Cornerstone's Talent Management Blog

From the Blog: Which Performance Management Rating Scale Should You Use?

Laura Durando — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 17:29:15 +0000

Which Performance Management Rating Scale Should You Use?

Moving to a smaller rating scale can increase distinction between high- and low-performing employees. Read the pros and cons of the Three, Four and Five-Point Scales.

Over the years, I have gathered numerous papers and research from various sources about Performance Management Rating Scales. This is always a very sensitive discussion for companies as they determine which rating scale they should use for their employee performance management process and why they should change their current rating structure.

Some of the research shows moving to a smaller rating scale approach (Five-Point, Four-Point, or Three-Point) because fewer categories hold the following benefits:

Increased distinction between high and lower performers
Decreased complexity
Increased consistency between ratings

What I've experienced over time is that when organizations use larger scales (some up to 9 points), they don't use the full scale anyway. For instance, one company I worked with left the top rating on the scale for performers that could, as we called it, “walk on water." No one ever fell into this category, but it was there just in case. In another company, the lowest rating was left for the unacceptable performer, but they were always “weeded out” before the performance cycle began and never received the performance rating.

Some managers like larger scales because it gives them a sense of security; they can be safe giving a rating that falls in the middle somewhere versus on either end of the scale, and they won’t get as much grief from the employee.

Then there is the subjectivity that impacts the performance rating. If there are fewer categories, there is less subjectivity and inconsistency between the evaluators. To an organization, less subjectivity and inconsistency hopefully means more fairness.

Based on my best practices collection, I have a pros and cons list of the Three, Four and Five-Point rating scales. I thought I’d share the results -- maybe they will help you make decisions for your company as you make changes for the future. The list has already helped a number of Cornerstone clients I’ve talked with. Remember, since organizations are at different levels of maturity, some of what you see may not “fit” with your organization.

Five-Point Scale

Pros	Cons
Consistency with A-F grading model Less training required Managers can adequately distinguish between five levels Consistent with bell curve	Middle rating perceived as mediocrity Difficult for manager to communicate how to attain higher levels Only fours levels are usually used Use of central category is common

Four-Point Scale

Pros	Cons
Absence of middle/average rating Avoids central category commonality Finer distinction than three-points Skews raters in a positive or negative direction	Hard to differentiate improvement from termination Only fours levels are usually used Skews raters in a positive or negative direction

Three-Point Scale

Pros	Cons
Consistent with Total Quality Management principles Easy to categorize Increase consistency Middle rating implies expected performance, not average	Managers will often add plusses or minuses Doesn’t identify needed improvement from possible termination Only two levels are usually used No recognition of top 2-5% performers

In the end, an organization needs to determine the direction of their rating scale and performance management process based on a number of factors:

Organizational readiness
Comfort level with change
Current state of their performance management process and pain points
Integration points with other talent management strategies
Executive vision
Board of directors' influence
Implications that can hinder performance management process (i.e. time of year, business impact, etc.)

And one last recommendation: Build a collaborative approach with all business units that’s right for the organization today and can grow with the organization tomorrow

Laura Durando is a Client Success Manager with Cornerstone OnDemand. She has over 25 years of business experience and has held executive positions in Talent Management and Organizational Development with multiple organizations.

From the Blog: Competencies: At the “Heart” of a Talent Management Strategy

Laura Durando — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 18:03:25 +0000

Competencies: At the “Heart” of a Talent Management Strategy

While competencies should be at the core of your strategy, they can be a confusing topic for many HR and Talent Management leaders. Learn more about what competencies are, how they benefit organizations and how to get started.

Whether it is for performance management, succession planning, career development and more, there are many definitions for competencies and the ways they can be used as part of talent management strategies. As time goes by, I feel people try to use competencies in ways that may not support a measured outcome or result –- it’s just another “thing” we need to include in our organizational strategy to build talent. With this in mind I thought I’d talk about some of things I’ve learned and how I've used competencies over the years in hopes I may help to guide many of you as you sail towards this new horizon. For those of you in the more advanced stages of competencies, I’ll talk about that in another posting.

What are Competencies?

There are many definitions out there for competencies, but the one I continue to use is:

“A competency is an observable and measureable attribute (skill, knowledge, value, trait, or perspective) that contributes to success in performing a task or job.”

I know this may seem to be a mouthful, but in reality, competencies are shaped by so many things we do, as well as by who we are. Our emotions, beliefs, experiences and even our genetic make-up play an important part in how we determine success. That’s why it must be an observable behavior (something you can see), so we have a common interpretation.

Because of this vagueness, companies haven’t always used them as effectively as possible. Over time, organizations started a competency-based approach to identify its critical success factors -- what it needs to focus on in order for the business to succeed, as well as the components for the success of its people. Defined either way, competencies continue to help businesses become more efficient, focused and flexible.

When focusing on people, competencies can predict performance, promotion and derailment. Statistics from experts Michael Lombardo and Robert Eichinger have found:

Sales managers with higher ratings on critical skills are twice a likely to meet/exceed targets;

Having the right set of competencies is worth $7 million more in sales per executive;

And top performers across a variety of jobs have 2 to 12 times the productivity of average performers

Evidence shows that competencies lay the groundwork -- performance improves when clear direction is established and a path is followed.

Organizational Benefits

Just a few benefits (off the top of my head) of using competencies within an organization include:

Aligning people with organization strategy by a set of competencies and then selecting, coaching and developing people against those competencies.

Evaluating readiness for change by determining if a future set of competencies are feasible before changes are implemented.

Driving organizational initiatives by measuring the current state of competencies to determine significant gaps and identify initiative focus.

Determining success at different levels of the organization by identifying individual potential and the development needed to ready people for new positions and responsibilities.

Creating a system framework where all of your HR processes are built around to attract, develop and retain your best talent.

To clarify, competencies can be used in a number of different ways to support your talent management strategy, including: recruitment and selection; individual assessment and development; performance management; team assessment; coaching; career development; succession management; and organizational culture and readiness assessments.

At the end of the day the competencies are at the “heart” of these processes, helping to create a standardized approach, language and direction to be followed and measured. This is why competencies need to be at the core of your talent management strategy, with a phased plan of execution to address your business needs and alignment to the organizational strategy.

Getting Started

Where do you start?

One approach might be to determine your pain points or “what’s broken." If you’re having problems hiring and retaining, start with a competency-based selection process. If you don’t have the bench strength needed for the future, structure a competency-based succession and development process.

Anywhere you begin will have positive effects, as long as your competencies are part of an integrated solution and have been embedded into the culture. It will take time, so have patience. And if you don’t know where to start, you’re not sure what’s broken, or if there are many things broken, you can use the philosophy which has guided me through my HR experience as a change agent...

If it’s not broken, BREAK IT!

From the Blog: Starwood Hotels and Resorts Rolls Out a Global LMS

Charles Coy — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 00:21:47 +0000

Starwood Hotels & Resorts Rolls Out a Global LMS

The international hotel & leisure giant talks about replacing its “tremendously unsuccessful” on-premise LMS, including its thorough software vendor search and internal change management process

Having a comfortable bed in a hotel room may seem like a no-brainer idea, but when Westin Hotels and Resorts introduced its signature Heavenly Bed in 1999, it was a game changer for the hotel industry. It is this type of marketing-leading innovation on which Westin’s parent company, Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, prides itself.

One of the world’s largest hotel and leisure companies, Starwood owns, manages and franchises more than 1,000 hotel properties around the world under nine unique brands, including: W, Westin, Le Meridien, Sheraton St. Regis, Four Points, The Luxury Collection, aloft and element. At the core of Starwood’s success is its commitment to creating a company that is a great place to work and provides wonderful guest experiences.

So how does a large global company not only ensure consistency in the guest experience, but also in the employee experience, for 155,000 employees across nine brands, six divisions and six business categories? Starwood’s Talent Management team found its answer in Cornerstone OnDemand’s learning management system (LMS). Starwood’s Talent Management team discussed the rollout of its global LMS at our Convergence 2009 conference, sharing background into their vendor selection process, development of internal business processes in conjunction with the LMS rollout, and key lessons learned along the way.

Choosing the Right Vendor

Before choosing Cornerstone’s Software-as-a-Service (SaaS)-based solution, Starwood was using a known behind-the-firewall LMS that the team describes as “buggy” and “tremendously unsuccessful,” and that also required a lot of overhead to keep running. Another issue? Starwood’s IT department had chosen the solution, not the Talent Management team.

The decision to switch to a new LMS kicked off a two-year process that began in 2006. There were three categories of challenges that Starwood’s team would need to address with a new system. Software functionality and support were key. But the team also saw the switch as an opportunity to update related Starwood business processes the team felt were inadequate. They wanted the right vendor partner to help them to establish processes and configure the LMS software accordingly.

Based on these challenges, Starwood’s team developed these vendor selection criteria:

Vendor Fundamentals, including cost, delivery model and product road map

User Experience, including user interface, functionality, reporting and proof of concept (POC) participant feedback

Vendor Competency, including partnership, integration, conversion and support

After an extensive search, which included dozens of use cases, Starwood found its right vendor partner in Cornerstone OnDemand. Starwood had never used a SaaS solution internally, but the flexibility and scalability of an on-demand solution appealed to the team. They saw Cornerstone’s SaaS delivery as a faster and more efficient way to deploy, manage and maintain a global LMS without the need for upgrades, maintenance or IT resources.

According to Allison Barber, Vice President of Talent Management for Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, “As an international organization, employee learning initiatives are essential to helping Starwood maintain consistency in service and guest experience at all of our properties. By using Cornerstone, we are able be more strategic in configuring our learning management system to support our overall business goals and create efficiencies within the organization. The blend of different course styles, as well as the on-demand access, also allows us to target learners more specifically versus taking a one-size-fits-all approach.”

Beyond proof of concept, Starwood felt the relationship with Cornerstone was a true partnership. For example, when Starwood discussed their internal needs and processes with their previous on-premise software vendor, the team often got the response of, “This is not how our system works.” With Cornerstone, the team appreciated getting a more productive response of, “Why would you want to do it that way?” Cornerstone’s effort to better understand what Starwood was trying to achieve helped to foster a more open and honest dialogue between the two teams.

Why Change Management is Critical

Before the LMS could go live, Starwood needed to update and build new business processes. And having the right change management process in place was critical to the success of the process development and LMS implementation. Without full support of key stakeholders within the company such as the four global divisions (EMEA, APAC, North America and South America), IT, HRIS, and content owners and instructors, no one would use the new system.

Working closely with Cornerstone, Starwood’s Talent Management team created a four-tiered project organization structure consisting of four levels:

An Executive Sponsor, in order to ensure C-level support

A Steering Committee to oversee the implementation process

Project Leaders, including members of both the Cornerstone and Starwood Talent Management teams

Sub-teams of contributors for the LMS implementation and new process roll-out

Steering Committee participants included representatives from the company’s global divisions, such as HR leads, operations leads, training leads, functional leads and finance leads. With an emphasis on open and consistent communication, the Steering Committee evaluated Starwood’s current businesses processes and determined whether they needed to be updated in order to take advantage of Cornerstone’s LMS functionality. Participants were encouraged to keep an open mind regarding multiple, viable alternatives for all of the processes being determined. In instances where requirements from different business areas created conflicting priorities or processes, the team worked to reconcile them by keeping in mind the best interests of Starwood as a whole.

As Project Leaders, the Starwood Talent Management team collaborated with Cornerstone to manage project milestones and issues, share status updates with the Steering Committee and stakeholders, and provide input and recommendations to assist in key decision making. Working directly with both the Steering Committee and the Sub-teams gave Starwood Talent Management a more holistic perspective on the priorities and points of all of the groups involved. This centralized approach also helped to keep participants active in the process and build trust among the groups. And the involvement of the Sub-teams allowed them to learn the Cornerstone LMS application firsthand and become subject matter experts before training even started.

Key Learnings

So what were Starwood’s key learnings throughout the entire process of revamping its internal LMS process and technology solution?

Watch the releases. Keep an open line of communication with your software vendor to find out which functionality is coming up that might help to improve existing processes or support new ones.

Make an “Implementation to Production” support transition plan. Having a specific plan in place helped to keep everyone on track, plan ahead for necessary resources and manage expectations.

The Sub-team work was worth it. It helped to ensure a smoother, more comprehensive rollout of the new LMS.

There is no such thing as over-communicating with Stakeholders. It will help you if they question project team decisions.

Charles Coy is the Product Marketing Director for Cornerstone OnDemand

From the Blog: Analyst Panel Shares Expert Take on Latest HR Technology Trends

Charles Coy — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 21:40:19 +0000

Analyst Panel Shares Expert Take on Latest HR Technology Trends

HR Executive's Bill Kutik and top industry analysts from Bersin & Associates, Forrester, IDC and Knowledge Infusion discuss the down economy, social networks, succession planning, ROI measurement and more at Convergence 2009

If you are looking for guidance and insights on the latest HR technology trends and best practices, then who better to talk to than an all-star line-up of the industry’s leading experts? That’s exactly what we did at our recent client and partner conference, Convergence 2009. We hosted an expert panel entitled “Critical Trends in HR Technology,” featuring top industry analysts in the learning and talent management software space, such as:

Leighanne Levensaler, Director of Talent Management Research, Bersin & Associates
Zach Thomas, Senior Analyst, Business Process & Applications, Forrester*
Cushing Anderson, Program Vice President, Project-Based Services, IDC
Jason Corsello, VP, Head of Center of Excellence, Knowledge Infusion

*Note: As of earlier this month, Thomas is no longer with Forrester.

Moderating the panel was Bill Kutik – technology columnist for Human Resource Executive, co-chair of the HR Technology Conference and the host of the "Bill Kutik Radio Show". Topics ranged from the impact of the economy on the HR technology market, the impact of social networking and Web 2.0 tools on talent management strategies, succession planning strategies, what the recent vendor consolidations mean for talent management, and more. Even Cornerstone OnDemand CEO, Adam Miller, joined the conversation at certain points.

For those of you who weren’t fortunate enough to join us live in the room, here’s a recap of the discussion.

BILL KUTIK: What impact has the economy had on the talent management and general HR technology market?

LEIGHANNE LEVENSALER: Companies are looking to their talent systems to help them make decisions about downsizing and reviewing the critical talent in their pool. Also, who are the low performers? Because of this, organizations are saying that talent management is important.

(To the attendees) Do any of your companies currently have travel restrictions? (Not many hands are raised). Restrictions seem to be easing up.

Talent management and enabling technologies help to respond to business opportunities. One example is Chevron and clean energy. Chevron is completely retooling their entire organization, identifying and cultivating talent pools to take advantage of clean technologies. Another example is Cisco, which is retooling leadership and workers to support new software initiatives – capitalizing on opportunities, retrenching and retooling. It’s not just about surviving the downturn.

KUTIK: Are companies buying new solutions or just adding on to what they already have?

CUSHING ANDERSON: There have been different responses to different trends. Differences between organizations that are in cost control and needing to reposition and realign themselves. You need to pick your own strategy. Your response is based on your corporate philosophy. Buying is slowly coming back, but the responses will be different.

KUTIK: According to IHRIM survey data, early 2009 figures say 66 percent of companies are spending as much or more on new technologies this year. I was shocked.

ZACH THOMAS: Our research supports this as well. One interesting trend we seen in talking with clients is that they are not looking at an entire suite – rather it is more about addressing specific pain points. There is now a wider scope when talking about performance management or succession management.

JASON CORSELLO: There is a shift in terms of people trying to get more out of what they already purchased – either fine-tuning or consolidating and trying to determine what is or isn’t working.

LEVENSALER: People are still interested and looking to buy, but the cycle is taking longer. Why is Cornerstone doing so well? Because they are solving a specific need, and having the learning component helps. Companies also are looking at vendor viability, which is essential.

KUTIK: Many are predicting that social software will have a negative impact on formal learning strategies. For instance, the idea that “search-learning” will replace formal course learning. How would you suggest using both to deliver a learning strategy that, while effective, still gives HR sufficient control of the process?

ANDERSON: In regards to search learning, I would define it differently than just searching for information. It is also about searching for experts. And, it is all about self-service. It has got to be the way that organizations serve up the information. The strategy is to identify or acknowledge that training organizations don’t know everything your employees need to know. You are not the holder of classes – you are the source of knowledge transfer. You need to put in place the tools to allow people to find what or who they need to be effective. In cost cutting times, HR executives or CIOs may say, “Let’s cut classroom learning.” But it should really be about, “How do I do this better?” What are the five to ten courses that are absolutely essential? You would never be able to agree – all courses would be seen as important but not necessarily essential. And what about the information you don’t have? Or, what if there are not enough people to warrant a class? But if you can facilitate people sharing information amongst themselves, organizations will find success. Organizations that realize they don’t have the information will be more apt to adopt these social tools.

CORSELLO: There are tremendous opportunities for informal learning. For example, for people starting a new job and being able to connect with others in the company. There isn’t one or the other though – solutions should be blended. You need to figure out how your employees are going to get knowledge.

THOMAS: I would argue that rather in three years or five years, social learning is happening today. I think of IM as a learning tool. I use it to get the information I need from the right people. The real place where learning pros can become strategic is in figuring out how to institutionalize what is already going on in their organizations. For example, rather than providing a course catalog, create a wiki that can constantly evolve.

KUTIK: What about people who get questions that aren’t relevant to them?

THOMAS: It’s not about the number of connections. It’s more about how often people come to them for information.

LEVENSALER: Control should not be the right attitude. It is more about “formalizing” informal learning. Alignment is the goal, not control. For example, with coaching programs, HR has been successful in formalizing an informal role. Control is not the objective.

THOMAS: When we talk about social learning and technologies, it is more about a means to an end. Don’t lead with the technology.

KUTIK: We’ve all seen plenty of vendor consolidation in the last three years. Most recently, the bidding war over Sum Total. Do you think any stand alone LMS, compensation or performance management vendor can survive? Will there still be room for an old-fashioned best-of-breed – companies that do one thing well?

THOMAS: In the coming year, we will see solutions evolve. We’re already starting to see, horizontally, a suite approach, and the same with vertical solutions. Vendors start strategic at the top, with more tactical solutions at the bottom. And there are companies that are looking to be more holistic – for example, ADP’s partnership with Cornerstone. Lawson and Workday are two other examples. So why does this make sense? According to Naomi Bloom and the HR Object Model, tactically it is important. If you are going to have a successful rollout, you need to have a unified user interface, or adoption is going to be low and the ROI will not be as good. At the end of day, it is the data that is going to help you be more strategic and win the day. How do you start tying solutions to the bottom line financial networks within your organization?

KUTIK: Basically, you don’t get to sit at the table if you don’t have the numbers.

CORSELLO: There is a circle of life in enterprise software. And then a few select vendors emerge as leaders. There are no defined leaders in talent management software today, but we’ll start to see them. We’re also seeing new companies being formed, and new technologies to support this. It means looking at performance differently and how you get real-time information to executives.

ANDERSON: The circle of life is much longer than any analyst would like to admit. I have been doing this for ten years, when eLearning was the new thing. There were 60 companies then, but now that number has doubled. Of course, this is an unverifiable fact. Most people don’t have a problem that all parts of a suite can address. The market is growing, and in the next 12 months there will be a new vendor out there claiming to have 200 clients. For Cornerstone and others, it is having the right features and innovation.

KUTIK: What about silos, about people not communicating and working together?

LEVENSALER: Learning management systems are an $800 million industry, not all of learning. It isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. You’re with Cornerstone for extended enterprise, LMS and other platforms, and it isn’t just a development plan. These little LMS companies are not going away anytime soon.

KUTIK: A recent technology survey indicates that succession planning is what HR wants most to do but is investing in the least. Wouldn’t this be useful in layoffs?

CORSELLO: The fundamental flaw is that companies assume managers have time for succession planning, but they don’t. They don’t have time to move chess pieces around. I have one client approaching it in a way where a Talent Development Consultant sits with the CIO or CFO to create a work form, identify what they need in six to 12 months, and then create a roadmap. A shift needs to occur where there is less dependence on managers for this. HR needs to help with the process, and the technology exists to support it.

KUTIK: I hear stories about managers freaking out about self-service offerings.

LEVENSALER: Succession planning means different things in different organizations. It gets blurry when defining succession planning versus workforce planning. A lot of vendors don’t have that level of sophistication.

KUTIK: What do you do if the jet crashes and all your executives are on it?

ANDERSON: They don’t know who a successful candidate is or who to dismiss. They just don’t. I love the idea of succession planning. Most organizations don’t know as much about their people as they need to know. The key is that we don’t empower our employees enough to say where they want to be in a certain number of years and provide them with the tools for getting there. For employees, though, it needs to count – why would I do it if it won’t have any impact?

KUTIK: Armed forces do workforce planning 30 years out.

ANDERSON: The Army shows cadets what they should aspire to be. We don’t do that in the workforce. The point is that, if nothing else, you should encourage employee self service. Look ahead five jobs out, and it is your responsibility to figure out how to get there.

KUTIK: For succession planning and social networks, why wouldn’t there be a tie into a social network scenario, where users feature the information that HR wants to know?

THOMAS: It is called mentoring.

ANDERSON: It is a profiling problem. I try not to rely on anyone else for me to be successful. You need to empower people to do it for themselves.

LEVENSALER: It could be like a self-nomination.

ADAM MILLER: Cushing, you painted an interesting picture of a system where people have access to the information they need, when they need it. But who should own corporate social networks? Different silos within the organization often fight over it. Is this an opportunity for people to own it and build importance?

LEVENSALER: Ownership is like control. If the goal is to solve a problem or create opportunities, then you need to understand what that is in order to determine who should own it.

ANDERSON: In Jason’s presentation regarding what the new organizational model looks like, there is no one place in the organization where you can easily map a nexus that makes the most sense. It more naturally plays in the OD department, but it doesn’t necessarily exist anymore.

CORSELLO: It is the CEO’s role to embed it into the culture. The others are stewards to make this happen.

THOMAS: Tactically, let’s get the same people who represent C-level responsibilities in the HR department.

KUTIK: Does the increased focus on social learning imply that the LMS is becoming irrelevant? What key innovations have you seen in LMS that will prevent it from becoming irrelevant?

ANDERSON: Learning departments need to get away from being a course catalog. It should be more about giving advice.

LEVENSALER: They need to support user generated content, but how they will stay relevant is certification and compliance training. An LMS can hold on to this and do it really well.

KUTIK: Social networks are not good about being bi-directional. You never know who read the information.

ANDERSON: You don’t want the LMS to become a reporting function.

THOMAS: Show me an LMS that can predicatively drive performance and directly impact bottom line.

KUTIK: The jungle drums have been sounding that some talent management initiatives have failed. How do you convince senior executives that yours won’t?

THOMAS: There need to be resources for effective implementation. You need to look at software that is being delivered as a service. And you need people with deep expertise.

CORSELLO: You need to bring facts and data, but it needs to be the right data. HR facts are not the right data – you need to focus more on dollar figures and attaching results to those numbers.

KUTIK: The ROI from a performance management report is really good.

ANDERSON: It is less about ROI. If you ask, you’re dead. If your managers buy into defined success criteria, then it is not about numbers or facts, it is about those success criteria.

KUTIK: Of all the talent management applications, how should social networks be used?

LEVENSALER: It should be integrated or embedded, not separate. You should be using these tools to supplement the solutions you have in place.

CORSELLO: I agree with Leighanne. The future is a few years out, but by then you will be able to analyze the value of those networks and evaluate the performance of different divisions and the strengths of the different talent pools. But this isn’t available today.

KUTIK: How is Adam Miller going to embed Cornerstone Connect into the different applications?

ANDERSON: I will coach Adam from here. It is not about one thing, it is about a collection of tools. And they each have a role. You can apply each to the talent process – attaching the right ones to the right place in the cycle. It needs to appear wherever appropriate.

MILLER: Ultimately, the point is to embed user-generated content with traditional data. It is taking organizational data that everyone uses and meshing it with user-generated content to give you a holistic picture when making decisions about your talent as well as your business.

Charles Coy is the Product Marketing Director for Cornerstone OnDemand

From the Blog: Social Collaboration: The Future of Talent Management?

Charles Coy — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 21:57:59 +0000

Social Collaboration: The Future of Talent Management?

Knowledge Infusion analyst Jason Corsello explains the power of combining talent data with social tools – and how this is driving an evolution in talent management strategies

One of the more buzzed about trends at Convergence 2009 was enterprise social networking and Web 2.0 collaboration tools – such as blogs, wikis, communities of practice, instant messaging (IM) and more. How can organizations use these tools to support their human capital management strategies? Is there a measurable impact? Or is it all just a bunch of hype?

Observes Adam Miller, CEO of Cornerstone OnDemand, “Ultimately, the point is to embed user-generated content with traditional data. It is taking organizational data that everyone uses and meshing it with user-generated content to give you a holistic picture when making decisions about your talent as well as your business.”

Knowledge Infusion analyst Jason Corsello addressed the topic of social collaboration tools and their impact on talent management strategies during a lively and compelling keynote at our client and partner conference. Of particular interest was his suggested approach to getting executive buy-in and tips for how to get started.

Significant Shift in Talent Management

According to Jason, in the next three years, there’s going to be a significant shift in talent management. Because of what is happening in organizations today, there are shifts in how decisions are being made. While companies may have a hierarchical structure, how the work really gets done is flat – people go up and down the chain in order to get things done.

This is also impacted by the way people use technology. Technology has impacted how work gets done, how managers manage and how decisions get made. In the past, organizations used to be siloed. Innovation gets stuck in these kinds of organizations. We’re moving from a transactional to an interactive world, one that requires collaborative, team-based structures. Many organizations are working to adopt this model, where performance becomes collaborative and team-focused rather than placing an emphasis on the performance of an individual silo.

Social collaboration is where the evolution in talent management is occurring. The four elements Jason views as falling under social collaboration include:

Portal Self Service -- More focused on the organization versus HR topics, this is a central place to engage, share information and get work done.
Social Networking – Beyond Facebook and Twitter, this is about connecting with colleagues you know – and more importantly, the ones you don’t know.
Profiles and Expertise – Talent profiles help people get to know more about different employees and identify business expertise.
Knowledge Sharing – This can mean many things to many people. Wikis are one example.

Improved Insight for Making Critical Business Decisions

Whether it is communication, conversations, collaboration or capturing intellectual capital, organizations can use these tools to build on the foundation of their talent management strategies. Employing these tools provides ways to see clusters of high and low performers, as well as future leaders – and it provides more information to make critical business decisions.

Jason had a very interesting “social map” of an organization comparing one organizations formal vs. information structure. The map revealed that even though an employee (Cole) may be ranked lower in the company, he/she may be the most critical person when it comes to productivity and who interacts with them to get work done. In this example, the SVP (Jones) is connected to only two people in a department – one of which is Cole. And Cole, while further down the reporting chain vs. department heads and managers, is at the center of information exchanges with people not only his divisions , but in two other groups. If you were to remove Cole from this social map, production in the division would be cut off from the rest of the organization.

Whether it is performance management, compensation management, succession planning or learning management, today’s organizations tend to be very process oriented.

The future is in wrapping conversational elements into that talent data. Combining talent data with social tools can be powerful and contribute to changes in the business. It can foster innovation and the speed of production. And it can improve the way people learn or how the organization engages employees.

Getting your people to use these tools is important, and Jason suggests using technology to get them addicted – constantly tapping into and contributing to these networks. One example he shared was that while his mother-in-law is on Twitter and Facebook, his wife doesn’t have a page because she doesn’t want to get addicted.

Building a Business Case

So how do you build a business case for investing in social collaboration tools? According to Jason, there are three types of skeptics in an organization:

Skeptic 1 is the finance guy: “What’s the ROI?”
Skeptic 2 is the risk controller: “It’s too risky and uncontrollable!”
Skeptic 3 is the late adopter: “It’s a fad… a waste of time.”

The key takeaway here is this: You need to start to rethink / socialize some of these concepts within your organization. These types of skeptics don’t know about the technology Millennials are using today, like YouTube or LinkedIn or Facebook or Twitter. Skeptics generally haven’t tried these tools, so there’s a gap. The trick is in how to close the gap in order to have the conversation.

How Do You Address ROI?

Tie social collaboration to your organization’s strategies and goals
Keep the “I” in ROI low – this will reduce the dependence on “R” because if the investment is relatively low, then you don’t necessarily need to prove “R”
Identify incremental vs. “big bang” opportunities, with quick wins such as executive blogs or work groups
Secure an executive sponsor who has clout and an interest in the project

How Do You Debunk the Risk?

Social collaboration should be viewed differently than existing collaboration models, such as email, document management tools (SharePoint), virtual meetings, etc.
Identify the top 5-10 worst case scenarios and build contingencies so you’re prepared in advance
Embrace and prepare for failure – think about how to adapt to change

How Do You Create Rationale & Justification?

Focus on proficiency instead of technology tools or platforms
Identify the potential impact to all business units – sales, service, product development, HR, etc.
Look for synergies and unification vs. a siloed build out – ways these pieces can come together in a unified way

Additionally, you should look to pair different social media mindsets as part of the project team. Get skeptics and evangelists to work together – look for these people at moments of truth and crisis to have a more productive conversation.

Ideas for How to Get Started

Some suggestions that Jason provided for how to get started when adding social collaborations into the talent management mix include:

Creating a lightweight governance model
Avoiding a large, formal launch and training in favor of a progressive viral launch
Assuming people know how to behave in the real world
Exploring with consumer-centric technology – use the tools to build the strategy
Positioning it as a series of incremental investment scenarios that, over time, will be adapted based on lessons learned

One example of how social collaboration has impacted an organization is Mars Inc., who was looking at ways to grow and change the company and inspire innovation. Holding a large company offsite, organizers forced people from different areas of the company to have conversations and discover expertise. Each attendees wore a name tag with a photo on it, such as a picture of their yellow Lab puppy, to reveal commonalities among the group. The idea was that social ties create more of a willingness and openness among people to collaborate.

As a result, 1,400 new connections were revealed, leading to new product innovation – customized M&Ms – and the creation of a new direct distribution channel. Other results included the development of a new product and business line; tighter alignment between sales, marketing operations and product development; a streamlined distribution model; higher profit margins; and improved marketing innovation.

Like Mars Inc., collaboration tools already are being used by today’s workforces. They’re no longer just a fad. Organizations have an opportunity to embrace these technologies and supplement their talent management strategies in practical and effective ways for managing and developing high-performing workforces.

Charles Coy is the Product Marketing Director for Cornerstone OnDemand

From the Blog: Integrated Talent Management: Are You There Yet?

Charles Coy — Wed, 27 May 2009 21:54:28 +0000

Integrated Talent Management: Are You There Yet?

Kelly Services reminisces about its journey to deploying Cornerstone's global ITM suite - and shares tips with fellow HR and learning travelers - at Convergence 2009

Not too long ago, we announced Kelly Services as a new Cornerstone client. Kelly is migrating to a global integrated talent management (ITM) system, with platforms for onboarding, learning, performance, succession, compensation and extended enterprise. What's compelling about Kelly's story is the size and scope of the implementation - at 659,000 users (650K temp and 8,900 FT employees) across 39 countries, it is likely the largest global SaaS deployment to date.

Kelly Services' corporate training and learning manager, Matt Ludwa, joined us at Convergence 2009 to share with his peers some key learnings from the company’s journey to deploying its global ITM suite - complete with detours, potholes, roadblocks and “hidden gem” finds.

Like many other companies, Kelly’s Human Resources and Global Learning teams are in two different departments. But in going through the process of replacing the company’s previous learning management system (SumTotal Docent LMS), synergies were revealed between the two teams. They decided to work jointly to move to a comprehensive, global solution – one that would be a bigger win for the organization because it would:

Better support Kelly’s global talent management initiatives
Save money
Create organizational efficiencies
Build cooperation across the HR and learning teams
And improve on the functionality of the outdated solution sets

As Matt put it, the next step was determining “how much the trip was going to cost.”

With helpful input from Cornerstone, Kelly’s HR and learning teams assembled the business case for the C-level executives. In addition to identifying expenditures for the previous LMS, the team identified future offsets. For example, since Cornerstone is SaaS-based, no IT support is required, hosting fees would be eliminated, and less testing would be required. There also would be process gains, such as forms for new employee onboarding. But the biggest win would come from “single-sign-on” employee access, eliminating issues with people having to keep track of multiple passwords for various internal systems. As simple as it sounds, forgotten passwords often prevented users from getting training when they needed it, and one-stop access could help to increase corporate compliance.

Taking into account the expenditures, offsets and gains, Kelly’s team estimated the new ITM system would pay for itself in a year, with a net savings of $100 K over three years.

So once you have the C-level buy-in, what does it take to ensure a large-scale global implementation runs smoothly? According to Matt, it is “having a good itinerary” – defining at least at a high level where the organization is and where it wants to go in terms of its talent strategy. A clear roadmap helps to:

Ensure executives have a clear view of where you’re going
Build excitement for the journey
Avoid the “when are we going to be there” questions
Ensure quick, on-time arrival – and at the promised destination
Provide the needed information to “have fun when you get there”

Despite having a strategic roadmap, the implementation wasn’t without its “detours, potholes and roadblocks.” But these also provided some key implementation learnings for the Kelly team, such as:

Make sure you know all of your requirements
Determine a way to do a pilot to test the system
Get the hierarchy data into the application quickly so configurations can begin
Gain consensus up front on how to configure the system (Kelly organized an unofficial advisory board for their deployment)

The implementation process also revealed some unexpected benefits. For example, the Kelly team found they were able to come up with new and innovative ways for engaging employee usage of the system and achieving sign-offs on requirements such as compliance and ethics. The team continues to find ways to drive people back to the application via staggered functionality/process launches, supported by communications that evangelize the system’s benefits. In less than a month of deploying Cornerstone’s ITM system, Kelly’s learning team was able to garner 100 percent compliance – a major achievement. Other quick wins included the roll-out of a new onboarding program and simplification of Kelly’s curricula.

Ultimately, according to Matt, the secret to a successful global deployment of an ITM system boils down to four things:

Demonstrating application benefits to achieve global executive sponsorship
Knowing your regional requirements and audiences
Communicating frequently
Learning from previous missteps and keeping it simple when possible

Kelly, which had its initial deployment in the U.S. in February, continues to work with Cornerstone to get the whole suite implemented and integrated globally across the organization. So, while the team hasn’t yet arrived at their ultimate destination, they are on the right path to providing value for job candidates, Kelly’s customers and Kelly’s suppliers so the organization can be better and stronger.

Charles Coy is the Product Marketing Director for Cornerstone OnDemand

From the Blog: What do Pancakes Have to do with Training?

Charles Coy — Tue, 19 May 2009 00:13:12 +0000

What do Pancakes Have to do with Training?

Pearson's Convergence 2009 Case Study Presentation Examines Training as a Profit Center

Did you know your LMS could potentially be used to create a new profit center for your organization? This was the subject of Pearson’s case study presentation, entitled “Training as a Profit Center,” at Cornerstone's Convergence 2009 client & partner conference.

Pearson is the leading pre K-12 curriculum, testing and software company in the U.S. One of these programs is the Pearson School Systems, which includes solutions for student information, assessment, reporting and business. Because School Systems is filled with several features and functions –- and schools have a wide variety of set-ups and needs –- training is critical in order to understand how to use the products.

School districts have limited time to attend in-person training sessions, not to mention school budgets are getting smaller while the costs for Pearson to deliver classroom training (including travel) are increasing. Training also is cyclical, making it challenging for Pearson to meet these spikes in demand.

This leads me back to the name of my post: What do pancakes have to do with training?

Pearson decided there was an opportunity to address these issues – AND create a new profit center – by providing distance learning courses. Like pancakes, these courses need to be:

Popular and “delicious” so people would “consume” them
Quickly made, in order to meet demand and be timely and relevant
Cheap to produce and easy to sell

As for providing online access to these courses, Pearson decided to tap into its Cornerstone LMS system, which it was already using internally for Pearson employees. This way, school districts would be able to access the courses anytime, anywhere.

To facilitate the on-demand delivery the distance learning coursesto their extended enterprise of educators, Pearson worked with their Web team to take their internal Cornerstone system external. Providing single sign-on for their customers was important, and the ease of configurability of Cornerstone’s system helped Pearson to enable this. The result was Power Source, a Java-based portal designed by the Pearson team that integrates Cornerstone’s learning platform, allowing educators to go to one place to access all Pearson content. Because Cornerstone easily integrates with other systems, users don’t see a difference between the Pearson site and the Cornerstone platform. Pearson also worked with Cornerstone to ensure the system had the ability to accept and process purchase orders, which is the currency that schools use to pay for training.

Pearson has a passion for the learner, so it was important to make their “hot cakes” sticky – meaning the courses needed to contain ideas that "stuck" with participants. To achieve this, Pearson combines personalization with humor, brain-energizing content and pleasing aesthetics in order to make the courses memorable. When users sign on to a course, the story is all about them. Content is designed to exercise the mind and be active vs. passive. Educators practice tasks through contextually based simulations they can apply in the real world. And visuals for the courses fall under the “keep it simple” rule, consisting of hand-drawn graphics.

Pearson is now able to provide educators with an affordable, convenient, simple and engaging solution for online training -– one that goes beyond WebEx and actually makes learning “cool.” School districts can now purchase subscriptions to an entire series or course library and access it anytime, anywhere. And since the solution is SaaS-based, scalability is a non-issue -– whether you have to train educators in one district or throughout an entire state. It also has created efficiencies for Pearson –- with trainers having more availability to provide online support for educators vs. flying around the country to meet with individual clients and having limited availability.

And that, folks, is the secret to making sure your learning courses sell like hot cakes.

Charles Coy is the Product Marketing Director for Cornerstone OnDemand

From The Blog: Tales from Convergence 2009

Charles Coy — Fri, 15 May 2009 22:12:02 +0000

Tales from Convergence 2009

A Look Back at Cornerstone’s Annual Client & Partner Conference

If you’ve been following us on Twitter, then you know we’ve spent the past week gathering with partners and clients at our annual Convergence conference. Despite swine flu scares and reduced travel budgets, we were thrilled to welcome more than 150 attendees to Santa Monica’s Fairmont Miramar hotel for two days of expert-led presentations, product labs, networking and more.

The theme of this year’s event was “Grow Your Workforce without Growing Your Headcount.” So, it was rewarding to hear all of the rich discussions taking place throughout Wednesday and Thursday, as HR and learning leaders from the U.S. and across the pond shared best practices and gained insight in to ways to make the most of their learning and talent management strategies.

Did you Stick to Frank’s “No Business Cards” Rule?

In welcoming everyone to Convergence early Wednesday morning, Cornerstone’s VP of Client Services, Frank Ricciardi enacted a “No Business Cards” rule. This wasn’t in an effort to be eco-friendly. Instead, it was a call to action to participate in Cornerstone’s new client portal, Cornerstone Success Center, which acts as a virtual, 24x7 user group while also allowing clients to test drive our enterprise social networking platform, Cornerstone Connect.

Frank’s point is that our clients shouldn’t have to rely on events like Convergence to be able to interact with their peers and Cornerstone team members to ask questions, learn more about Cornerstone’s features, share best practices, provide product suggestions, and much more. In essence, we’ve become our own use case example of corporate social networking for the extended enterprise.

Aside from the Feature Wiki and Client Blogs, my favorite Success Center feature is the ability to create rich User Profiles, so that users can identify others in like industries and roles.

Adam’s Father is a Wise Man

In his opening keynote, Cornerstone CEO Adam Miller shared two pieces of sage advice his father had given in when founding the company nearly 10 years ago.

The first? Always make sure your clients are happy.

Adam commented that the Cornerstone team is always looking at ways we can do better and refine and improve our software and services. Cornerstone’s success is rooted in our relationships and in helping our clients to succeed. The company’s recent investments in this area, including the Client Success Services team, have garnered positive responses from clients. And this also plays into Cornerstone’s “customer-driven innovation” approach.

The second piece of advice from Adam’s father? Partner with ADP.

Of course, the big news from earlier in the week was Cornerstone’s new relationship with HR, payroll and benefits leader ADP, which significantly expands Cornerstone’s global reach. For our existing clients, it is validation that they’ve made the right choice in selecting us as their technology partner.

Key Learnings from Convergence

A huge thanks to all of our clients and partners who were kind enough to present at this year’s event. We’ll be recapping some of these sessions in our blog in the coming days and weeks so that we can share key learnings with you on a variety of topics, including extended enterprise, integrated learning and performance, global implementations, succession planning, client/vendor collaborations, and more.

Also thanks to Knowledge Infusion’s Jason Corsello and Beth Thomas of Sequent for their engaging and informative keynotes, as well as to HR Executive’s Bill Kutik for doing a fantastic job of moderating Wednesday’s industry analyst panel. In his signature “no BS” style, Bill led a lively and revealing discussion about today’s critical trends in talent management, and his all-star line-up – including Leighanne Levensaler of Bersin & Associates, Zach Thomas of Forrester, Cushing Anderson of IDC and Jason Corsello of Knowledge Infusion – did not disappoint. Stay tuned for highlights from these sessions as well.

Charles Coy is the Product Marketing Director for Cornerstone OnDemand

From The Blog: Making the Most of Your Learning Resources in Uncertain Times

Kim Hagan — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 21:54:57 +0000

Making the Most of Your Learning Resources in Uncertain Times

One of the hot topics at the recent Elliott Masie Learning Systems Roundtable in Chicago was the role of learning departments in this uncertain business climate. Our “homework” from this roundtable was to think about how our learning and talent systems could play a role in helping our organizations through these times. I thought I would share my thoughts on this topic with all of you.

If your company is experiencing budget cuts, hiring freezes, layoffs or even mergers and acquisitions, make your learning and talent management system THE place to go to help your employees and organization build the skills or find the talent they need to make it through these tough times. For example:

Use your learning management system (LMS) to quickly and easily help employees learn new skills or train for a temporary or new job/function.
Leverage your talent management system to quickly identify current employees that have certain skills or experience.
Take advantage of social networking tools to connect your workforce and allow them to share information anytime, anywhere.

But the bigger challenge becomes: How do you put these ideas in action when your learning or talent department may also be resource-constrained?

One way is to get your learners and subject matter experts actively involved in providing learning. Think about whether your learning department can evolve from the role of always creating and sourcing the learning to a role of recruiting and encouraging internal experts to share their expertise. Establish and provide the platform, standards and governance. And by tying social networking and information-sharing more intrinsically to your learning strategy, all employees in your company can become a learning resource.

Some examples:

Solicit Employee-Generated Content: Identify areas/topics requiring expertise and solicit your workforce to create videos and/or podcasts on these subjects. Empower them to create this content by offering guidance and instruction on how to record a short video or podcast and providing a central place in your company with the necessary production tools and resources. Then, designate a team to review these video and podcasts and post approved content on your LMS.
Leverage Tech-Savvy Employees: Don’t have a production expert on your team? Teach someone in your department how to record quick podcasts and videos or create a compelling PowerPoint. Short, relevant learning can be created quickly and easily. Or, find an intern or a Millennial in your company! Many of this generation have been creating their own content and sharing it on YouTube or Facebook. Take advantage of their Web 2.0 savviness to help your learning department create content.
Foster Social Learning: Open up your corporate social networking site to your experts – and provide governance and monitoring if appropriate. Also consider making your retired employees part of this social network – they are often a wealth of information and they can also be great mentors.
Produce Internal Webinars: Conduct live internal Webinars with your subject matter experts (SMEs). If they’re camera or mic shy, conduct the Webinar in interview format. Some SME’s are more comfortable being interviewed than presenting. But, this also allows you to control the content and length of the Webinar.
Make Content Easier to Access: Organize your content in a way that your employees can easily seek out and find information that is most relevant to their needs. Use your talent management system’s Welcome screen, subject areas and custom page LMS functionality to help learners quickly get to what they need. Enlist your communications or marketing department to help you effectively communicate to your learners what’s important and relevant.

Coming soon....thoughts on how your Performance and Talent Systems can help.

Kim Hagan is the Director of Educational Services for Cornerstone OnDemand

Client Blog: Defining the "Talent" in Talent Management

Larry Israelite — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 21:09:22 +0000

Defining the "Talent" in Talent Management

To whom does the word 'talent' refer when talking about talent management?

This seems easy, or is it? The ASTD study referenced in the first entry on this blog asked respondents to identify the employee groups on which they focused their talent management activities. The results, which are shown in Table 1, are quite interesting and, in my view, somewhat distressing.

Table 1 – Focus of Talent Management Activities

* Percentages represent the number of respondents who selected one of the top two options when asked to what extent these employee groups were the focus of talent management activities.

Less than 20% indicated that they focus talent management activities on all employees. Fewer than 30% focus on skilled workers, and just under 40% focus on professionals. As you can see, senior executives and high potential talent were the big winners. The key question is whether or not the results shown on Table 1 are the desired state or just a snapshot of what might be thought of the unfortunate current state.

The issue of who comprises the talent in our organizations leads to ‘Larry’s Second Rule of Talent Management’ – all full and part-time employees who are assigned and held accountable for doing work are part of an organization’s talent (on a good day, one might even consider including contractors and consultants also). Based on this definition, talent should not defined on the basis or grade, salary, education, or any other demographic that might distinguish one person from another. In the same way that the definition of talent management should make sense and have meaning to all employees, the same employees should be included in some way in the development and implementation of a talent management strategy.

A reasonable reflexive response to this notion would be to express outrage – ‘How can he expect us to do talent management with or for everyone (the next section addresses what ‘doing talent management’ actually means)? We don’t have the time or the resources!’ I would understand that response. I am not suggesting, nor do I believe, it is reasonable to expect that all talent management practices are used with all employees. But what might be reasonable is to have at least some practices that are used consistently with everyone across the organization. But by restricting the definition of talent to include only high-ranking, highly paid employees, we exclude a significant majority of our employees and, as a result, we may miss significant pools of talent at lower levels of the organization. Somehow that doesn’t seem like a desirable outcome.

Who is the talent in your organization? Are you satisfied with your answer?

Larry Israelite is Vice President, HRD at Liberty Mutual and a Cornerstone OnDemand client.

Cornerstone's Talent Management Blog

From the Blog: Which Performance Management Rating Scale Should You Use?

Which Performance Management Rating Scale Should You Use?

Moving to a smaller rating scale can increase distinction between high- and low-performing employees. Read the pros and cons of the Three, Four and Five-Point Scales.

Five-Point Scale

Pros

Cons

Four-Point Scale

Pros

Cons

Three-Point Scale

Pros

Cons

From the Blog: Competencies: At the “Heart” of a Talent Management Strategy

Competencies: At the “Heart” of a Talent Management Strategy

While competencies should be at the core of your strategy, they can be a confusing topic for many HR and Talent Management leaders. Learn more about what competencies are, how they benefit organizations and how to get started.

What are Competencies?

Organizational Benefits

Getting Started

From the Blog: Starwood Hotels and Resorts Rolls Out a Global LMS

Starwood Hotels & Resorts Rolls Out a Global LMS

The international hotel & leisure giant talks about replacing its “tremendously unsuccessful” on-premise LMS, including its thorough software vendor search and internal change management process

Choosing the Right Vendor

Why Change Management is Critical

Key Learnings

From the Blog: Analyst Panel Shares Expert Take on Latest HR Technology Trends

Analyst Panel Shares Expert Take on Latest HR Technology Trends

HR Executive's Bill Kutik and top industry analysts from Bersin & Associates, Forrester, IDC and Knowledge Infusion discuss the down economy, social networks, succession planning, ROI measurement and more at Convergence 2009

BILL KUTIK: What impact has the economy had on the talent management and general HR technology market?

KUTIK: Are companies buying new solutions or just adding on to what they already have?

KUTIK: According to IHRIM survey data, early 2009 figures say 66 percent of companies are spending as much or more on new technologies this year. I was shocked.

KUTIK: What about people who get questions that aren’t relevant to them?

KUTIK: Basically, you don’t get to sit at the table if you don’t have the numbers.

KUTIK: What about silos, about people not communicating and working together?

KUTIK: A recent technology survey indicates that succession planning is what HR wants most to do but is investing in the least. Wouldn’t this be useful in layoffs?

KUTIK: I hear stories about managers freaking out about self-service offerings.

KUTIK: What do you do if the jet crashes and all your executives are on it?

KUTIK: Armed forces do workforce planning 30 years out.

KUTIK: For succession planning and social networks, why wouldn’t there be a tie into a social network scenario, where users feature the information that HR wants to know?

KUTIK: Does the increased focus on social learning imply that the LMS is becoming irrelevant? What key innovations have you seen in LMS that will prevent it from becoming irrelevant?

KUTIK: Social networks are not good about being bi-directional. You never know who read the information.

KUTIK: The jungle drums have been sounding that some talent management initiatives have failed. How do you convince senior executives that yours won’t?

KUTIK: The ROI from a performance management report is really good.

KUTIK: Of all the talent management applications, how should social networks be used?

KUTIK: How is Adam Miller going to embed Cornerstone Connect into the different applications?

From the Blog: Social Collaboration: The Future of Talent Management?

Social Collaboration: The Future of Talent Management?

Knowledge Infusion analyst Jason Corsello explains the power of combining talent data with social tools – and how this is driving an evolution in talent management strategies

Significant Shift in Talent Management

Improved Insight for Making Critical Business Decisions

Building a Business Case

How Do You Address ROI?

How Do You Debunk the Risk?

How Do You Create Rationale & Justification?

Ideas for How to Get Started

From the Blog: Integrated Talent Management: Are You There Yet?

Integrated Talent Management: Are You There Yet?

Kelly Services reminisces about its journey to deploying Cornerstone's global ITM suite - and shares tips with fellow HR and learning travelers - at Convergence 2009

From the Blog: What do Pancakes Have to do with Training?

What do Pancakes Have to do with Training?

Pearson's Convergence 2009 Case Study Presentation Examines Training as a Profit Center

From The Blog: Tales from Convergence 2009

Tales from Convergence 2009

A Look Back at Cornerstone’s Annual Client & Partner Conference

Did you Stick to Frank’s “No Business Cards” Rule?

Adam’s Father is a Wise Man

Key Learnings from Convergence

From The Blog: Making the Most of Your Learning Resources in Uncertain Times

Making the Most of Your Learning Resources in Uncertain Times

Client Blog: Defining the "Talent" in Talent Management

Defining the "Talent" in Talent Management

Table 1 – Focus of Talent Management Activities