HR service centres & CRM

Last night was the first presentation of the AHRI/Cedar 2004 Workforce Technology Survey results, a survey that has been a project over the last 18 months for the AHRI NSW HRIS SIG (wow how many more acronims can you get!)

The results showed that about 60-70% of surveyed organisations deliver HR services to their employees via some form of Service Centre. This is very interesting, while the centres may not be as comprehensive as a traditional call centre they are still conducting similar business transactions. I have been thinking a bit about this and the technology required to set up a service centre that can justify itself via ROI calculations with hard numbers not “we think it is working”.

Technology plays a very important role in the operations and usually HR practitioners do not know a lot about it and the technology has a very steep learning curve. The need to look at call/email tracking software ranging from basic to the more advanced CRM type applications, review the communications technologies required for reporting and analysis of call patterns, maybe even look at VOIP. These pieces of technology, and the reports produced are critical if you are to be able to provide an ROI.

Potential measures would be:-

  • Call/service volumes
  • Time to answer
  • Time to resolution of issue
  • Call abandon rates
  • Trends on types of services required
  • % of transactions requiring re-work vs benchmark before operations

These are just some of my initial thoughts (I am only on my first cup of coffee and it is Friday) I would be interested to see/develop a full listing of measures.

Blog name change

I have made a slight change to the name of my blog. Instead of just HR stuff I have decided to include the technology stuff (as this interests me almost more than the HR stuff).

On a side note I have rediscovered Redgum (not the tree, the band). If you have not heard of them I recommend you go out and get one of their CDs. They have some fantastic songs about Australia and our culture from the 70’s & 80’s.

Another RFID

Slashdot has found another article on RFID chips and people. This following the previous Legoland and the tagging of Japanese kids.

What or where will be next? Will employers want there employees tagged to ensure they turn up on time, or that they are where they same they are. Or where a suspicious spouse tracks their other half.

I guess more to think about while I watch Law & Order SVU.

The Blogger on the Payroll

I found this at Scoble’s blog. Following on from Joyce Park’s firing two weeks ago a fantastic article from Clickz on the impact corproate blogging is having. The up shot, as I mentioned, seems to be to have a clear policy on blogging within your enterprise. If you do not, like Microsoft, then it is hard for employees to know the boundaries and you will either need to ride out the impact of the blogs or fire the employee or maybe both.

Recruitment @ Google

The people at Google are always doing things a little differently. This time they are recruiting.

They took a billboard on a major highway in Palo Alto and instead of placing a traditional ad, they posted a math’s problem, which once solved directed you to a URL which directed you to a page with an even harder problem is part of a recruitment campaign.

I envy those with the brain power (and time) to get through both problems, and I am assuming a job with Google.

Interviewing

The HR Blog from BostonWorks Hiring Hub is a great place to pick up small tidbits of information on the HR world in North America.

Such as this entry on pre-interviewing tools that is based on a Dr John Sullivan article (anyone who knows Dr John realises that he knows his stuff when it comes to recruitment in High Tech North American firms).

Technical tests are used a lot within technology firms, especially programmer type roles, in fact the Moon Gals from Microsoft have a fantastic example of what such a test looks like and how an applicant can best “perform” during one. While focused on what Microsoft is looking for good viewing for any candidate.

Pre interview questionnaires as discussed by Dr John are used and the best method for delivering and reporting on the results is via the Web. HR can create templates based on the different job families within the organisation to help reduce the time required to get an questionnaire out to a candidate. If integrated into your recruitment solution the sending of the questionnaire request should happen automatically a hiring manager decides to interview a candidate.

Corporate blogging @ IBM

Another blog from a regular blogger who has now joined to growing ranks of corporate bloggers dive into mark talks about his initial thoughts of blogging for IBM.

He talks about being careful about the content, in your personal blog as well as the corporate one.

What will he write about on the IBM blog, according to Mark? “Stuff related to my day job as an accessibility architect for IBM. Cool stuff coming out of IBM’s Emerging Technologies group once it, you know, emerges. Probably other stuff too. These things have a way of taking on a life of their own.”

This will be interesting because the cool stuff that is coming out can only be discussed once it is in the public domain, and then still limited until released as a real product.

I would be interested to see how many of these organisations setting up externally facing corporate blogs are actually using blogs internally as well as a form of knowledge management.

More on Friendster, blogs, and terminations

It seems that Joyce Park’s firing has caused a major stir within the technology ranks across the US. Several news organisations have picked up on the issue:-

I wonder if it will make the Australian press, I guess time will tell.

A search on Bloglines on “Fired for Blogging” shows many different entries of people who have ended with the same fate. Bloggers around the world seem to be getting behind Joyce and the whole issue, some calling for all users of Friendster to cancel their user account. Some have mentioned the obvious that there might be two sides of the story.

This gets me thinking about the impact such a loosely coupled social network can have on an organisation. Can a virtual social network impact the actions of an organisation, we have all seen action groups, such as Shareholders Association of Australia, place pressure on major organisations to change their practices. Will we see such changed based on the pressure of virtual social networks?