Elearning! Magazine

DEC-JAN 2013

Elearning! Magazine: Building Smarter Companies via Learning & Workplace Technologies.

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LastWord Coping with H.R. Technology YOUR INSTITUTION NEEDS GOOD REASONS TO INVEST IN SOLUTIONS, INCLUDING H.R., E-LEARNING AND T.M. BY DAVID WENTWORTH H .R. technology vendors are making great strides in the areas of mobile delivery and social media. A year ago, many vendors seemed to be almost fumbling around in a dark basement. It now appears as though someone has found the light switch and the path forward has become a bit clearer, although it may still seem to be a pretty long stair climb out of the basement for many organizations. Too ofen, institutions make technology purchases thinking they have the silver bullet, only to be sadly disappointed months down the road. In Brandon Hall Group's LMS Trends 2012 Survey, we found that less than half of respondents gave their LMS high marks for its overall value. So what's happening? I liken the some of the situation to a teenager who wants to be a rock star. Afer spending months in his room with the beat-up second-hand guitar, he fnally spends all the money he has saved on the topof-the-line guitar and amplifer — the one with all the bells and whistles. [But] no matter how much money he spends on the latest equipment, none of it will help him actually play well, only louder. Your organization's learning process works the same way: if the process itself is junk, the most sophisticated system in the world will only serve to expose your junky process faster, to more people and on an iPad. Before making any kind of H.R. technology purchase, it's important to know that the process the technology is supposed to execute needs to be a smart, business-related process. Want to by a video interviewing solution? Go ahead, but make sure you have a business need for using it, and make sure your interview process is solid. Otherwise, the tool may actually do more harm than good. Tere is also another wave of momentum for integrated talent management solutions. We heard a bit about this several years ago, but there is renewed interest both from clients and vendors. Te thing is, the same rules apply. If your talent management processes are not already connected (regardless of technology) and there is no business reason to integrate, an integrated solution may be almost useless. Let's go back to our hapless guitar-playing teen. He's in his 20s now and is really quite good. He's joined up with several other accomplished musicians, and they want to record a song, so they book time in the expensive, state-of-the-art studio in the city. But when the group listens to the recording, it's a terrible cacophony of noise. None of the musicians had ever played together, and they are pretty sure the drummer was playing a completely diferent song. Tis lack of a plan and direction showed up loud and clear on a recording; the lack of a cohesive vision will produce the same poor results for your learning solutions. Your institution needs to have a reason to combine performance management with learning. If there isn't already some sort of process designed to have recruitment feed into workforce planning, an integrated solution won't help. —Te author is a principal analyst with the Brandon Hall Group. Visit his blog: http://brandon-hall.com/ blogs/learning. Government Elearning! December 2012 / January 2013 59

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