Companies that have lined up their people-related strategies with their
business goals are more apt to use outside vendors, according to a study of
nearly 100 high-ranking workforce management executives by Jac Fitz-enz.
Fitz-enz’s study found that the companies that said their workforce
management philosophies were well aligned with their business strategies
generally used the following more than other companies:
- Analytics.
- Scientific assessments to measure the quality of a job candidate.
- E-learning, learning management systems and content management
systems--though they didn’t always integrate these systems well.
- Business process outsourcing.
Fitz-enz says that outsourcing, now often used for administration and
record-keeping, will soon be used more for more complex tasks such as analytics
and pre-employment assessment.
Thirty percent of respondents indicated a willingness to invest in technology
for human resources; they see these investments as giving them a competitive
advantage. Others aren’t sure. Sixty-four percent, in fact, said that whether
they make such investments will depend on whether they can prove what the cost
savings or return on investment is.
Fitz-enz believes that the reluctance is due to the "caution, disappointment
and failure to deliver as promised in the past." Melodye Serino, who designed
and conducted the study with Fitz-enz, says that "this is a confirmation of what
we suspected people were feeling about technology." The software and systems
that people bought in the past, Serino says, sometimes "overpromised and
underdelivered."
Unicru, BrassRing, SAS Institute and Workforce Management co-sponsored
the survey.
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