Category: Blogging

What’s Next?

I’ve been thinking about writing on my blog for a while now, and this post doesn’t mean I will write regularly (but you never know).

So what is next? This is something I have been searching for over the last few years.

Today I read a good summary, by Chris Dixon, on some key computing trends that will shape our future. Chris sees that these trends are being impacted by two mega-trends in both hardware and software:

  • Hardware: small, cheap, and ubiquitous
  • Software: the golden age of AI

The mega-trends allow for profound new computing platforms to emerge, Chris says they are currently gestating. Chris’s six areas are:

  1. Autonomous Cars
  2. Drones
  3. Internet of Things
  4. Wearables
  5. Virtual Reality
  6. Augmented Reality

Now these should not come as a surprise to you, you would have to have been living under a rock to miss all of them.

But have you considered their impact on the future of work (yes I used that term)? What about on your HR Technology strategies? Are you vendors thinking about these changes? How are you going to educate the workforce? How are managers going to adapt?

Let’s have a quick look at each.

  1. Autonomous Cars – Obviously transport and delivery will be impacted big time. But what about employees and their commute with an autonomous car?
  2. Drones – Chris’s article mentions jobs that involve climbing buildings, towers, and other dangerous structures will be performed more safely and effectively using drones.
  3. Internet of Things – Equipment, plant and facilities monitoring all “run of the mill” examples. Will the use of IoT in the workplace give us our first truly useful digital assistants?
  4. Wearables – An obvious impact here is on wellness in the workplace. What about uses around monitoring for work for safety and productivity, ignoring the privacy debates?
  5. Virtual Reality – Training programs will be profoundly impacted by VR. Already we are seeing organisations use the technology, for safety training. What about eHealth design, construction etc?
  6. Augmented Reality – Again training will be profoundly impacted. So will meetings, presentations and conferences etc. Don’t forget all of those “manual” labour jobs that have standard operating procedures will be enhanced with AR.

This is a very short overview, in fact you could write 1,000’s of words on each an the future of work.

Chris briefly touched on deep learning which I see creating a seismic shift in how we manage recruitment, performance management and career development.

All of these technologies have the ability to profoundly change jobs in the workplace, are you ready?

Where has all the content gone?

A short update.

As some will know I started a new job about 6 weeks ago. Like all new jobs things have been fairly busy, but I have been writing, just not here.

Most of my blogging is going to be over at the Navigo Research site.

I will still be blogging here, just at this stage not sure on the content. For now if you want to catch my blogging you will need to subscribe to both places :).

Over the next two weeks I will be in Sydney for a couple of conference. First the SuccessFactors SuccessConnect 2013 23-24 May  and then Australasian Talent Conference 28-30 May. I have some free time during this trip if you would like to catch up drop me an email.

Popular posts

I had a thought over the last couple of days; “What are my most popular posts?”

About 7 years ago I installed a plug in called WP-PostViews as I cannot remember exactly when I installed it I have no solid starting point for the numbers. However it is still interesting to see what has been popular.

  1. 52 ideas on using social media within HR  – 61,258 views
  2. Social networking sites in Australia – 52,986 views
  3. Less posting here – 47,358 views
  4. Is Facebook good or bad? – 42,426 views
  5. Job Board consolidation – 35,764 views
  6. Become a recruiter for your friends – 29,455 views
  7. What generation are you – 28,153 views
  8. Internal Social Networks Analysis – 25,649 views
  9. Australian Payroll: Chris 21 – 23,783 views
  10. Jeremy Wright was fired and other notes on blogs and work – 20,242 views

The list has mainly very old posts, in years that is, and very SEO keyword friendly so I am not surprising about them being in the list. The most recent post was the one on Chris 21 back in August 2009.

Is this a waste land?

Well there has not been a lot of movement here, but neither I nor this blog are dead.

At this point some of my larger projects are taking a lot of my time and most of what I am doing is not at a point where it can be shared on the blog. Having said that do expect updates in the near future.

In the meantime you could sign up for some of the training which I am running with Inside Job such as Essential Social Media for Recruitment or the Advanced Social Media for Recruitment.

Once again AWOL

Yes once again I have gone AWOL on this blog, I know I’m a bad blogger. Well if there are any readers left I will try and post some more here.

The last 2 months have been filled with lots and lots of work two major projects not to mention the planning for the ATC Social Media 101 conference in December, more on that later, and the InsideJobs Social Media for Recruitment Course.

That’s it, just a short post to let you know I have not forgotten about the blog.

Social media as part of background checking (Part 4)

Finally part four!

In case you missed the reason we are here have a look at the last few posts. In the first post we looked at laying a foundation for the discussion and about how social media allows you access to a unique view on a candidate’s character. In part two I discussed the issue of cultural fit and it’s important and how social media can help assess the cultural fit of a person. In part three I looked at some of the possible legal issues with using the information found online as part of the selection process.

In the final part of this series I want to bring it all together. A statement between the time I write this and when it is published others may have joined in on the discussion, I know Recruiter Daily will, I may have missed some critically posts in the story, sorry.

The Social Contract

Last week I was chatting with Jared Woods and Kelly O’Shaughnessy and it would be fair to say we probably have slightly differing opinions on the subject, or we did last week :-). One of the out comes during our chat was that more agencies need to disclose what they are doing when it comes to social media content. If you are going to use data you find online, is your Privacy Policy and Collection Statement up to date to cover these activities? Secondly if you are an agency have you spoken with your consultants to ensure that they understand their responsibilities? A really good example comes from SKM’s Graduate Recruitment Blog, which given their target market actually makes sense not sure the same could be said if they were hiring CFO’s.

Continue reading “Social media as part of background checking (Part 4)” →

Social media as part of background checking (Part 3)

This is part three in my four part series on social media and background checking.

In the first post we looked at laying a foundation for the discussion and about how social media allows you access to a unique view on a candidate’s character. In part two I discussed the issue of cultural fit and it’s important and how social media can help assess the cultural fit of a person.

In part three I want to look at some of the possible legal issues* with using the information found online as part of the selection process.

Discrimination

The first potential issue is that of discrimination.
Discrimination

I would suggest if you want to learn more about discrimination in Australia head over to the Australian Human Right Commission website and review the information for employers. One thing to remember is there are five primary federal laws that cover this area and each state has their own discrimination Acts. While the overall content of the different laws cover essentially the same areas there are discrepancies at both a Commonwealth and state level and even between the states. Add to this sometimes Commonwealth law applies where at other times both Commonwealth and state  laws apply and finally times when only state laws apply. This is a fairly complex area and a legal minefield.

If employers are to use social media as part of the recruitment process to comply with Commonwealth law they need to ensure that the selection process is not influenced by information around race, colour, national or ethnic origin; sex, pregnancy or marital status; age; disability; religion; sexual preference; trade union activity; or some other characteristic specified under anti-discrimination or human rights legislation.

Continue reading “Social media as part of background checking (Part 3)” →

Social media as part of background checking (Part 2)

This is part two in my four part series on social media and background checking.

In the first post we looked at laying a foundation for the discussion and about how social media allows you access to a unique view on a candidate’s character.

Now another method of assessing character is through a process HR calls cultural fit.

Cultural Fit
Cultural Fit
To start let’s look at the DDI Australia Research Report on Recruiting for Culture Fit. DDI use the terms motivational fit from two distinct perspectives; job and organisation. Let me quote their report:

Job Fit Motivation refers to the degree to which the activities and responsibilities of a particular job are consistent with the activities and responsibilities that an individual finds personally satisfying. In short will somebody want to do the job?

Organisation Fit Motivation is defined as an individual’s compatibility with an organisation’s values and mode of operation. While organisational fit covers a range of organisational attributes the most common and frequently cited element centres on the congruence between individual and organisational values. This is often referred to as Culture Fit.

The DDI study found that 90% of respondents rated recruiting as very important to essential, they also reference several other studies that have found the same thing. However only 36% said they always recruiter for cultural and it went down from there.

Continue reading “Social media as part of background checking (Part 2)” →

Social media as part of background checking (Part 1)

Right now the Australian online recruitment community have started some very health debate/discussion about the concept of using the content from social media as part of background checking. All started by Riges Younan from Peerlo*.

Most of the discussion from the agency perspective is focusing around the ethics of using what is in the public domain to access candidates. There is a sub-discussion on disclosure and relevance.

In my recent post on social recruiting I highlighted social background checking as one of the 18 use cases. So I thought I would chime in on the discussion, not to mention I have a comment to answer on that post as well. But I am going to try and bring some facts into the discussion as well, because so far everyone is talking opinion, which for me is not enough.

Also before I get going most of the posts and comments have been from the point of view of agencies using the information, not employers, again something I want to expand upon.

A final note this post begins to lay out a foundation, part two looks at the cultural fit, part three legal issues and part four will pull it all together. I split this up as a single post would have been huge.

On with the main program.

Social media provides hiring managers a unique insight into candidates before they join the organisation. Now I agree last Saturday night’s drunken party photos have no place in the recruitment process, well maybe they do let’s see where this goes.

Social Media

Let us start with a definition on what is social media.

From Wikipedia social:

The term Social refers to a characteristic of living organisms (humans in particular, though biologists also apply the term to populations of other animals). It always refers to the interaction of organisms with other organisms and to their collective co-existence, irrespective of whether they are aware of it or not, and irrespective of whether the interaction is voluntary or involuntary

From Wikipedia media:

In communication, media (singular medium) are the storage and transmission channels or tools used to store and deliver information or data

In today’s context social media is about using internet technologies so living organisms, humans in our case, can interact in a manner to create channels for the storage and delivery of information or data.

It is more than just Facebook, or Twitter it defines everything we do online where our interactions create and store data that is either in the public domain or being shared privately amongst a closed group.

Continue reading “Social media as part of background checking (Part 1)” →

Some visual changes

Yesterday I made a few minor visual changes over at Inspecht and a fairly major change on Inspecht TV. There will be some more changes coming over the new few weeks, along with an upgrade to the blog, but for now I am running with these themes.

The Inspecht TV changes were in direct response to the feedback from you the readers. Overwhelmingly there has been very positive support for the idea, with many people subscribing to the feed. Also in response to feedback there will be some Inspecht produced content coming very soon.

The Inspecht site is now based on the 960 grid system, an interesting method of laying out content on a page. While Inspecht TV is using a premium WordPress theme that has been modified and upgraded with a number of different plugins.

I hope you like the changes.