It was interesting to read the feedback on the Extend Technologies blog after a preview of Visualization Solutions by Nakisa 3.0. It’s very encouraging to read such positive feedback – so thanks for the shout out! If you have had a preview of the latest Nakisa solution, we’d love to hear your thoughts.
If you have not seen 3.0 yet and would like a preview, you can request a demo in the Nakisa VIP Zone.
A recent blog by George Anders of the Harvard Business Review discussed the take-home lessons of a recent talent management conference. Although industries are moving beyond the economic downturn, it is clear to many major organizations that they have yet to “get talent management right.” For example, attendees mentioned issues with developing an effective internal talent pipeline. Imagine how difficult it would be if your organization does not even have the right people to put in the right place. It would be extremely difficult to optimize talent deployment in this setting- as was discussed in a previous blog.
The most striking statistic from Anders’ post is that 72% of companies consider the war for talent as “an endless struggle in which they are neither gaining nor losing ground.” It is therefore necessary to start thinking of solutions to this challenge.
After having read the blog, I was happy to see the following comment posted by a reader:
“Companies who want to win the very real war for talent need to radically change the way they build talent. They need to make talent practices simpler (so that managers will actually use them) and more transparent (to avoid the negative impacts of secrecy), and enforce managerial accountability (since building great talent is their highest responsibility!)”
I couldn’t agree more. Simplicity, transparency, and increased accountability will be essential for organizations seeking to win ground in the war for talent.
As an aside, I would like to announce to all the readers of this blog that Nakisa has been nominated for an SAP Pinnacle Award in the category of Global Software Solution of the Year. Thank you to all of those who have supported us in the past year and, until next time, remember to Visualize What Matters Most™
It’s late into the night, and an entire stadium of energetic fans falls silent. Both teams have made it through regulation and extended play but are still tied for points. The entire game comes down to a moment of truth—the shootout.
Many different types of competitions have a standardized method when it comes to selecting the best team, the best athlete, and sometimes the best candidate.
The question I pose to readers this week is, “What happens when you are encountered with two seemingly equal candidates to fill a key position in the organization?” Some individuals rely on a list of “pros” and “cons” of either candidate, but this may be based on arbitrary preferences. Others may be willing to “go with their gut” and rely purely on instincts to decide which candidate is best suited for a position. But when it comes to the critical roles that are essential to the proper functioning of your business, the “moment of truth” needs an objective and consistent decision support system.
It is for this reason that the latest release of SAP® Talent Visualization by Nakisa® features tools such as the enhanced succession calibration grid to help you clearly identify the right person for a role. The solution also features our unique profile match capability. Nakisa’s profile match provides a flash based interface to track down and compare, side-by-side, potential succession candidates based on the role requirements. If the showdown is still “too close to call” our profile match also displays non-shared competencies that may not be required for the position, but may prove to be a valuable asset, putting the winner over the top.
Click here to find out what our Global Service Partner, ROC, has to say about it our latest release.
Until next time, remember to Visualize what Matters Most™
My team and I were very excited to attend SAP HR 2010 last week in Orlando. Each year, SAP HR proves to be a great event for us as we connect with the right people in the SAP/HR arena. However, this year was especially interesting for us as Nakisa was featured in over ten sessions throughout the event (the majority of which were volunteered by customers and partners without our solicitation). Each day in Orlando, our booth was constantly visited by individuals saying things like ‘I just came from a talk that highlighted Nakisa. How can I learn more?”. As the attendees met with us, they were very interested in the demos of our latest release and our video presentations on Advanced Competency Management. It was great to touch base with the different conference participants and to demonstrate our commitment to providing innovative solutions in talent visualization and management.
I invite you all to get to know us better through our videos, and by following our posts on Twitter. For those of you who were unable to attend SAP HR in Orlando, we have posted some information on the seminars in ourVIP Zone.
Until next time, remember to Visualize What Matters Most™.
I’m sure you’re all familiar with the show You’ve Got Talent where budding entertainers seek to win a contest by unveiling their hidden talents before a panel of judges. Contestants have to pass through several auditions before a winner is chosen. This process reminds me a lot of how some organizations recruit talent from within. The HR department posts a job and prospective employees “audition” in hopes of winning the “talent contest”. This process is reactive rather than proactive.
With a talent visualization system in place, organizations can clearly see and then map employees’ skills to job openings without undergoing a time-consuming series of interviews in order to “discover” the right candidate. Organizations owe it to themselves to adopt a talent management system so as to visualize the “hidden” talent in their midst.
Until next time, remember to Visualize What Matters MostTM.
I came across an article called Optimizing Talent as Organizations Flatten in the latest issue of Talent Management. In mapping out the ‘Talent Life Cycle Model’ the article illustrates how the productivity of a role drastically drops with a sudden vacancy. This drop in ‘employee contribution’ is due to ramp-up time of the new hire. Building on the ‘Talent Life Cycle Model’, it makes sense that effective succession planning can help avoid the downtime associated with a new hire, by enabling succession ‘bench’ employees to ‘ramp up’ in advance. However, an obstacle to effective succession planning is the lack of connectivity with the other talent management activities (employee reviews, development, career planning etc.).
Best practice organizations understand that organizational competencies are the critical building blocks that connect talent management activities. With competencies used as the standard for measuring both human capital and roles, organizations can clearly identify talent gaps and match the best-fitting employees to fill those gaps. By enabling in-house mobility and bypassing ramp up involved with hiring and training new talent, talent deployment is then optimized to maximize employee contributions sooner rather than later.
Nakisa has produced a video that further discusses the benefits of advanced competency management. I encourage you to check it out on YouTube:
With the release of version 2.1 of SAP Talent Visualization by Nakisa (SAP TVN), I wanted to highlight a few of the new innovations I’m particularly excited about.
SAP TVN was originally developed to empower users with clarity into their organization and talent with interfaces that visualize core HCM data. Each subsequent release of the solution has incorporated the latest technology and best practices in data visualization, so customers are always getting the most value out of their underlying HCM information. The enhancements with 2.1 are no exception.
We’ve worked to reduce the number of clicks it takes to visualize the right information and take the proper action. Part of this is thanks to the integration of new interactive Flash-powered tools such as our new Talent Grid (9-box) which supports drag-and-drop functionality enabling instant talent calibration on the spot.
We’ve also launched Profile Match for 2.1, an innovative decision support tool for succession planning. Users can quickly and objectively find the right successors for any given role. The Profile Match mechanism uses organizational competencies and qualifications to bring successors and positions together in a way that promotes alignment between global objectives and the talent pipeline.
The new Java Edition will offer our customers many benefits, mainly lowering their total cost of ownership. In addition to running on a .Net platform, organizations are now able to run SAP TVN on the Java platform, eliminating the need to purchase additional Windows servers
I am very excited about these enhancements and I invite you to sign up for a personal demonstration of our solutions in Nakisa’s VIP Zone.
Talent Management Magazine recently highlighted the benefits of adopting sustainable activities within the organization. The feature story highlights how businesses who commit to “green” practices are more likely to attract and retain the best talent, realize savings, and improve their image. As is common practice these days, the article uses the term “sustainability” to refer to environmental and social responsibility. No doubt, an organization’s responsibility to the planet is very important; however when it comes to defining the key link between “talent management” and “sustainable business,” a key perspective is often overlooked: building a workforce to ensure success that lasts.
Your organization may have all the best intentions to save the planet today, but if it can’t endure competitive, technical, social and economic turbulence in the long run, it won’t be around tomorrow when the planet still needs saving. With effective talent management processes and tools, an organization can devise and maintain a talent pipeline strategy to keep them successful well into the future. A truly sustainable workforce should ensure that the enterprise always maintains the critical competencies that enable efficiency, innovation and agility despite the changes in external forces.
For more information about creating a Sustainable Workforce, I recommend you check out SAPs EcoHub Sustainability Map.
“It is 9 o’clock on a Monday morning; do you know where your next CEO is?”
It wasn’t too long ago when this type of high-level question caused leading organizations and institutions around the world to rethink their strategy for identifying, developing, and promoting successors to key roles. Now that our clients have reaped the benefits of applying our best practice solutions to their C-suite, the next step is defining the right scope, or depth, of your organization’s succession planning.
As I discussed in my previous blog post (Seeing is Believing), being able to visualize vast amounts of information is, and always has been, very important. The question is: how can we visualize data as efficiently as possible so as to increase ROI? The answer to this question depends on a number of items, all of which need to be considered.
They include:
1. What is the state of your current succession planning program?
If a company’s current succession plans do not identify talent gaps, flight risk, performance, potential and other important indicators, there is only so much that can be expected in terms of final results. For your talent management initiatives to be successful, it must be built on a process you have confidence in. Click herefor more information on how Nakisa is leading the industry in terms of our profile match and 9-box capabilities.
2. What is the depth of your current succession planning program?
Succession plans should not be limited to executive circles. Many organizations have found a great deal of value in widening the scope of their current talent management strategy; especially when non-executive positions in the organization require specific competencies or training. Although the executive team is critical to achieving organizational objectives, losing a key sales person or researcher can have disastrous effects on your bottom line.
3. What are the best practices for succession planning?
According to a recent study by the Aberdeen Group, “Organizations must extend succession planning to layers below the C-suite.” Based on their research of the HCM market, “the majority of Industry Average organizations apply succession planning to the C-suite, but below that layer, vulnerability exists for key employee departures. Only 47% of Industry Average companies have succession plans in place for upper-middle management and just 34% for middle management.” Although a majority of companies have understood the need for succession planning, many of them are not maximizing their benefits by focusing on key roles that exist outside of the C-suite.
The answer to the “depth” question should not be entirely dependent upon the size of your organization. Large scale succession planning is not only beneficial for large enterprises. The very best succession planning processes should ensure that all key roles impacting your business are protected by ensuring adequate bench strength.
We have just released anew video that describes how your organization can leverage SAP Job Architecture for the purpose of large scale succession planning . Click on the Job Architecture heading on our home page and let us know what you think.
Across all levels of your enterprise, people are being bombarded with information. Just consider the last time you researched a hot topic on the Internet; the number of search engine results can easily come back in the tens of millions! The solution to this “information overload” is to find ways to deliver the most relevant information in the shortest amount of time.
In order to keep up with demand, our VIP Section has now been transformed into the VIP Zone. Information is now easier to find; you can now browse through our informational resources based on which Nakisa solution you’re interested in, which challenges your business is facing, or your specific industry. The VIP Zone also offers you the chance to workshop your talent management initiatives with Nakisa representatives and value engineers. I am especially confident in the ROI exercise that we can arrange for you at no cost.
The goal of our software at Nakisa is to get the right information to the right person at the right time. This philosophy is now mirrored in the way we have organized our VIP Zone. Sign up for an account today so you can learn how Nakisa can help you align your talent with your strategic initiatives.
