Author: M Faulkner

Shout out to the staff: Dispatch from #WorkHuman

A reminder that I am attending the WorkHuman conference put on by Globoforce this week in Austin.

The first day of any conference is typically about getting your bearings. You wander through the conference space, figuring out where all the rooms are, how to find the expo hall, and – most importantly – where the afternoon snacks and coffee will be, and WILL THERE BE DIET COKE????

There are typically some pre-conference sessions, too. And while some may be tempted to skip them, the ones held yesterday were PACKED. Cy Wakeman kicked it off with her guidance on eliminating drama from the workplace; Steve Pemberton (Globoforce CHRO) followed with his remarkable personal story of resilience and triumph; and David Rock brought home Pre-Day (can we call it Day One? I don’t know!) with information on feedback and why we’re struggling so much with it. (Full disclosure: while I love David Rock’s work and like him as a speaker, I went back to my room to take a nap. I got up WAAAAAAY too early for a flight. Sorry, David! Heard it was great!)

Prior to all of this, though, was registration. You know, pick up your badge, get your conference schedule, conquer the world. Normally this is a pretty sedate process – people come in little packs, but seldom descend as one. Except for yesterday. When we descended like a pack of locusts upon an unsuspecting group of WorkHuman helpers. It seemed every attendee decided to pick up their badge RIGHT BEFORE Cy’s talk. As you can imagine, it overwhelmed the staff. People got a little fussy. People were worried about missing the speakers. People don’t like not getting stuff IMMEDIATELY. (People are weird.)

I bring this up not to admonish the staff but to congratulate them for their perseverance. Two workers (one from Ireland, one from Denmark) went up and down the line, talking with folks and offering to get water or hold their place if they needed to step out for a moment. They made the choice to allow people into the sessions without their badge so no one would miss content. They extended the check-in hours to alleviate pressure. They stayed positive. They stayed focused. They stayed friendly.

At a conference focusing on the human side of work, this was refreshing. Attendees weren’t super jerky. The staff stayed strong. There was a collective realization that the world won’t end if you don’t get your badge. The time spent in line was time spent connecting. People were able to reframe and no one got yelled at.

How about that? We can be nice – even when inconvenienced.

So shout out to the people who are helping make this conference happen. It’s hard to coordinate this many moving parts. And shout out to the attendees who remembered why they’re here – to connect and to slow down a bit and to remember we are all just people trying to make it work in this crazy world.

I’m looking forward to today’s sessions. And I look forward to high-fiving some hard-working staff who keep a smile on their face and do what they can to make this conference memorable. Let’s all try to make sure THEY have a good conference, too!

Heading to Austin: #WorkHuman again!

This week, I’ll be sharing dispatches from WorkHuman, put on by Globoforce. I’ve been to all of them, and have been grateful to “officially” cover all but the first one (even though I still wrote about it a lot because it was cool).

If you’re curious about the conference, or can’t be there and want to know what’s going on, there will be a bunch of people tweeting with the #WorkHuman tag. And there will be a bunch of bummed people who couldn’t make it tweeting with #NotatWorkHuman. Or something like that. I don’t think they know, yet. They’ll figure it out – it’s Monday, cut them some slack!

Anyway, I’ll try to summarize my observations each day so you can get a sense of the conference for future attendance consideration. I’m very much looking forward to the speaker line up, as well as seeing some of my dear friends from around the world. And they say you can’t connect online. 🙂

Stay tuned! Should be a fun, informative, challenging, exciting week!

When tech and HR combine: What I saw at #UltiConnect

I had the opportunity to speak at and attend the Ultimate Connections conference put on last week by Ultimate Software. This is the Little User Conference That Could – growing to a mighty 3,000+ attendance by those interested in learning more about how an HCM software solution can help them with their business, specifically the HR function.

As a speaker and Influencer at the conference, I got to talk to all sorts of people – product development, customers, potential customers, smart HR people, etc. Others have written some great posts already about what they saw coming out of the conference (like this one, or these). What I focused on more was how technology was impacting those who were just now starting to implement an enterprise solution. And what I learned was eye-opening.

Many of the customers I talked to were relatively new to having an HCM to help them with what they do on a regular basis. They were managing everything through disparate systems, or through no systems at all. There was a lot of talk about Word docs, Excel spreadsheets, and paper…so much paper. Now, you might think that what made everyone excited was the UltiPro Perception module that uses natural language processing to help you know what your employees are really thinking. Or Xander, the AI platform Ultimate Software has been developing to help managers make more informed people decisions. Or the ad-hoc reporting capabilities that allow HR departments to create their own reports and finally do analytics to run their business more effectively. And don’t get me wrong – these things are indeed exciting and cool, and people DID talk about them. But what I heard mentioned over and over again wasn’t really any of these things.

It was Payroll and Time and Attendance. 

Having a system that relieves the administrative burden for something so simple and so basic was a game-changer for these organizations. It meant employees could get paid accurately and on time. It meant timecards were correct and (fingers crossed) completed when they should be. It meant employees could finally go to one place – their dashboard – and know how many PTO days they have left for the year.

This is a big damn deal, people.

It made me realize that no matter how many bells and whistles technology may have, if people can’t and don’t use it, it doesn’t matter. And if the technology can’t do the basic things like payroll and timecards, HR doesn’t want it. So yes, advanced functionality is all well and good, but if it’s not grounded by a solid, simple solution to HR’s problems, it’s useless to them

In HR, we often talk so much about moving away from administration and to a more strategic role…and we need to. But the daily work in the organization needs to get done, too – things like paychecks and vacation and leave management and all the little things that employees take for granted because good HR people word darn hard to make sure they happen, no matter how manual the process may be. But the more manual the process, the less time available to be strategic. Now, these nice people I met will have TIME to cool work, and the TOOLS to start measuring the impact of that work. And they were so excited to start.

So next time you hear someone grumbling that HR is being to administrative, dig a little deeper – do they have what they need to get the blocking and tackling done efficiently? If not, then cut them some slack. And help them find a better way.

Author’s note: This user conference had some pretty amazing keynotes, and I’m sure I’ll revisit many of the themes I saw – from the humble CEO to the moving John O’Leary. And I can’t stress enough how grateful I am to have been asked to be a part of the Women in Leadership Panel. Originally conceived by Janine Truitt to be a discussion around women in the workplace, diversity and inclusion, and how HR can move businesses forward, it became an honest, open, and sometimes raw conversation with the women who came to be a part of the session. Thank you so much to all of those who shared, and thank you to Janine, Jason, Maren, Kate, and Micole who let me be a part of it. A recording of the live stream of the session can be viewed here.