Alexandra Levit's Water Cooler Wisdom

HR Folks: Why Not Develop Your Own Apps?

Over the past five years, many organizations have moved their HR systems into cloud platforms and are looking for add-on tools that allow them to access/integrate – or build their own – mobile apps. This has led to the rise of what we call citizen development.

According to Gartner’s IT Glossary, a citizen developer is a user who creates new business applications using development environments sanctioned by IT.

Citizen development is possible because as long as users understand the basic principles behind application design and development, they do not have to learn the programming languages that were necessary in the past. Mobile app development has been officially democratized.

Integrated, DIY app development platforms reduce IT backlog and enable HR citizen developers to quickly build and implement applications that mirror IT solutions but don’t require the same level of technical sophistication. Their reporting capabilities also provide greater visibility into which projects can be potentially offloaded, and their customization facilitates greater user adoption.

HR apps are more essential today given their intimate connection to the employee experience. Apps allow HR departments to provide employees with tools that work where they work and don’t impede their day. They also provide an opportunity to create a continuous experience for both HR and the employee.

When it comes to development, HR professionals who know their business inside and out will be most effective if IT leaders set the stage, offering governance, implementation guidelines, and best practices. Citizen development doesn’t eliminate the need for IT to be involved; it merely elevates it to a more strategic level. Instead of giving away permission, which can quickly turn ugly, proper citizen development involves knowing who is doing what, bridging communication gaps between IT and HR, and having a shared accountability for and participatory working relationship in developing and maintaining strong applications.

For more on HR citizen development, check out my full article on the SilkRoad blog.

When Considering Employee Experience, Don't Forget About Culture

I recently presented a webinar, Employee as Consumer: Building a Differentiated Experience Through the Lifecycle, with HR Daily Advisor and SilkRoad.  We talked about the consumerization of HR, the creation of a meaningful employee experience throughout the lifecycle, and how design thinking, talent activation, and employer branding play into it.

At the end of the session, Jennifer asked: How do you create an experience that’s meaningful and impactful for different cultures? This is an excellent question, and both global and non-global organizations are becoming more interconnected with every passing year. But according to recent McKinsey research, only half of executives in global companies think they are effective at tailoring candidate and employee communications for different geographies.

The first step, of course, is to recognize that you can’t offer a one-size-fits-all experience to candidates and employees across the globe, even ones who are in the same demographic or perform the same role. You should seek to understand even the most subtle factors that drive engagement and motivation in other cultures. For instance, consulting firm Seven Step used Hofstede’s Cultural Dimensions Theory to tease out country-specific essentials. These include:

• China: This culture views titles within the workplace as extremely important. Given this focus on status, companies should integrate distinctions such as awards and competitive rankings in their experiences. In China, individualism is low and language is viewed as a unifying agent. Flexibility with language translation enhances the experience while positioning the organization as a true member of the community.

• Central Europe: This culture is more risk-averse and ambiguity is viewed negatively. Job seekers and employees prefer to weigh the facts of an opportunity rather than taking a chance. Experiences in Central Europe should be content heavy, focusing on the explicit details of roles and responsibilities.

• Latin America: This collectivist culture encourages one to think of the group before himself. Organizations should ensure that experiences incorporate the use of “we” instead of a company name. Also, Latin Americans think of their careers within the context of their industry, not their company. Therefore, experiences should portray how every role is aligns with larger industry goals and achievements.

For more on Jennifer's question, check out the SilkRoad blog.

How Connectional Intelligence Drives Innovation

The brainchild of leading business strategists and researchers Erica Dhawan and Saj-Nicole Joni, Connectional Intelligence (CxQ) was coined in 2015 in their book: Get Big Things Done: The Power of Connectional Intelligence.

CxQ is a concept that combines traditional and emotional intelligence with the power of connection (via social media, mobile devices and networks). With it people can “quickly, efficiently and creatively enlist supporters, drive innovation, develop strategies and implement solutions to big problems”.  

One example of CxQ in action can be found at the American Transplant Foundation (ATF). It uses an ecosystem of business-built web-based applications to coordinate programs and quickly launch initiatives that bring different communities together—from donors and patients to service providers and community partners. The ATF’s growing Mentorship Program is one such initiative. It matches those in need with past recipients who help them navigate the legal, medical, and emotional complexities of receiving a transplant.  

“It’s wonderful when we can connect the dots and give people a second chance at life,” says Anastasia Darwish, the Executive Director of the American Transplant Foundation.

How You Can Boost Your CxQ to Help You and Your Company Thrive

Find yourself among the different types of individuals highlighted below and learn how you can your raise you CxQ quotient to drive greater success for yourself and your organization.

Dreamers—Dreamers are the heart center of the connectional intelligence universe. They are always engaging with the future, and imagining the possibilities and what might be next. If you’re a Dreamer, increase your CxQ by sharing your ideas with different communities and networks. Keep putting yourself in places where you can see life through their eyes.

Adventurers—Adventurers are people who seek new experiences, uncharted territory and novel undertakings. They reject labels, boxes or constraints of any kind, and accept risk as part of the adventure. Use your mastered skills to get out of the box and up your CxQ. Start with what you know well and think about how you can use it to build and test new ideas.

Seekers—Seekers are people who ask the big questions that move thoughts to action. Considering all options before acting, they pursue knowledge and cultivate the insight to improve life for themselves and others. If you are seeker striving for greater CxQ, keep asking the question: “what if the accepted wisdom/same old assumptions are not true?

Inspired Leaders—Inspired leaders help team members build an architecture to achieve ambitious goals and use their influence to make a difference in people’s lives. They take risks and assume responsibility for the group’s risks. Raise your CxQ by breaking or reversing rules or processes that hold progress back. Encourage collaboration between teams and communities. Promote an environment that fails forward and fast, knowing that taking chances and learning lessons is the path to agility, innovation, and success.

Advocates—Advocates are motivated to act on behalf of others. Advocates are automatically engaged when they see a way to make a difference and bring about change. As an advocate, what issue would you like to see resolved? Elevate your CxQ by picking a cause that matters to you and focus on what it means to the people you want to serve.

For more from Erica and Saj-nicole, head over to the QuickBase Fast Track blog.

Does Flexwork Decrease Productivity?

In the interest of productivity, some organizations have a predetermined scheduling policy, requiring that tasks be completed in a particular order. For example, we’ve talked about citizen development a lot on the Fast Track, and low code application development may indeed be one of those situations where a specific, sequential process has been implemented.

But in today’s work environment, professionals increasingly have more freedom over their time. Pursuing the noble goal of loosening their reins, employers are allowing their people to follow a prescribed schedule or choose to deviate, completing tasks in a different order at their own discretion.

Thanks to technology advances and the rise of virtual work, it’s easier than ever for employers to grant this sort of independence, and there’s no doubt that workers value it. But a new study from Harvard Business School found that, unfortunately, deviating from an organization’s prescribed task schedule tends to erode productivity – even among the most experienced workers.

In an article soon to be published in the Management Science Journal, researchers Ibanez, Clark, Huckman and Staats detailed their study, which asked about the drivers leading workers to deviate from employer’s task scheduling policy, and about the performance implications of doing so.

Using data from 2.4 million diagnoses derived from a large outsourced radiological services firm that staffed doctors whose jobs involved sequentially reading and diagnosing X-rays, CT scans, MRIs, and ultrasounds, the researchers found that doctors prioritize similar tasks and those tasks they expect to complete faster. But do these strategies impact their productivity?

For more on this fascinating issue, check out the QuickBase Fast Track blog.

Being Overlean Could Be Your Downfall

Shazir Mucklai is a startlingly young angel investor and adviser in disruptive startups. He currently runs a six-figure PR firm helping startups commercialize their products and launch their ideas. I say that he is startlingly young because according to his LinkedIn profile, he is still in college.

One of things I love about working with millennials and Gen Z-ers is that they often excel at taking a successful idea and figuring out how to apply it elsewhere. When it comes to project management, Shazir did just that. In a recent article he penned for Forbes, he questions why PM should just be for big companies that can afford whole departments and experts.

Shazir argues that even the smallest start-up or team should implement PM strategies in order to bring clarity, focus and much-needed structure to the growth process and operations.  Project management is essential, he claims, because it facilitates the following:

Agreement on “Reason for Being”

 According to Shazir, many teams can only provide long-winded explanations of the features of the product or service instead of the benefit it imparts to customers. The question of “what does it do and why?” is usually answered fairly quickly after a project manager is engaged.

Agreement on Goals

 Many smaller companies have flat organizational models. But, says Shazir, if every member of a four-person team is the leader, there are four different to-do lists, each in a different order. Mismatched priorities can be resolved by setting strategic, overarching goals with help from a project management orientation.

For more where this came from, read the whole article at the QuickBase Fast Track blog.