Alexandra Levit's Water Cooler Wisdom

Employer Branding Best Practices

Ten years ago, employer branding wasn’t even on the radar of organizational psychologists. But after a Society for Human Resource Management study revealed that over 67 percent of organizations view employer branding as a strategic recruiting tool to attract top talent and nearly one-half identified the employer brand as a top five strategic initiative, psychologists such as Born and Kang at Cornell University began to look it more seriously.

In their new paper “What are best practices in the space of employer branding that enable organizations to attract and retain the best talent?” Born and Kang define an employer brand as a set of attributes and qualities that make an organization distinctive, promise a particular kind of employment experience, and appeal to those people who will thrive and perform their best in its culture.

The researchers recommend the following best practices for deliberately and systematically shaping your employer brand.

Assess and Shape an Authentic, Consistent Message of What Your Organization Values

To attract and retain critical talent, organizations must make a concerted effort to ensure that they stand for something meaningful as an employer. An effective employer brand is a long-term strategy that permeates every aspect of the employee lifecycle, including recruitment, onboarding, retention, and engagement.

Born and Kang suggest evaluating and understanding your organization’s current value proposition, and ensuring that your employer brand message is authentic and consistent with company practices. You want to be certain that the employment experience you promise to potential employees is one you are already delivering.  A helpful tip is to appoint an experienced brand strategist or influencer to craft an effective brand message.

For example, Yum Brands, the parent company of Taco Bell, KFC and Pizza Hut, found that the investment in hiring a marketing manager to drive employer branding initiatives across the organization was well worth it. These branding initiatives resulted in improved retention and applications, outperforming fast-food industry averages.

For more, have a look at the SilkRoad blog.

Advancing Partnerships in the Workplace

In their research, Gartner analysts Jeffrey Brooks, Heather Colella, and John Roberts found that CIOs believe current approaches to assessing executive satisfaction are missing something, and that IT organizations require a technique that puts the onus on line of business partners to articulate exactly what they need from IT.

Gartner has developed one such technique, which involves understanding the importance of a reciprocal relationship, refining value-added questions for business executives, and initiating the conversation in a way that promotes maximum participation.

Reciprocity

According to the Gartner EXP report, The Politics of Powerful Partnerships: “At the heart of a powerful partnership between IT and the rest of the enterprise is reciprocity: the exchange of equivalent advantages or privileges. Without reciprocity, IT cannot move from order taker to powerful partner.”

“Individuals decline to enter into reciprocal arrangements with those they consider significantly different in power and status. CIOs can create powerful partnerships between IT and other departments by systematically building IT’s power and status in key areas to reach equality with business peers.”

One way to do this is through regular satisfaction surveys. By benchmarking IT through four types of satisfaction surveys, Gartner suggested that CIOs will be armed with the information they need to have meaningful conversations with their business colleagues. These types include:

• Measuring satisfaction when a service desk ticket has been closed
• Measuring satisfaction at the end of a project
• Conducting annual IT satisfaction surveys with business users
• Conducting ongoing surveys and conversations with business leaders to get their qualitative opinions about IT

Value-added questions

A key role of IT, said the Gartner analysts, is growing line of business technology capabilities. CIOs can do this by creating a few open-ended questions for business colleagues to gain a clearer understanding of what their people expect of IT. As stewards of their organizations, the business colleagues can then interpret that information for the CIOs. Finally, CIOs can work with business colleagues to redefine and rethink how technology enables the enterprise.

Gartner’s thought-starter questions included the following:

• How is your personal success measured, and how well-positioned are you to achieve it?
• How do you leverage technology to drive better business results?
• IT tends to describe what it does in terms of services. What three services do you frequently use?
• If you could divorce IT, what would you look for in a new partner?
• If you were named CIO tomorrow, what would be the first three actions you would take and why?

CIOs Treasure the Old While Bringing in the New

IT leaders including Miami-Dade County database manager Sue Camner, Wal-Mart CIO Karenann Terrell, and NSM Insurance Group CIO Brendan O’Malley, share their views on effectively managing legacy IT.

Miami-Dade County’s Sue Camner

According to GCN’s Stephanie Kanowitz, Florida’s Miami-Dade County IT department faced a tough choice. One of its middleware stacks had reached end of life, and officials could either upgrade or get rid of it and convert the forms and reports applications on it to two other stacks. County database manager Sue Camner decided to go with the second option.

The county received assistance from legacy IT modernization firm Morphis to help with the conversions as it did away with its Oracle Application Server (OAS). Oracle had stopped supporting this server a few years back, and Miami-Dade needed to upgrade to Oracle WebLogic. Unfortunately, that suite provides a lot of functionality Camner’s team didn’t need.

“We’d have to have the servers and all the resources to support this application just for this small piece,” she said. “It didn’t seem to be cost effective.”

Kanowitz explained that because Miami-Dade has two other middleware stacks – IBM’s WebSphere for Java-based apps and Microsoft’s IIS for .NET applications – the department decided to convert the Oracle Forms and Reports code to work on one of those stacks. The move would save the county money by removing a stack and all its related maintenance.

“Once all of the applications are out of OAS, we can get rid of that whole infrastructure – the  servers and the storage, the licensing, everything involved in that stack – and just migrate everything to one of the other two,” Camner said. And, users aren’t lost because the new programs look much like the legacy applications.

Miami-Dade is experiencing decreased costs and improved security as a result of the modernization. Since the technology is tighter, the county is in a much better position to protect its data.

Wal-Mart’s Karenann Terrell

For its part, retail giant Wal-Mart isn’t getting rid of its legacy systems anytime soon. At Information Week’s recent conference, Wal-Mart CIO Karenann Terrell said she prefers to refer to legacy IT systems as classic. “Classic is respectful for the people who keep the lights on,” Information Week’s Chris Murphy reported the CIO as saying.

At present, Wal-Mart is undertaking a major IT modernization. But one of Terrell’s chief priorities is to keep engaging those who are operating legacy environments as well as those who are transforming them. “Both are equally valuable but for different reasons,” Terrell said. “Dealing with legacy IT environments, and particularly with how well companies connect legacy systems to their modern, often customer-facing mobile and cloud environments, will make or break some companies.”

There have, of course, been situations where the “classic” systems have had to be retired. “There are some no-brainer improvements we’ve had to take action on,” Terrell told Deloitte University Press for its article on re-imagining core systems. “For example, we had applications with kernels built around unsupported operating systems. We had to get rid of them.”

But, she added: “Our IT strategy is not about reacting to the technology trend of the moment. I’m sometimes asked, ‘Why don’t you move everything to the cloud?’ My answer is because there’s nothing wrong with mainframes; they will likely always play a part in our solution stack. Moreover, there’s not enough dark fiber in the world to meet our transaction volumes and performance needs.”

At Wal-Mart, modernization is a process rather than a project. It doesn’t have a beginning and an end. It’s usually not a matter of throwing out an entire system all at once, but rather evolving it as new trends and capabilities emerge.

For more examples, read the rest of the piece at QuickBase's Fast Track blog.

Productivity Experiments You Always Wanted to Try

Over the course of the year, Chris Bailey, author of the new book The Productivity Project, completed several personal experiments to assess which ones positively and negatively impacted his productivity.  Let’s highlight some intriguing ones that worked, as well as a few that didn’t.

Working 90 Hours a Week

When Bailey was working 90-hour weeks, he got a lot done, but only during the first few days of the week. After that, he didn’t have the time or mental space to recharge, so his productivity dropped.

In the long-run, working long hours pushes you to procrastinate more, work less efficiently, and causes you to get less done. In fact, after 40 hours, Bailey reported that your marginal productivity begins to drop, until at approximately eight 60-hour weeks, the total work done is the same as what would have been done in eight 40-hour weeks. And with 70 and 80-hour weeks, you reach the break-even point in just three weeks.

Why does this happen? When you work excessive hours, that extra time has to come from somewhere, which may force you to push away the very things that reenergize you, like working out and spending time with loved ones. Then, you begin to fight a losing battle, and become stressed out, unmotivated, and ultimately less productive.

Bailey suggested that instead of working longer, work smarter. Step back from your work: spending more time planning (not just executing), scheduling less time for things, guarding and nurturing your energy levels, and reminding yourself of what’s most important.

Living in Isolation for 10 Days

Living and working without people interrupting him didn’t help Bailey’s productivity either. At the end of this experiment, he said hewas less productive than he would have been normally. Everyone has a different definition of productivity, but most of the benchmarks Bailey uses involve people, such as how happy he makes other people, and the difference he’s able to make in people’s lives. When he took people out of that equation, he was either a) not able to accomplish much, or b) not able to accomplish much that was meaningful.

Bailey also shared that he “let himself go” when there weren’t other people around. Surrounded by more people, one tries harder to be a better person. And when he hit the lows of this experiment – taking three hours to fall asleep, battling a huge cold, and getting depressed, he had no social support network as a safety net.

For the rest of the experiments, read more at the QuickBase Fast Track blog.

Telepresence Robots Coming to an Office Near You

Using telepresence robotics technology by Double Robotics and others, organizations are virtually sending their employees on client meetings and speaking engagements every day. But it’s not all sunshine and rainbows.

Telepresence is one of the few commercial applications of robotics technology that I’ve been genuinely excited about. Now that remote work is significantly on the rise, I view telepresence as a terrific means for professionals to virtually project themselves into an engaging human office environment.

Since I don’t have a telepresence robot myself yet, I checked out some opinions from those who have used them. Do the currentmachines live up to the hype, and are they a nightmare for IT staff to manage and secure?

In theory

Over at TechCrunch, Peter Hirst wrote about his colleague at MIT Sloan Executive Education, Paul McDonagh-Smith. Paul’s based in London, but his telepresence robot from Double Robotics allows him to present at a conference in Singapore first thing in the morning, then have a business meeting in Cape Town, South Africa and later that afternoon, meet with team members on the MIT campus in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

“In our office, telepresence robots are no longer a novelty, but an everyday tool we’ve been using to enable our remote team members to be more engaged,” said Hirst. “Double’s robot units are available regularly for team meetings or one-on-one visits. We all enjoy the ability to be truly present in our interactions with colleagues and clients — an experience that feels much more natural and personal than a phone call or a videoconference.”

In practice

Emily Dreyfuss is a remote worker at Wired. She lives in Boston, but most of her colleagues are in an office in San Francisco, and she was feeling left out. Her boss bought her Double Robotics’ creatively named Double, which sells for around $2500. The telepresence robot was Dreyfuss’ physical embodiment at headquarters. Instead of legs, she moved on gyroscopically stabilized wheels. Instead of a face, she had an iPad screen. Instead of eyes, a camera with no peripheral vision. Instead of a mouth, a speaker. And instead of ears, a tinny microphone.

At first, Dreyfuss was enamored with the experience. “It’s thrilling. I am in the office! There is the kitchen! There is Sam! Hi, everyone! I am here!” she exclaimed. Her robot, nicknamed Embot, attended meetings. “Plunked at the end of the conference table, my iPad head tracked the conversation, listening.”

Although Embot put Dreyfuss physically in the office, her co-workers could only see her face and not her body, and therefore were not constantly reminded how pregnant she was. “The visual reminder of my changed condition was not in their faces,” she said. “I have worked at places before where women start getting treated differently when their bellies show.

Dreyfuss realized, however, that current telepresence technology has its limitations. For one thing, people were always touching her robotic body without asking, either to help her move if she got stuck or just because they felt it. It was awkward for her – and her colleagues too. As one reported: “You know, when Joe lifted you up and carried you – with your face on the screen, it looked really inappropriate. Like he was cradling you in his arms.”

Embot was also a little rough around the edges technology wise. Dreyfuss couldn’t hear meetings very well. Robots, of course, live off power and and Wi-Fi, and signal strength proved to be a big problem.

For the rest of the article, check out QuickBase's Fast Track blog.

Project Manager Success in the First 100 Days

In March, Gartner analysts Mbula Schoen and Michael Hanford outlined their recommendations for new PMOs in a detailed report, The PMO Leader’s First 100 Days.

Schoen and Hanford defined project management office, or PMO, as a function designed to facilitate and improve the management of projects through the application and use of PPM disciplines, such as project management and program management.  The PMO also participates in business and IT governance activities by providing some degree of execution, analysis, and visibility into proposed and existing initiatives.

New PMO leaders must balance the need to build relationships, meet expectations, and gain acceptance and buy-in. The analysts suggested that they view target outcomes in terms of five phases that often overlap: Prepare, Assess, Plan, Act, and Measure.

Prepare Phase (Days −10 to 15)

As with any new strategic role, it helps to optimize your chances for success before you “officially” begin. “Prior to starting work, you must work with your (almost) new boss and major stakeholders to be sure you’re all on the same page regarding expectations and a shared view of what success is and what it will be,” said Schoen and Hanford. “Check, at a minimum, that the following are in place as you go forward.”

• A reporting relationship to an influential, well-positioned executive who embraces the value of the PMO. His/her authority and political connections are one of your major assets.
• A good understanding of the purpose of the PMO, ensuring it is aligned with organizational objectives. Many new PMO leaders wrongly assume their purpose is to institute tighter controls, often slowing down the system, when the actual purpose is to speed the system up.
• A set of expectations by those leaders who agreed to the need for a PMO. Determine that the PMO can (mostly) meet these expectations inside the current culture, its proposed organizational location, and the political climate and organizational maturity.
• A proposed level of staffing and resources that’s a realistic match to the expectations.

For more where this came from, head over to QuickBase's Fast Track blog.

Quantum Computing Takes Center Stage

New Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau made headlines recently when he explained quantum computing during a press event. Quantum computing, despite its sexiness, is not all that new, but in this post, we’ll explore certain recent developments IT and Project Management pros should be aware of.

Justin Trudeau is getting a reputation: not as a scion of government but as a knowledgeable scientist. The Washington Postnicely summed up the reaction to his unexpected explanation of quantum computing:

“A bit of genius,” rhapsodized New York magazine, while Gizmodo’s headline said, “Everyone Should Be Able to Explain Quantum Computing Like Justin Trudeau.” Even the Guardian’s science blog, while arguing that “we should raise our expectations,” called his explanation “quite a good one.”

Although the Post said that Trudeau’s explanation wasn’t quite right, the incident set off a flurry of commentary around the field known as quantum computing. Initiated by the work of Paul Benioff and Yuri Manin in 1980, Richard Feynman in 1982, and David Deutsch in 1985. quantum computing is an alternative to classical computing that leverages theories of quantum mechanics.

Unlike classical computing, which uses a zero or one and must be in one of these two states at any given moment, quantum can be in both a zero and a one state at the same time. This is known as a “superposition.”

“Quantum computing uses these superpositions – as well as another concept called entanglement—to compute in an entirely different way,” said Jay Gambetta, manager of the Theory Quantum Information Group at IBM, in an interview for Baseline. “It uses qubits [Quantum bits] that can compute over multiple paths simultaneously. In a practical sense, a quantum computer would deliver answers at far greater speeds than today’s digital computers, including supercomputers.”

In 2015, Baseline reported on an IBM announcement of two critical advances that could eventually lead to the development of a quantum computer. IBM had demonstrated an ability to detect and measure both kinds of quantum errors simultaneously, as well as demonstrate a new square quantum bit circuit design that could successfully scale to larger dimensions.

For the rest of the post, check out QuickBase's Fast Track blog.

Exploring the Democratization of IT

Digital transformation is officially on everyone’s radar. According to an upcoming QuickBase survey, 45 percent of CXOs say it’s a top priority this year. “This is a time of increased business agility through digital operations,” said QuickBase, Inc. CEO Allison Mnookin at last week’s EMPOWER 2016 conference in Nashville.

The application ecosystem is broadening, requiring an increased need for integration and a united front for IT and lines of business. “Citizen development is mainstream and the average large firm is running 66 applications,” said Mnookin. Today, over 90 percent of citizen developers have no professional training, and by 2020, an estimated 60 percent of all fast-mode application development projects will be completed outside the boundaries of formal IT.

These are exciting but also demanding times. Fifty percent of enterprises without formal control and management of citizen development policies will encounter substantial data, process, integrity, and security vulnerabilities in the next few years. Data in particular presents a major challenge. “Ninety-five percent of CIOs believe that data is changing the way their organizations do business, but 64 percent also recognize they aren’t making optimal use of that data,” said Mnookin.

The Innovation Explosion

The pace of technology isn’t slowing down anytime soon. “Innovation comes in fits and starts, and right now we’re at a point of rapid acceleration,” said Driver. “Beyond digital transformation, there’s algorithmic transformation and the frontier of cognitive computing and deep learning.” Driver estimated that by 2018, 10 percent of employee interactions will occur without a user interface. When a Georgia Tech class can go through an entire semester without realizing their TA is a robot, that’s taking your Amazon Echo to a whole new level.

The workplace is certainly not immune to these changes. In certain industries like media, every aspect of the business has already been digitized. “Think about this,” said Driver. “When you work at a movie theater now, there’s no fiddling with a film projector. You stream everything remotely.”

A trend toward consumerization is putting IT in the hands of the average employee. “In 2005, everyone carried around a bunch of devices that were for personal or professional use, but not both,” said Driver. “Today, we have BYOD because no one wanted to do that anymore.” Digital evolution has also resulted in people working more collaboratively. “No one’s sitting in an office all day, attending one 3-4 hour meeting with 50 people. You have shorter, burst meetings with a few people, taking all your information with you from context to context,” said Driver.

Democratization of IT

Whether we like it or not, the bottleneck aspect of IT is going away. The need for constant innovation and the speed of cloud computing coupled with the amount of legacy resources that must be maintained means that IT has to empower others. “Today, anyone can use the infinite capacity of the cloud to derive insights in seconds that would have taken IT weeks before. We all have more data than we know what to do with, and we’re just hoping to dip our fingers in the stream and grab hold of something interesting as the water rushes by,” said Driver.

As a partnership between IT and lines of business, citizen development is one significant result of the democratization of IT. But some projects are better suited to citizen development than others. Driver cited projects that are situational, short-term, non-mission-critical, isolated from core IT systems, and can be built with a simple architecture as good candidates.

“Some organizations can successfully move from these low risk sweet spots into higher value danger zones, but I see a lot of driving without car insurance going around,” said Driver. “A lot of organizations aren’t doing proper QA or adhering to regulations. Basically, they’re executing now and asking for forgiveness later.”

For the rest of the interview, head over to QuickBase's Fast Track blog.