and look forward to the future. I’m often asked what brought me to the field of HR and Talent research—it’s not the easiest job to explain, which I found out the hard way trying to explain my career choices to a group of elementary students (the ice cream truck driver beat me hands down for favorite presentation and career choice that day). For some, research isn’t what excites them every day; but for me, good research is the one job that has the ability to change how we view our world. Great research brings together our past, present, and future to a single point in time and plays a fundamental role in helping us shape the best future possible by allowing us to make decisions based on facts rather than conjecture. Read more
It’s been harder for me to let go of doing the CedarCrestone HR Systems Survey after sixteen years of managing it than I thought it would be. It takes time to pass along the intricacies of doing this Survey and getting over 1,250 organizations to respond. This year was to be a transition year for me to move towards leaving CedarCrestone (now Sierra-Cedar), and I thought I could go from full time to 30 hours a week to 20 hours a week by now—but so far, that’s not been possible. Not to say that Stacey Harris isn’t awesome and totally handling the Survey—she is! There are just so many processes for the Survey design, distribution, data cleansing, data analysis, and more, along with connections to Survey distributors I’ve nurtured over the years and ideas of things I’ve always wanted to do with the Survey. Thus, I’m still working a lot more than I expected. Don’t get me wrong, though: I’m not too unhappy. I don’t have to do the hard work this year. I can be an idea person, reviewer, and critic.
The Survey that will GO LIVE in one week is truly the best ever. Read more