Alexandra Levit's Water Cooler Wisdom

Are You Strategic About Military Hiring?

Many organizations have prioritized the hiring of military veterans in recent years. This is commendable, as military hiring requires a different strategy than civilian hiring because veterans do not have exactly the same needs as traditional hires. For instance, they are often attracted by different things during the recruitment process, and sometimes respond better to alternative training and development approaches.

The Talent Activation, the Employee Experience, and Skill Development survey, conducted online within the United States by DeVry University on behalf of the Career Advisory Board in August 2018 examined how organizations are currently designing and executing specific employee experiences at the recruitment, onboarding, learning and development, and performance evaluation stages.

Survey respondents included 505 US-based individuals (53 percent male, 47 percent female) with full-time positions at the supervisor level or above, in companies with more than 500 employees (mean company size was large at 15,000). Our respondents’ primary job responsibilities include the hiring, development, and management of employees.

In parts of the survey, we looked specifically at military hiring and development practices. Specifically, we asked our respondents how much they agreed or disagreed with the following statement: My company has implemented a successful military veteran hiring strategy. Sixty-four percent agreed, confirming that not only do such strategies exist, but also that they have been honed in a majority of organizations.

 We also asked the participants how much they agreed or disagreed with this statement: My company has implemented a comprehensive talent development program that capitalizes on the professional strengths military veterans bring to the workplace. Refreshingly, 67 percent agreed.  And, according to our respondents’ verbatim responses, material is often customized to resonate with veterans’ unique perspectives.

On the subject of the verbatim responses, the survey inquired about where respondents were focusing their thoughts and energies with respect to military veteran hiring and onboarding. Some of the initiatives they cited in the verbatims included:

• Hiring talent acquisition staff with military backgrounds
• Matching current employee veterans with new hires
• Engaging with Military Transition Centers
• Using regional military outplacement centers effectively
• Performing outreach to veteran groups in relevant locations
• Maintaining strong relationships with local VAs
• Holding veteran-specific job fairs
• Partnering with military recruiters
• Sourcing talent from military leaders who have commanded troops
• Participating in military-sponsored job events
• Offering interview and hiring preference to veteran candidates
• Creating onsite affinity groups for military
• Providing tuition assistance and educational incentives
• Emphasizing how military experience translates to work experience
• Understanding and communicating about PTSD and other symptoms veterans experience
• Placing veterans into supervisory or leadership jobs
• Developing veteran-specific onboarding programs to ease the transition to civilian work

For more survey results, check out the DeVry WORKS website.

Using Design Thinking for Product Innovation

Most business owners would agree that product innovation is important to their success in today's world.

History is full of companies that were initially very successful but failed to innovate when the market changed, says Jeremy Brandt, founder and CEO of We Buy Houses, an online service that connects home sellers with potential buyers. And that informs the way his company operates.

“At We Buy Houses, we continuously identify ways to improve our products, taking technology we've built internally for ourselves and turning it into a commercial product for our clients," says Brandt.

“Agile and similar methodologies are great for consistently moving the ball forward," he continues. "Innovation is about coming up with new ideas, processes and products to stay ahead of the competition and in line with what the market needs. Once the innovation happens, it's all about execution, and that's where agile plays a huge role."

Design thinking is an agile product innovation methodology traditionally used by designers to solve complex problems. It is a solution-focused and action-oriented way of creating a preferred future.

Over the years, design thinking has taken on many faces, but the Institute of Design at Stanford University proposed a groundbreaking and now frequently used series of steps, which are:

Empathize

Empathize mode is the first step on your product innovation journey. Here you're trying to understand your customers' physical and emotional needs, how they think about the world and what is meaningful to them.

Observing what people do and how they interact with their environment can give you clues. You can engage your users by preparing some questions you'd like to ask, for instance:

• If you are standing in line at the grocery store, what app are you most likely to view first and why?

For the rest of the steps, head over to the AMEX OpenForum.

The Pros and Cons of International Entrepreneurship

 

In an increasingly global world, the advantages of international trade can give your business a substantial boost.

According to Abhi Golhar, serial entrepreneur and co-founder of Nurse Practitioners Clinical Rotations, chief among the advantages of international trade are market-risk diversification and less competition.

“If there happen to be increasing regulations in the business owner's home country that may inhibit the sale of the business's widgets, identifying other markets with less regulation could be vital for the longevity of the business," Golhar says. “Also, the business owner may find that by expanding into a different market, there may be fewer competitors, which can result in higher profit margins and more business volume."

Added to the advantages of international trade are lower production costs. 

"Business owners should consider international trade when the cost of labor or products they can source locally negatively impacts their bottom line," says Scott Kacmarski, CEO of business process outsourcing company Reps Direct.

Additionally, becoming proficient in international trade in the early stages of your business can help you avoid prohibitively high costs down the line—another perk of expanding globally.

“The cost of one product or service may seem like a small issue at the beginning," Kacmarski says. “The problem comes when you have many products or employees. High costs then lead to cash-flow problems, and it's harder to go international once your business is more mature and operating at a larger scale."

International Trade Has Its Downside

Of course, there are disadvantages of international trade as well.

For one, if you don't have what Golhar calls “boots on the ground," it could increase your probability of failure.

“When my father opened a business in his hometown in India, his brother—who he trusted completely—assisted him," he says. "Without a partner with an established track record and contacts, international trade can be enormously difficult."

To read more, check out the full piece on the AMEX OPENForum.

 

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Deloitte's Old and New Rules for People Analytics

Deloitte University Press’ Global Human Capital Trends 2017 report revealed that people analytics is undergoing a transition. The field of people analytics has moved from answering basic questions about recruitment, engagement, and retention to giving organizations much more complex insight into management issues. Now that CEOs want to use data to understand every part of a business operation, and embed analytics into real-time apps and the way we work, people analytics has moved from the purview of HR to the purview of the c-suite.

In the report, Deloitte suggested that we can no longer view people analytics through the same lens and that an understanding of the “old rules versus the new rules” will help maximize the use of data to enhance organizational performance.

• Old Rule: People analytics is viewed as an HR team focused on advanced analytics within HR
• New Rule: People analytics is viewed as a business analytics team that works across the business to drive business results

• Old Rule: Analytics focuses on HR topics such as retention, engagement, learning, and recruitment metrics
• New Rule: Analytics focuses on business problems such as sales retention, fraud, accident patterns, and other operational needs

• Old Rule: The organization makes a business case for better data integration, quality, and tools
• New Rule: The organization has already committed to accurate and integrated data, and has tools and processes to ensure quality and ease of analysis

• Old Rule: The people analytics team has a strong understanding of HR data
• New Rule: The people analytics team understands HR data, relationships with all the other analytics groups in the company

For the rest of the rules, check out the full piece on the SilkRoad blog.

Announcing My New Book Collaboration: Mom.B.A.!

When I met Karyn Schoenbart in the summer of 2013, I never imagined that I'd embark upon a partnership and friendship that would be one of the most defining of my life.

Karyn's the CEO of global market research firm The NPD Group, and today we publish the book we've been working on together for two years, Mom.B.A.: Essential Business Advice from One Generation to the Next.

The book asks the reader to imagine life would be like if your mother was the CEO of a global company. She could provide the type advice that would propel a career and help them overcome the many stumbling blocks that keep people from fulfilling their full potential at work. That's the idea behind Mom.B.A. 

Mom.B.A. is based on Karyn's lessons to her daughter Danielle, now an established businesswoman in her own right. And in it, we include lessons on everything from effective first impressions and workplace politics to relationship development, skill building, and priority-setting. Alongside current employment research and trends, Karyn candidly shares funny anecdotes, triumphs, and missteps as she recalls her journey from an entry-level market research position to CEO. By the time you finish reading, you'll feel like you know her as well as I do. 

We've fortunately gotten a lot of support from senior leaders in the business community, and here's my personal favorite endorsement:

"Sometimes, matter-of-fact approaches to our biggest challenges are hiding in plain sight. Karyn Schoenbart blends the learnings of her life into a set of guidelines notable for their straight shooting, and credible because they ring with the truth of her own experience. Karyn s excellence as a business leader, as a mother, as a philanthropist, and as a friend are not separate achievements, but instead part of one storyline and approach that she has weaved together beautifully for us in this terrific book." --Oliver Libby, chair and co-founder, The Resolution Project.

I thank you in advance for your support of my latest endeavor and hope you learn as much from Karyn as I have!

 

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.

Cross-Company Innovation Addresses the Changing Nature of Work

As a long-time partner of Staples and Xerox, I just traveled to New York City to spend National Small Business Week with the two organizations, learning how they’re helping small business customers and entrepreneurs be more productive with the new multi-function self-serve machines in Staples stores across the country. 

By 2030, more than half of American professionals will no longer go to an office every day.  Getting simple things done, like sending a package or printing a critical document, will not be as easy as making a few clicks and sauntering over to the mailroom. As millions of new small business owners and contract workforce pour into the workforce, they will find out exactly how difficult it is to run every aspect of a business themselves. I’ve been working with Staples and Xerox to ensure that the two businesses are ahead of this trend and ready to offer the assistance that busy professionals, operating out of a home office and via mobile devices, so desperately need.

According to Amy Lang, Vice President of Print Merchandising at Staples, 18 million customers came to Staples stores last year, specifically to use Business Center services like printing. “Sometimes people have time to plan and order online; sometimes they need a document within the hour; sometimes they need help; and sometimes they want to come in and leave quickly without having to talk to anyone,” she said. “Our customers need to do their jobs, which involve thinking and doing as opposed to printing.”

Xerox printers have long been a “staple” of every Staples store’s Business Center, in the past, Xerox would simply send new products to Staples stores for employees to plug in and for customers to use. But Staples realized the value of tapping Xerox in advance to develop a machine that would address the changing needs of its customers.

Here’s what’s fascinating: you don’t usually see two large companies coming together to innovate on a solution that doesn’t yet exist. But that’s exactly what happened. Staples and Xerox combined their understanding of the customer, with Xerox’s constantly improving technology, to transform the Business Center experience from the ground up. “The goal was to design the machine to be intuitive to use for anyone walking up to it for the first time,” said Renee Carter, Vice President of Mid-Products for Xerox.

When Staples and Xerox finished their creation, they sent 3,000 of the new devices to Staples stores. The new MFPs have an interface that looks like a tablet and allows customers to print or scan from the cloud, usb, mobile device, and email. They have bar code readers to enable coupons and credit card readers so that people can pay without going to the counter. The MFPs are also future-proofed, meaning they are pre-configured with additional apps and functions that Staples customers may well demand soon.

Not only are the MFPs fully upgraded, but they save customers a tremendous amount of time and help them achieve productivity and results normally reserved for corporate employees. And THIS is a change that is bound to benefit everyone as the nature of work continues to evolve.

The Project Management Industry Just Got a Facelift

In a 2016 Fast Track piece, I covered a disconcerting study conducted by The Project Management Institute (PMI). The research illustrated that organizations around the world waste an average of $122 million for every $1 billion spent on projects as a result of poor project management practices.

Called Pulse of the Profession®: The High Cost of Low Performance study, the study indicated that the amount of waste had increased 12 percent over the prior year. Featuring insights from nearly 2,500 project managers, nearly 200 senior executives, and nearly 300 Project Management Office (PMO) directors from a range of industries, Pulse of the Profession was one of the only studies to look at project management trends globally.

Despite the fact that of the industries included in the study, government agencies had the lowest average monetary waste on spending projects ($108 per $1 billion spent, financial services was much higher), the feds were the first to take action.

On His Way Out, Obama Saved Project Management

Without getting overly political, I feel that Obama did a lot of good for our country, and especially for the field of project management. Allow me to explain. Before he turned the reins over to Trump, Obama signed bill S.155, or the Program Management Improvement and Accountability Act (PMIAA).

The PMIAA requires the implementation of established project management strategies to create a more consistent, efficient and effective federal government, as well as the carrying out of policies to correct widespread inefficiencies.

Obama got this done with relatively little fanfare, mostly because unlike much of his proposed legislation, the PMIAA received substantial bipartisan support. “We are thrilled that this significant piece of legislation has been signed into law by President Barack Obama. PMIAA will help maximize efficiency within the US federal government, thereby generating more successful program outcomes and increasing the value that Americans receive for their tax dollars,” said PMI President and Chief Executive Officer Mark Langley in a press release.

Implementation of the new law will be overseen by the Deputy Director for Management of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). The legislation mandates that federal agencies work together and consult with private sector organizations to determine the best project management practices. It’s a sweeping law, meaning that all areas of government fall under its umbrella with the notable exception of the Department of Defense.

All Bases Will Be Covered

The specifics are even more intriguing. According to Moira Alexander at CIO, any government agency that is required to have a CFO is mandated to appoint a Program Management Improvement Officer. This officer is responsible for developing a five-year strategy to improve program manager roles within the agency, as well as implementing all associated policies and reporting on progress. In addition, a Program Management Policy Council within OMB is expected to be established for the purpose of improving program and project management practices.

The Office of Personnel Management will be involved too. This group will ensure that the government as a whole ups its PM game. It will regulate PM competencies, develop a new program and project manager job series, update existing PM jobs, and identify new PM-related career paths.

As an additional safeguard of accountability, within three years of the law passing, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) will issue a report documenting the effectiveness of the new initiatives – including strategic plans, policies, and guidelines – and the performance of the Program Management Improvement Officers and the Program Management Policy Council.

There’s little doubt that PMIAA is a boon for the project management profession. “Passing this law opens up opportunities not only within the government setting, but it also amplifies and elevates the profession as a whole,” wrote Alexander in CIO. “PMIAA creates an increased awareness of the need for certified experienced PM professionals across America. It shines a spotlight on the imperative role PM professionals play in government and the private sector especially as it relates to accountability, efficiencies, and strategic value.”

For more, head over to the QuickBase Fast Track blog.

All Hail the Blockchain: What It Means for You

You’ve heard the term, but what on earth does it mean? Let’s start with the basics. A blockchain is a data structure that makes it possible to create a digital ledger of transactions and share it among a distributed network of computers. It uses cryptography to allow each participant on the network to manipulate the ledger in a secure way without the need for a central, often fee-charging authority.

Bitcoin and the mechanics of blockchain

 If you are familiar with blockchain technology, it may be because of Bitcoin, the first app built using the platform in 2008. Bitcoin’s main premise is to digitally send payments between any two people or organizations without a third-party financial institution. Every time a transaction is made, it’s recorded on the blockchain ledger and each new block is tied to the prior ones via digital signature. Once a block of data is recorded on the ledger, it’s difficult to change or remove, and in order for someone to add a block to the chain, network members have to first ensure it’s valid.

A few key components underpin blockchain technology. First up is the network, which can vary depending on the organization setting up the blockchain. It might include everyone in the public domain (as in Bitcoin) or an exclusive group of known participants. The computers within each network are called nodes.

Then, there is the consensus mechanism, or the set of rules used to verify each transaction. In the Bitcoin blockchain, for instance, the consensus mechanism is called proof of work. Network participants run algorithms to confirm the digital signatures attached to blocks in order to validate new transactions. Once approved, transactions are packaged into a block. They are then re-distributed to all the nodes, which are responsible for ensuring that all records match.

For his article for the Wall Street Journal CIO Journal blog, writer Steven Norton consulted Guardtime, a company that sells blockchain-based products and services to organizations like Ericsson AB. Guardtime provided this example of a complex blockchain in action:

“Assume an organization has 10 transactions per second. Each of those transactions receives its own digital signature. Using a tree structure, those signatures are combined and given a single digital fingerprint — a unique representation of those transactions at a specific time.”

“Once validated, that fingerprint is stored in a blockchain that all the participants can see. A copy of that ledger is also sent back to each organization to store locally. Those signatures can be continuously verified against what is in the blockchain, giving companies a way to monitor the state and integrity of a particular asset or transaction.”

“Anytime a change to data or an asset is proposed, a new, unique digital fingerprint is created. That fingerprint is sent to each client node for validation. If the fingerprints don’t match, or if the change to the data doesn’t fit with the network’s agreed-upon rules, the transaction may not be validated. This setup means the entire network, rather than a central authority, is responsible for ensuring the validity of each transaction.”

Want more? Check out the full article on the QuickBase Fast Track blog.

Tech Advances in Healthcare Workplaces Are Wins for Patients

In the U.S., healthcare is big business, representing about a sixth of the nation’s GDP. And it’s no secret that healthcare providers have been heavily incentivized by the government to adopt better technology. No less than $30 billion has been set aside over the last few years so that hospitals and health systems can operate more efficiently and patients can receive better care.

Considering this massive influx of cash, everyone hoped that all providers would immediately enter the 21^st century, becoming fully digital so that patient information could easily flow from one system to another. Unfortunately, this wasn’t exactly what happened, because while some organizations benefited from the government funding, others did not. Specifically, providers in the realms of behavioral health, skilled nursing, long-term care, and rehabilitation were left behind, and the disconnect between the technology “haves” and “have nots” continued to grow.

Here’s a typical example. A patient receives surgery in a hospital, and is then discharged for continuing recovery at a skilled nursing facility. The skilled nursing facility does not have an easy way to receive electronic records, so the patient’s hospital-based physician has to fax them. Think about this – a robot was in the operating room performing the surgery, yet a fax machine must transmit the results of that surgery.  Such is life in the modern world of American healthcare.

In both workplaces, this paper-based transmission causes much time to be wasted, and inevitable confusion to occur. The hospital presumably learned a great deal about our patient while she was being cared for there – including allergies, sensitivities, and problem triggers – and if the patient is lucky, some of that might make it over to the skilled nursing facility. Also, the lack of connectivity means that the billing and reimbursement processes will incur more errors – increasing costs for everyone.

Jon Elwell, CEO of Kno2, a healthcare cloud service provider, attempted to resolve these issues by creating an online system that allows medical professionals to access patient records from their desktops. Elwell joined forces with my partner Xerox to build a solution facilitating the secure and compliant exchange of records between different types of healthcare organizations. Now, healthcare organizations willing to invest in a printer can join the ranks of the fully digitized.

“Using the Xerox multifunction printer (MFP), a healthcare professional can walk up to the machine as usual and scan in any paper records to send to another provider,” said Elwell. “Once documents are in the system, they are instantly delivered to its destination in a secure, electronic, EMR friendly format via a comprehensive national directory of healthcare providers. And anyone in that network can quickly send information back. A dramatic improvement to the traditional fax process that would typically be utilized prior to the creation of the Xerox healthcare MFP.”

The MFP is part of Xerox’s new suite of 14 Xerox ConnectKey-enabled devices, all of which are equipped with apps designed to speed up paper-dependent business processes and make it easier for users to collaborate and work more effectively. Apps loaded on the Xerox ConnectKey-enabled devices can also be customized to meet industry-specific regulations and workflows so that every vertical can reap the benefits for digitization and automation.

Thanks to these powerful advances in interoperability, cloud services, and the Internet of Things, healthcare workflow is about to get a whole lot easier and more productive so that healthcare staff can spend more time helping patients and less time troubleshooting information gaps. And the best part is, updates are continuously made to the system. So in other words, Xerox and Kno2 will worry about HIPAA compliance and ever evolving regulatory standards so busy professionals don’t have to.