Enterprise 2.0 and Human Capital Management

We were checking out SlideShare presentations last week, and came across a nice one by Knowledge Infusion. Knowledge Infusion consults with companies on human capital management. Clients include MetLife, Dow Jones, Symantec, AAA and Lawrence Berkeley Labs.

Their presentation is titled "Social Collaboration and Talent". There are some interesting points made in the presentation, and we wanted to discuss them. First, here's the presentation:

Social Collaboration And Talent - Knowledge Infusion (Feb 2009)

View more presentations from Jason Corsello. (tags: jason_corsello knowledge_infusion)

Now, let's talk about some of Knowledge Infusion's slides.

Slide 13: The Concepts of "Management" Are Changing

The emerging relationship of employees to management de-emphasizes transaction feedback as the primary interaction. In terms of talent management, leading HR-oriented firms are focusing more on back-n-forth interactions, conversations and what employees contribute. In this world non-tangible employee shills and competencies increase in value. Employees also put more work into peer collaboration, not just completing tasks as assigned by their managers.

Connectbeam take: Directionally, this is a change in the world of work. It's still early for this to be a trend yet. But as companies slowly look at the new ways to handle talent management, these observations ring true. Social software, that facilitates and captures these non-tangible aspects of collaboration, is a great tool for helping in this regard.

Slide 14: How Work Really Gets Done

This slide notes that "new forms of leadership are required", with the ability to work within a network of people becoming much more important than discharging one's duties as required by one's position in the company hierarchy.

Connectbeam take: Hierarchies aren't going away, and they have a rightful place in terms of focusing the troops and ensuring common understanding of strategies. But they have also historically been the only way for work to get done. The cultural change of putting employees more in control over how strategies are achieved and leveraging one another's skills and knowledge is what has changed. It's a basis for companies to benefit from the whole knowledge of employees, not just what they know for a specific task.

Slide 23: Making the Invisible Visible

Drawing on the work of University of Virginia Professor Rob Cross, about whom we blogged recently, Knowledge Infusion points out the value of employee network analysis. In the example presented, the person at the top of the hierarchical chain actually has very limited connections to employees within the business unit. However, one employee appears to be a central enabler, despite being much lower in the organizational hierarchy. This employee connects many of the other employees. Loss of this central connector would present a significant disruption in collaboration.

Connectbeam take: This finding is one that probably resonates strongly with employees. They know of that person is so instrumental to connecting people for work. The same principle likely applies to information as well. Certain employees provide some of the most accessed information, and clearly are instrumental to the flow of knowledge inside the organization. Because colleagues' engagement with this information is invisible, it may be hard to know which employees are delivering the most useful content.

Slide 25: The Evolution of Talent Management

Here is what talent management entails, per Knowledge Infusion:

• Process support
• Recruiting
• Performance management
• Compensation management
• Succession planning
• Learning

The evolution of that work is the wrapping of social software tools - wikis, blogs, conversation tools - around that process. Building on the combination of traditional talent management work and these new tools, human resources professionals gain the following benefits:

1. Employee engagement
2. Informal learning
3. Customer engagement
4. Rapid time-to-productivity
5. Speed time-to-market
6. Social network analysis

Connectbeam take: The list of benefits are spot-on. It's interesting that Knowledge Infusion came up with these in relation to human resources. We've long believed that these benefits apply to most departments within organizations. Being part of an overall talent management strategy makes sense to us.

Slide 39: Identifying the Risks with Enterprise Social Software

Knowledge Infusion surveyed companies to find out what concerned them most with use of enterprise social software. Here are the results:

• Sensitive data and information become exposed or getting outside the company (56.7%)
• Nascent market of technology vendors that are still unproven and immature (37.7%)
• Employees wasting time/not doing their job (35.9%)
• The technology becoming obsolete or outdated quickly (27.7%)

Connectbeam take: Governance and productivity in the realm of enterprise social software is something we've discussed herebefore. The risks of employees inadvertently sharing sensitive information are a real issue. Consider it terms of risks. First, the information is made accessible internally, not out on the public web. What is the likelihood that someone will reveal sensitive info that way? Probably not too different from current email risks. To prevent data sharing for the possibilitythat something sensitive will be revealed means all the benefits of open data accessibility and collaboration are foregone. How bad is the risk of internal exposure of sensitive data?

As for the nascent market for technology vendors, one approach is to use installed versions vs. hosted. Installed lets each company maintain control over its data. If companies use cloud vendors, always available downloads of company information can mitigate concerns.

Enterprise 2.0 Is an Important Part of Human Capital Management

Forrester analyst Craig Symons noted the following with regard to human capital management:

Today, more than 85% of a typical S&P 500 company's market value is the result of intangible assets. For many companies, the bulk of these intangible assets is its people, its human capital. It is no longer what you own that counts but what you know.

Talented people are found throughout the different locations and business units of organizations. Giving them a chance to be found and to more broadly advance company operations is good for the enterprise, and good for the employees. Social software is a key enabler for this.

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