As you might have noticed I took a little hiatus from my blog.  It was only (ahem) a couple of weeks right?  Well, worry no longer.  I didn’t fall into a black hole or get kidnapped by mafia drug lords.  It’s been a busy winter for me.  I changed jobs, consolidated 2 households and added a gorgeous 8.5 year old Tiger Brindle Greyhound to keep my other Greyhound company.  So what’s next you say?

I’m pleased to let you know that I will be speaking at the Aquire Software Wisdom 2012 Conference in Dallas.

Aquire makes some fab software including the industry leading OrgPublisher, new offerings in Compensation and my favorite, the InSight Workforce Analytics Software.

This year Aquire has a separate Workforce Analytics track and I am pleased to be speaking on the down and dirty world of finding and cleansing data needed for Workforce Analytics.  I know you are dying to know the details of my session so here is the title and description:

Session Title: All the Data You Need vs. The Obstacles to Grab it

Part presentation, part interactive activity! This session discusses data needed to do workforce analytics and the obstacles to tracking it down, making sure it is clean, and tips you need to make these processes work. There are key tricks to understand that can drastically speed up the process of working with your data, and relieve the stress of doing so.

So, umm…wish me luck!

It’s that time of year again when all of us in the HR Technology business book our airline and hotel reservations and congregate in Chicago for the annual HR Technology Conference and Expo. Wait, did I say Chicago? Sorry, this year the conference was in sunny Las Vegas Baby! Anyway, this post is way late (and probably a dollar short) as the conference was over weeks and weeks ago. I have a good excuse or ten for being tardy on my post but I won’t bore you with the details. In my prior blogs posts about the 2009 and the 2010 conferences, I waxed on about the conference being about connecting with my social media network (especially my Twitter buddies – AKA my Tweeps). Making connections with the Tweeps was still an important aspect of this year’s conference. The Social Media factor at the conference continues to grow each year and I think we might have finally reached a tipping point. This year so many people were using the #HRTechConf hash tag on Twitter that the tweets were streaming into TweetDeck faster than I could read them. Information overload. So kudos to the conference organizers and all of my HR Tech Twitter buddies who helped promote the Social Media aspect of the conference. On the good news/bad news front the sponsored Wi-Fi was very spotty especially in some of the conference rooms that were more out of the way. In the larger sessions when everyone powered on their tweeting devices the Wi-Fi came to a standstill. What’s the good news in this? If the Wi-Fi had been 100% rock solid the tweet stream would have been OUT OF CONTROL.

What I Learned This Year

The expo floor as always abounded with a zillion vendors hawking their wares. I was having a conversation with one of the vendors who mentioned that in general the vendors were unhappy with Vegas/Mandalay Place in comparison to McCormick Place because the attendees were not a captive audience. At McCormick Place there was nothing around the conference center to do or see so most attendees with any free time would stroll through the expo floor. At Mandalay Bay, the attendees often used any free time to stroll over to the casino floor instead of the expo floor. Speaking of vendors, there were a ton of announcements at the conference and I do mean a ton. I’m too lazy to track them all down so here is a great summary of the announcements from Marketwatch.

Mobile was a huge topic at the conference this year but let’s first talk about the attendees mobile devices. The news reports indicate that the iPad has decimated the Netbook market and I can tell you first hand that this rang true at the conference. The iPad ruled and I could have counted on one hand the number of Netbooks being used. In a slight twist to last year, I witnessed a strong showing of people using physical keyboards with their iPads. In another nod to the strong growth of Apple, the MacBook Air also had a very strong showing among the attendees. Sorry Microsoft, the traditional laptop seemed pushed out this year. Hope you have big plans for Windows 8 to stem the market share loss.

Unlike mobile which has been brewing for a couple of years, gamification seemed to blast out of the woodwork from seemingly obscurity at the conference this year. For vendors and for companies the message this year is that if you want adoption of your application you need give workers a reason to use the app. Enter gamification which uses games design techniques applied to HR applications to encourage people to use (or adopt) the software. Gamification is no longer just badges but now includes awarding and redeeming points, achievement, challenges and recognition. There were many vendors showing applications with gamification built to the core or at least gamification techniques applied to bits and pieces. I’ll be curious to see in future surveys if gamification does indeed make a difference in adoption.

Just like mobile, analytics is HOT HOT HOT this year. The good news is there are now solutions that cover the spectrum of needs. Vendors are adding transactional analytics into their applications at a minimum and strategic analytic solutions are coming on strong. I encourage customers to take the long view when implementing disparate HR systems that each have their own transactional analytics to think about the impact of providing too many disconnected metric reports to their end users. While it might make sense to dip your toe into analytics by starting with built-in transactional metrics, only rollout the metrics that make the most sense and determine your long term analytics goals up front. Maybe an enterprise wide HR Analytics/BI system should be in you HR Technology Roadmap.

SaaS continues its steady march to replace on-premise HR applications. Nearly all vendors with on-premise solutions are re-architecting, re-coding or at least re-marketing their apps to say they are SaaS compliant. Don’t believe the marketing message however. Customers will need to dig deep and ask tons of pointed questions to determine exactly what flavor of SaaS the vendor is supporting. From the Talent Management panel the big take away was SaaS is really Saa (Software as a…). Service is still missing from many SaaS vendors. Customers are having to redo their contracts with SaaS vendors at renewal time and substantially beefing up the SLA and Service agreements.

The Awesome New Technologies for HR session was a hit again this year with the instant responses from the Twitter peanut gallery providing lots of colorful commentary. The Twitter users at the conference are pretty savvy HR Technology users so hopefully the vendors participating in the session captured the tweets (both good and bad) for future consideration. The iPad demo’s from Workday and Peoplefluent seems to garner the most interest and praise from the crowd and the tweets. Workday’s iPad app interface with the Swirl pretty much stole the show. By the way, for any session presenters reading this post don’t say “San Fran” when you mean “San Francisco”. You know who you are.

The Challenge For Next Year

The market for HR Technology applications has exploded the last couple of years. Core HR systems are hot again, suites continue to be rolled out, Analytics are front and center, Social Media is being embedded and everything is mobile, mobile, mobile. I found myself this year really feeling like I missed out on way too much. Trying to find time for all the great sessions, the expo floor, vendor briefings and hallway conversations with the attendees was impossible. The challenge for next year is to find a way to make more time available for all these things. Longer Expo hours, repeated sessions or maybe an additional day added to the conference might do the trick. Kudos to Bill Kutik and LRP for another great HR Technology Conference.

Most Important Takeaways

• Dwane Lay and Paul Smith make an awesome Penn and Teller combo.
• You know you have spent too much time in the elevators at Mandalay Bay when you can lip sync the Hubert Keller “Fleur” video.
• More men use moisturizing cream around their eyes than you probably realize.
• Ron Wallace is in amazing shape having to keep up with Naomi Bloom on her scooter.
• Bill Kutik needs a smart phone adviser the next time he gets a new cell phone.
• Naomi Bloom can operate an iPhone but not an iPad. Go figure.

No good conference is complete without some sort of video so I leave you with this awesome swag video by my good pals Dwane Lay and Paul Smith.

This guest post is from David Eisner who is the President and CEO of Dataprise, a full service network support, help desk, outsourcing and IT support provider.  David wanted to know if he could write a guest post and I noticed that Dataprise provides security related consulting services. As an HR IT professional I am always concerned about making sure employee data is kept secure so I am happy to bring you some tips from David on securing employee data.

Whether your business has 10 employees or 100 employees, one thing remains the same: your employees have a right for their confidential information to remain confidential. But what is the best way to ensure that your company is taking the steps necessary to effectively protect that information? Let’s take a look at some of the most important do’s and don’ts when it comes to securing confidential employee information on your business’ network and workstations.

DO: Create a written policy for handling confidential employee information

Don’t assume that everyone agrees on what exactly constitutes “confidential” information—ensure that there is no question about what information is deemed confidential and what information is not. Draft a written policy that specifically defines what information is considered confidential, and that outlines who, how, when, and why authorized employees may access the information. Then, go one step further by asking employees to sign off on the policy, verifying that they understand it and agree to follow it.

DON’T: Assume that your main security threat is external

With news stories of hackers stealing confidential information for their own malevolent uses, it may be tempting to think that the main threat to your confidential employee information is from outside your organization. But research shows that employees and contractors within the organization are more likely to be the culprit in an information breach. Take steps to secure your network from hackers and other outsiders, but don’t do so at the expense of employing appropriate security measures inside your office.

DO: Employ physical and virtual locking mechanisms

When it comes to protecting confidential information, your first step is to discourage crimes of opportunity—and the best way to do that is to simply lock the data away. A locked door to the Human Resources office or a locked computer workstation is likely enough of a hindrance to keep a curious (or even potentially vengeful) employee or contractor from accessing confidential information. Ensure that any employees who have access to confidential information understand the importance of locking their workstations any time they are not directly in front of them, and mandate that they follow best practices by regularly changing their password.

DON’T: Overlook other threats to information security

Keeping confidential employee information in a secure server location is one of the first steps in ensuring that confidential information remains confidential, but don’t overlook potential security loopholes. Ensure that network information cannot be downloaded to a local machine or a temporary drive. Also, make certain that your network backups that contain the confidential information are as secure as your network itself.

By combining network security best practices with common sense measures, and staying up to date with evolving security protocols, you’ll be taking the steps necessary to protect your employees’ confidential information—and to protect their trust in you.
——————–
David Eisner is the President and CEO of Dataprise, a full-service network support, help desk outsourcing and IT support provider.

Great information from David.  Here are my recommendations for some of the items that David mentioned: For securing your networks internally, you should have an industrial strength corporate firewall. All internal Web applications that store and transmit confidential data should be SSL enabled.  To prevent confidential employee information from being downloaded to a USB device or CD/DVD drive look at configuring desktop Operating System security to prevent the use of USB drives.

This Guest Post is from Kyle Lagunas who is an HR Market Analyst with Software Advice. Software Advice helps buyers find the right software for their business. Like the big consulting firms, Software Advice researches the market identifying the best solutions for each buyer.

When your organization announces, “We’re hiring again,” are you paralyzed with the fear of being buried under stacks of resumes? The process of reviewing resumes, interviewing candidates, and hiring/on-boarding is time-consuming. When searching for the proverbial needle in a haystack, keeping organized should be easier. Thankfully, there’s a light at the end of the tunnel. Due largely in part to the emergence of web-based Software as a Service (SaaS), organizations of any size and budget can tap into feature-rich web-based applicant tracking software (ATS) and streamline their hiring process.

As an alternative to traditional on-premise systems are still popular, web-based software as a service (SaaS) put big-time functionality at hiring professionals’ disposal without the upfront expense of on-premise implementations. In fact, according to a report published by Advanced Market Research, SaaS users are part of the fastest growing market of consumers in HR software – contributing more than one-third of revenue for software companies.

So, if you think you may be ready to get rid of your Rolodex and clear that stack of resumes off of your desk, here’s what you should know…

A Closer Look at Web-based Applicant Tracking Software:
ATS automates the hiring process from end to end in the – from how candidates view openings and complete online applications to scheduling interviews and securely storing resumes. And central to the process is ensuring that this workflow is easily accessible to everyone from the HR specialist to the CEO.

Most applicant tracking systems include a portal where candidates can complete customizable online applications. Resumes are parsed at the click of a button and document templates (i.e. offer letters) are quickly generated as well. Multiple schedules can also easily be coordinated so you can focus on interviewing. The ultimate focus of applicant tracking systems is the successful management of candidates’ lifecycles in the hiring process.

There are many applicant tracking solutions, as there are various needs across the industries (i.e. high volume of applicants, various positions to be filled, etc). As such, we’ve put together this comparison of some of our favorite systems:

iCIMSTalentPlatform: Hit the ground running in all of your recruiting initiatives with this robust talent acquisition package. Great for organizations of any size, with offerings far beyond ATS.

ApplicantStack: Ideal for HR managers that need to optimize hiring processes at an affordable price, ApplicantStack is a completely hosted, full-featured ATS designed for small and mid-sized organizations.

AcquireTM: Small to mid-sized business looking for a powerful, web-based ATS will love AcquireTM Talent Management’s user-friendly solutions for streamlining the hiring process.

Newton: In the cloud-based ATS market, Newton Software is widely known for its ease of use, easy implementation, first rate customer service and EEO/OFCCP compliance features.

How to Choose the Right Software for Your Organization

According to HR technology blogger Steve Boese, “There is almost no reason why even the smallest, least technically capable organizations and HR departments can’t take advantage of at least some level of automation to better manage the recruiting process.” Software developers understand that the hiring process varies from organization to organization, and there are more than 200 applicant tracking systems for you to choose from.

If you’re a small business owner, the first step in choosing the right applicant tracking software is identifying your needs and budget. If you’re new to applicant tracking, you’ll want to start with the basics in terms of functionality: online applications, interview status tracking, and document management. Or, if you’re ready for a complete package to deliver for years to come, go for the gold and invest in a top-of-the-line best of breed solution.

The next step is to know what the market has to offer. With the right due diligence, you’ll be able to make the best decision for your specific needs to ensure you can attract and hire the very best applicants to help take your small business to the next level.

This guide can be found in its entirety at: http://www.softwareadvice.com/articles/hr/web-based-applicant-tracking-systems-comparison-1070711/

Is the HR Technology Conference co-chair Bill Kutik the Most Interesting Man in the World?  Here are some quotes that describe the Dos Equis man:

• He once had an awkward moment, just to see how it feels.
• He co-chairs the HR Technology Conference just because he can.
• You can see his charisma from space.
• His charisma compels people to write blog posts about the HR Technology Conference.
• His business card just says, “I’ll call you.”
• His tacos refuse to fall from the shell.
• His personality is so magnetic, he is unable to carry credit cards.
• Even his enemies list him as their emergency contact number.
• He is so generous that by using Promotion Code INFOBOX11 you get $500 off the conference rack rate.
• He once engaged in a staring contest with a fish and won:

This sure sounds like Bill Kutik to me but let’s talk about more pressing matters.

This year is the 14th annual conference and Bill tells me it’s going to be the largest and most exciting yet with an incredible, educational and entertaining speaker line-up. Speaking of speaker line-up, I will be participating again on the Second Annual Social Media Panel where my cohorts will be tackling all your sticky social media deployment questions (in an incredible, educational and entertaining way of course). So for goodness sakes don’t miss our session. But wait, there’s more. Don’t miss the Great Technology Debate between Naomi Bloom and Jason Averbook, the Expert Discussions, the public debut of the 14th annual CedarCrestone HR Systems Survey by Lexy Martin and the always popular Awesome New Technologies for HR. Oh and don’t forget to bring comfortable shoes to walk the expo floor where you can get hands-on demonstrations and one-on-one Q&A from tons and tons of vendors. All this can be yours for $500 off the conference rack rate by using promo code INFOBOX11 (all caps).

Got an HR Technology question or a problem? Everyone you need to know to answer your question or solve your problem will be there. Did I mention that all your favorite HR Technology Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, BeKnown,  BranchOut and Google+ peeps will be at the conference? Frankly you can’t afford not to be there.  As I said in my post-conference blog post from last year:

“I met CEOs, HR Bloggers, Industry Titans, Consultants, HR Professionals and Techies. I can’t think of any other conference where you have such easy access to such a diverse group of people.”

If you still need more information, you can download the PDF of the full conference brochure, read the post-conference blog posts from last year’s conference or forget all that and just take my word. I’m trustworthy. Right? Don’t forget my promo code of INFOBOX11 (all caps) to get $500 off the rack rate of $1,795. But don’t wait as this promo code expires on September 19th. If I still have not convinced you that you must register this very instant, here are 10 more reasons to attend the conference presented by Bill Kutik:

Go register now while I open a nice cold bottle of Dos Equis and ponder The Most Interesting Man In The World …  Bill Kutik … the HR Technology Conference.

In previous blog posts I gave you some software demo tips for vendors and some software demo tips for customers. This time around I feel compelled to give some tips to Implementation firms on how NOT to bid an implementation project.

• Assume or act like you are smarter than I am. I can’t believe I have to put this on the list.
• Be extremely difficult and inflexible when it comes to scheduling the presentation of your bid.
• Having asked for and received a written description of the project, come to your bid presentation meeting and ask me describe the project again instead of presenting your bid.
• Present a lame bid just because you are sure you will get the project.
• Ask me questions during the presentation and then interrupt me each time I try to answer.
• Fail to actually read and digest the written description of the project and then present a bid for the wrong project.
• Pay no attention to the budget parameters given to you and bid significantly higher than my budget.
• Give me a reference to call but have the reference not be a customer that has actually used your services.
• Re-bid the project three times and still not provide a bid that meets the project parameters.
• Assume you know more than I do about application implementations and technology.
• Assume you know more about my IT infrastructure than I do.
• Assume or act like you are smarter than I am. Yes, I listed this twice. *sigh*

That’s my quick list but I know I just scratched the surface so feel free to leave your own tips in the comments section.  Any vendors brave enough to leave any tips for potential clients?

I hope you all had some fun reading my HRevolution spoof-ish blog post hosted over at Paul Smith’s blog Welcome To The Occupation yesterday.  I thought I would actually get serious (who knew that was possible) and write my actual thoughts about HRevolution 2011.

Last year’s HRevolution in Chicago was great except that as a tech person it was missing something near and dear to me. It was missing a lot of HR Technology talk.  I wrote a blog post about it called HRevolution 2010 – What happened to the Tech Talk. This year I saw some progress. Not mind blowing let’s talk about the pros and cons of Best of Breed versus Suite or SaaS versus On-Premise type of progress but nonetheless progress.

Let’s first take a look at the Sponsors: Monster, Pinstripe, Ceridian, Aquire, SHRM and PeopleMatter.  There are some serious tech chops to a couple of these vendors. There were no hard sells from the Vendors but their presence helped establish some tech credentials to the conference. Oh and thanks to all the sponsors who helped keep the conference costs at a minimum level for the attendees. You rock.

Moving on to the keynote, we had the CHRO of Kimberly Clark, Liz Gottung, mention during her keynote that a pillar of her global HR plan was the global implementation of Workday. I looked around the room as Liz talked about Workday and watched people’s faces.  To my surprise it was clear that many people knew about Workday.  Last year, it seemed like people only knew about Abra and Taleo.

As for the sessions, there were several technology specific sessions.  Josh LeTourneau led an uber techie session on Social Network Analysis. I can’t do it justice to explain it so you will just have to head over to his website to learn more about it.  Craig Fisher showed us a bucketful of tools in his Recruiting: Cool Tools and More session such as Crowdbooster, thesocialCV.com and BizzBizz. Craig also showed us how to stalk potential candidates using FourSquare and Twitter.  You had to be there to watch some of the people in the room become a bit uncomfortable with the idea.

Finally, I had several conversations with various people about HR Technology throughout the day.  Great conversations actually.

Just like last year there was interest in Social Media technology and Mobile technology.  One didn’t need to actually talk about mobile you just needed to look around the conference to see a significant showing of iPad’s.  Speaking of iPad’s, after winning the iPad drawing from Monster last year I was somewhat relieved to not win this year’s Monster drawing for the iPad 2 as I figured I might get in trouble with the attendees if I won 2 years in a row.  Social Media and Mobile aside there were definitely more conversation and interest in technology this year.  It’s a bit of a slow burn but since the next HRevolution will be in Las Vegas at Mandalay Bay (using the same meeting rooms) as the HR Technology Conference & Expo, I am hoping for an even better showing in HR Tech Talk.

Thanks again to Crystal, Ben, Steve and Trish for a fantastic conference and for making me the unofficial Wi-Fi guy.

Last year at this time, I was eagerly preparing for the 2009 HR Technology conference as an attendee.  I was excited to finally meet many of the people I had been conversing with on Twitter.  In fact my first blog post after the conference was about the tweeps instead of about the conference.  Boy did I take some flak from Bill Kutik about that.

Mike Krupa spent his entire first blog post listing every friend he’d made on Twitter (known as a “Tweep”), whom he finally got to meet in person in Chicago (becoming a “Peep”). He hardly mentioned the conference content, even though he works full time in HR technology. I was furious and called him on it.

His reply was telling and withering (I paraphrase): Look, HR technology conferences come and go. But my network of friends and acquaintances is what I depend on to get my work done, and they’re a lot more important than any conference.

Yup, still applies to this year’s conference.  It was great to see so many of my tweeps from last year and meet many, many more people I have met on Twitter since the last year’s conference. Once again I met CEOs, HR Bloggers, Industry Titans, Consultants, HR Professionals and Techies. I can’t think of any other conference where you have such easy access to such a diverse group of people.

Unlike last year where I was just an attendee, this year I attended as a speaker and a blogger.  Loved the respite (and free food) in the Press Room by the way. As a speaker I was fortunate enough to participate on the blogger panel and assist Laurie Ruettimann with Twitterversity.  More on these topics in later post.  Last year after the conference I posted some thoughts on my blog for next year’s conference:

Chicago: Been there, done that. How about someplace else?

With the now pervasive use of Twitter and live Blogging, I believe the conference should offer affordable or no cost Wi-Fi.  I’ve been to volunteer run tech conferences that cost a couple of hundred dollars for the week that offer free Wi-Fi for conference attendees.

Make sure the conference facilities are not a big black hole for cell phone coverage.  McCormick Place (almost) completely blocked out cell data coverage from AT&T.

Embrace the use of Twitter at the conference.  How great would it be during keynotes and sessions if one of the big screens was showing the live tweets as they came in.

Wrangle up some actual customers who are willing to demo some of the really cool technologies they are using.

So how did I do? Conference was still in Chicago, we had free Wi-Fi (YES!), cell phone coverage seemed better, Twitter was very much embraced and the Workday booth had customers working hand in hand with Workday employees (very smart of Workday). Congratulations to the conference for making some of these changes.  Next year the conference will be in Vegas baby.

Okay, onwards and upwards.  Some observations of the 2010 conference:

• Naomi Bloom was sorely missed at the conference but we all understood and supported her reasons for not attending.
• The opening party was a great opener to the conference.
• The Oracle booth was mighty busy with people wanting a test drive of Fusion.
• Lexy Martin blew us away again with her data from the 13th Annual CedarCrestone HR Systems Survey.
• Gretchen Alarcon held her own with Bill Kutik with the discussion and demo of Fusion despite a couple of software glitches.
• Jason Averbook did a good job “parachuting” in to replace Naomi in the Great Technology Debate with Jim Holincheck.  However, I think it’s time for Jason to retire his catch phrase of “LinkedIn and Facebook know more about your employees than you do”.
• The Blogger Insights panel was off the charts. Okay maybe I am a bit biased on this one.
• The Hyatt Regency Chicago is too far away from McCormick Place.
• Laurie Ruettimann did a great job with Twitterversity but Twitter’s refusal to sign up many of the new users during the session was a bummer. With a 100+ people trying to sign up for Twitter with probably the same IP from the free Wi-Fi, I’m guessing Twitter thought they were being spammed.
• The vendors sure do know how to throw good parties.
• The Data Integration session by Jac Fitz-enz was very interesting to me but content was very heavy and I noticed more than a few glazed over looks.
• The Awesome New Technologies general session was awesome but some of the presenters were great and some not so much. Aquire nailed their demo of InSight, SocializedHR demo of the Social Identity Report was a bit controversial and Versult didn’t seem to win over the crowd with their demo of versobile.
• The stuff that happens behind the scenes (private vendor meetings, briefings, one-on-one conversations) is just as important as the conference and might not have happened without the conference.
• The Sonar6 booth was the bell of the expo hall.

I will tackle some of these bullet points in more detail in an upcoming blog post.

Don’t forget to listen to the HR Happy Hour show from the conference where I single-handedly saved the show from a technology meltdown by starting up the BlogTalkRadio control panel from my iPhone. Okay I might be exaggerating just a wee bit but listen in and you be the judge. To our utter amazement it was the AT&T network on my iPhone that worked when hotel internet and Sprint 3G/4G cards failed.

Once again Bill Kutik and Dave Shadovitz put on a fantastic conference.

p.s. Special shout-out to some of the tweeps I got to meet this year: Meg, Amy, William, Dwane, Leighanne, Andrew, Afton, Lexy, Josh, Chris and many others.

Are you coming to the 13th annual HR Technology Conference & Exposition?  Maybe you are still on the fence?  If you have not decided, time is running out as the conference is only 2 weeks away (September 29 – October 1).  I have attended the show for the last couple of years and this year I get the pleasure of participating as a panelist on the Blogger Panel along with Bryon Abramowitz (The HR Technologist), Trish McFarlane (HR Ringleader)and Laurie Ruettimann (The Cynical Girl).  The panel will be moderated by Kris Dunn (The HR Capitalist).  We will be talking about blogging, social media and of course technology on Thursday, September 30 11 a.m. – 12:15 p.m.

If that is not enough to convince you to attend then check out this post by Sarah White on other great reasons to attend the conference.

Why YOU should be at HR Technology Conference this Year!

Don’t forget that you can save $500 off the registration fee by registering here and entering INFOBOX10 as the discount code.

If you see me at the conference don’t forget to say hi.

I read the tweets coming from the Workday Technology Summit on August 23 and was surprised. A couple of the analysts seemed to suggest that Workday should stop talking about its SaaS Multi-Tenant technology approach and focus instead on the business value of the Workday application when they are talking to customers.  While that might be good advice for Workday, I hope the analysts are not advising customers who are looking to purchase SaaS solutions to focus only on the functionality of the application and not worry about the technology.  Potential customers should absolutely dig into all the nooks and crannies of a vendor’s technology.

Vendors are not to be trusted especially when it comes to HR data.  If you are a customer thinking of using a SaaS vendor for HCM/TM applications (especially core HR) you had better make sure that the Vendor is using technology that is proven and fully supportable.  Sometime after go-live when the SaaS application experiences an outage or data breach is not the time to discover the vendor’s servers are running Windows Server 2000 or the database is Oracle 8i or the “servers” are a rack of Psystar towers.  You might get compensated for the downtime but at that point you probably have lost confidence in the vendor.

Customers need to fully understand the technology used to power the SaaS application. Purchasing HR applications/software should always be a joint venture between HR and IT.  HR can focus on functionality and usability and IT can focus on technology and security.