Stacy Chapman, Satish Sallakonda, Meg Bear, and Amy Wilson are all long-term players in the HRTech industry. With SAP SuccessFactors’ acquisition of SwoopTalent, they are joined together as a supergroup. The acquisition suggests that SuccessFacors is about to approach the market in a powerfully different way. SuccessFactors’ CEO, Jill Popelka, is rapidly assembling the industry’s deepest bench of forward-looking enterprise HCM pros. Years in the industry make you either locked into a static view of the market and its core values or uniquely suited to imagine and execute breakthrough ideas. Po ..read more

        Why Focus Your HR Department on Security? HRExaminer v12.08 February 19, 2021     Almost all security problems, intentional or otherwise, come from people. This is the first in a two-part series from John Sumser about making security a part of the HR agenda. Why Focus Your HR Department on Security? John Sumser covers the future of security issues, building an internal security center of excellence in the HR department, and all the specifics for getting started with your organization. Why Focus Your HR Department on Security? Part II John ..read more

  “There can be an ironic relationship between scrutiny and secrecy; the more scrutiny (which can feel like a lack of trust), the more secrets are kept. In other words, surveillance can become a self-fulfilling prophecy that produces the very behavior it wants to eliminate.” – John Sumser   Note: This is the second and final article in a two-part series about making security a part of the HR agenda.   The Future of Security Issues   The balance between surveillance and independent action will be constantly evolving in the foreseeable future. Smarter objects that monitor an ..read more

  “20% of employees would sell their passwords, with 44% of them willing to do it for less than $1,000. Some would give up their corporate credentials for less than $100… and workers in the U.S. looked most willing to put their passwords up for sale.”   Note: This is the first in a two-part series about making security a part of the HR agenda.   Why Focus Your HR Department on Security   Technology is evolving faster than we can keep pace with. Shifting definitions, laws, and sensibilities concerning privacy and personal data combine with rapidly evolving technologies to p ..read more

“Achor’s talk was powerful precisely because it melded easy-to-understand ideas with scientific research. By the end of the talk, the audience was charged up, the social media pipelines were full of positivity, and contagious smiling was on display.” - John Sumser   On Happiness, A Surprising Encounter with Shawn Achor   Happiness Breeds Happiness   Mirror neurons are a part of our bodies that allow human experiences to flow from one person to another. The same neurons fire when a human being performs an action or sees it performed. This remarkable bit of neuropsychology ..read more

“In the process of cleaning the data, great discoveries are made about the nature of the investigation. We learn the imperfections of our questions and the things that the data sources want to tell us. Hands-on experience cleaning the data produces great wisdom. The material that we shed in the cleaning process creates the first layer of real insight.” - John Sumser   I nominate the title of this note as the least Buzzworthy headline of the month. It offers no silver bullet or easy button. It infers that mind numbing detailed work is strategically critical.   Somehow, in the race t ..read more

The value of data depends on its audience. By itself, data does not explain anything.   Despite the algorithm or latest machine learning trick, the value of data is a function of the combination of specificity and relevance. Measurement requires something to measure and something to measure with. Measurements exist on a scale from qualitative (observations) to quantitative (measurements). Primary data is an attribute of a person, place, thing or process. Secondary data is an attribute of other data. It is also called metadata. Metadata has all of the characteristics of data. A piece of ..read more

        I need a Vocation HRExaminer v12.07 February 12, 2021     As Frederick Buechner described, vocation is “the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.” Matthew J. Stollak is here to remind us about an oft forgotten truth in our work. Say it with me, I need a Vocation! Algorithms Follow Rules - People Don’t. See you in Court? What happens when you throw the legal system into the mix? Heather Bussing has some thoughts. Dr. Todd Dewett shares, “I’m often approached with questions about motivation and morale. The questio ..read more

“Algorithms also get tested and refined, and some even shift to adapt to what happens over time, because the algorithms have instructions on how and when to do that. But fundamentally, the testing is not to determine better rules or even how the rules should be applied. With algorithms, the test simply tells you whether the set of instructions does what it was designed to do.” - Heather Bussing   Laws are a set of rules. Algorithms are a set of rules. They ought to work the same? If laws can run the world, then so can algorithms.   Yeah, not so much.   Here’s how law actually ..read more

“One of the essential terms of my workplace is vocation. As Frederick Buechner described, vocation is ‘the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.’” - Matthew J. Stollak   I attended my first professional baseball game in July of 1975. The Boston Red Sox traveled to the dearly departed Milwaukee County Stadium to face the Brewers. Hank Aaron was in the final years of his Hall of Fame career while Jim Rice and Robin Yount were beginning theirs. My senses were overwhelmed: the sight of freshly cut green grass, the excitement of the fans, the smoke r ..read more