Contents of Elearning! Magazine - MAY-JUN 2012

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

Page 15 of 54

Data Storage the Biggest
Obstacle to Adopting Big Data Many organizations want to utilize the workplace analytics to tar- get talent management and development, but practical obstacles remain. Aberdeen researchers have discovered that data storage is the biggest hurdle for many companies. Fifty-eight percent per- cent of companies surveyed said that storage capacity was the most important issue facing their IT departments. Utilizing Big Data requires increases storage capacity, and this
requires investment from IT departments that are often suffering from budget cuts. Demand for storage across the board went up 35 percent between 2010 and 2011, with a small minority of com- panies saying their storage needs grew as much as 150 percent in the same period. Large scale storage arrays are complicated and expensive, compared to simple servers. Systems that are designed to store one terabyte of data or more are expensive and must be carefully budgeted for. If they are not set up properly at the time of initial deployment they can be extremely difficult to fix.
—Source: www.aberdeen.com
Organizations Use Skills Assessments While Hiring
Assessments are generally thought of as a method to evaluate the effec- tiveness of training or skills develop- ment in an existing talent pool. But in a report by the tal- ent measurement firm SHL, the most common use of assessments is hiring. More than 70
percent of global companies sur- veyed use assess- ments while recruiting new employees. These tests are adminis- tered during the hiring process, and are often con- ducted remotely. The applicant
More than 70 percent of
global companies surveyed used assessments while hiring.
How Much Data is That?
Terabyte (TB): a unit of data storage equal to one thousand gigabytes.
Petabyte (PB): one thousand terabytes or approximately one million gigabytes.
Exabyte (EB): one thousand
petabytes or one billion gigabytes. Source: www.whatsabyte.com
Elearning! May / June 2012 13
accesses the tests from their home or at their local library. These tests are regarded as a way to screen a large num- ber of applicants. More than 90 percent of the companies who use them focus or intend to focus the tests on measur- ing the potential employee's skills and knowledge. Many companies also use other forms of assessments, measuring personality traits and general cognitive abilities. Assessments are also regarded as an important tool dur-
ing organizational restructuring. More than 60 percent of the company surveyed also use assessments to evaluate internal candidates for promotion or role-change.
—Source: www.shl.com