That’s what David Kiron of the MIT Management Review recently asked Jeff Schick, the vice president of social software at IBM, in the course of a lengthy interview. The long conversation about IBM’s efforts to build a more social business and put all its social technology to use internally, dug into not only what specific tech tools IBM employs, but also questions of the culture of sharing that successful implementation of these tools demands.

“It’s not all about the technology. I think culture plays a huge dimension in how successful organizations are in transforming themselves into a social business,” said Schick. “This stuff is so easy to use that it’s not about what button to click to post a blog, but how do you create a vibrant community?” The interview goes on to touch on how IBM uses social “ambassadors” and gamification to encourage participation in its social communities, as well as offering heavy users the chance to win donations to charities of their choice by creating content.

But it also touches on the interesting and under-discussed question of whether HR should get involved in mandating or refereeing participation in an organization’s social tools, comparing different approaches used in different countries. Schick says:

As I travel around the planet, the role of human resources and what you can ask an employee to do or not do is subtly different. For instance, I spent time recently in Germany, and more than a healthy amount of discussion with clients was about, “Gee, there’s a workmen’s council in your organization, made up of different workers from different areas of the company. And as you make policy on employees and what they can do or cannot do, or tools that they can use and cannot use, the workmen’s council plays an instrumental role in whether or not they’ll permit that.” A group like that works hand in hand with human resources on changes that would take place in the organization.

An example is that we’re rolling out social software at Bosch in Germany; and working with HR and workmen’s council. So we ask, what should be our policy in asking an employee to fill out their profile? Can the company mandate it? Or is that not permissible? Have you established a set of business conduct guidelines that talk about the ethical aspects of being an employee, the way you need to behave, the way you would conduct yourself in terms of business, including blogging and responding to questions in Facebook?

So human resources does take an active role in describing and creating policy around leveraging social, both inside an organization as well as outside the organization. And this has become such a popular discussion with us that we actually publish our Social Computing Guidelines right on IBM.com, so people can understand the policy that we hold our employees accountable to.

Laying out what’s acceptable and what’s off limites when it comes to social technologies seems like a fairly inevitable responsibility of risk averse, legalistic HR.

But is social something HR can mandate or, like forced “fun” activities, is the whole cultural point of these tools lost when you require people to participate?

Image courtesy of Flickr user Brandon Giesbrecht. 

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While those in traditional fields may pursue study and qualifications in order to advance their careers and earning potential, and see PD as both a reward and a motivator, for those in working in technology and innovation, the pathways for — and value of — professional development aren’t so clear-cut.

And for team leaders seeking to attract and motivate truly innovative staff, the role of PD in employee motivation and satisfaction can be very fuzzy.

In a recent interview, I asked a mobile developer how he keeps his skills at the top of his field. He laughed and said, “Coming to work is a good start!” In this industry, at least, the progress is being made — and knowledge is most quickly gained — in startups and innovative businesses, not in universities.

That explains why younger players entering the industry today face such fierce competition. There are plenty of people already working in innovative technology roles on the strength of experience and talent, rather than qualifications. As the technology sector gains maturity, employers now have the luxury of valuing people with proven experience (with or without formal qualifications) over fresh graduates. And few employers will bother speaking to a candidate who hasn’t learned or created anything new since they finished formal study.

The freshly released Startup Genome Project report corroborates the value of non-school learning. The research found “Startups that have helpful mentors, track metrics effectively, and learn from startup thought leaders raise 7x more money and have 3.5x better user growth” than those that don’t. No mention is made of the value of formal qualifications as a basis for startup success.

Your potential team members don’t want to see professional development listed as an employment benefit in their contracts; they choose jobs on the basis of how much the roles themselves will let them learn. The risky thrill of experimenting to create world-first products and take them successfully to market is a core appeal for those who work in innovative technology.

For this reason, proven expertise is usually more respected than qualifications by peers and colleagues. In innovative development, team members expect their peers to be able to walk the talk — for the good of the team, the project itself, and the individual’s own on-the-job PD. That motivates team members to seek productive, challenging, high-profile projects with great teams that they can learn from, rather than formal qualifications. Similarly, successful team leaders know that the bottom line depends entirely on whether team members can deliver, so rewards and respect naturally flow from successful experimentation, not traditional education.

Not surprisingly, the terms on which these types of team members are engaged aren’t those that appeal to those opting to work in more staid, traditional fields. The innovators thrive on possibility, the thrill of pushing boundaries, and the chance to have an impact. Offer to foot the bill for an MBA, and you’ll likely get a lot of blank stares. Employers may expect staff to walk the talk, but team members, too, judge employer credibility in terms of on-the-job projects, tasks, and teams. They want:

• roles that effectively amount to paid experimentation, perhaps through the opportunity to participate in rapid prototyping projects where team members can focus on mastering a new skill or its application in a certain environment
• to attend industry events that combine seminars with networking events — providing access to the “thought leadership” and “mentoring” mentioned in the Startup Genome report
• the ability to contact and engage with other specialists outside the organization, on the organization’s time and, potentially, money.

Rather than being an after-hours, formal, institutionalized proposition, successful PD in innovative teams is holistic and always-on. Instead of tracking the team member’s achievement on the basis of grades, leaders are more likely to assess the ROI on what may be a guesstimated investment in PD by looking at individuals’ influences on company revenues and profits. And team leaders who understand these motivations can consistently attract and manage good innovators.

Image courtesy stock.xchng user madame_min.

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TribeHR attempts to automate and streamline as many human resources tasks as it can. The web-based application will, under different plans, handle anything from a handful of employees to an unlimited number. Whether you are the owner of a small business and handle all of your human resources needs yourself or you have an entire HR department, TribeHR can provide you with the tools you need.

Get the Ordinary Out of the Way

The thing about human resources is that as it involves people, unexpected situations will always pop up that need your full attention. That’s not going to change, but the more you can do to get routine form-filling matters off your desk, the more you can focus on those issues that actually require you to make decisions. TribeHR’s approach is to simplify those standard HR tasks and let software do the heavy lifting.

Through TribeHR, you can handle vacation requests, plan employee development and hire new employees. The application is set up so that each employee in your organization can have a login, making it easy to share information, like new policies. There are permissions controls in place so that while you maintain employees’ records online, not everyone with a login has access to all the information in the system.

Switching to TribeHR

The problem with switching to any new human resources setup is that, no matter how good the new tools are, getting switched over can be expensive and time-consuming. TribeHR has tried to minimize the stress, though, by implementing the capability to import different kinds of data, as well as data export and an API. You can also access setup services by email. There is support available through TribeHR’s support site and Twitter. My only complaint is that I’d like to see at least one support or contact method that doesn’t require Internet access.

TribeHR is not the only online HR app available. Competitors include BambooHR and Effortless HR, but TribeHR has a fairly comprehensive set of features and is priced reasonably, starting at $19 per month, with plans based on the number of employees you’re working with, the number of job openings you have and how much information you need to store. There is an absolutely unlimited plan available at $399 per month. All plans include a fifteen-day free trial.

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Increasingly, the information we use to manage our companies is moving to the cloud, and human resources is no exception. Here are several solutions that provide simple and affordable online employee management and tracking to save you time, money and effort.

TribeHR is one of the more robust platforms of all the options, providing many HR management tools in one app:

• Vacation/leave tracking. Select, approve and track vacation and leave days, including earned and taken days. View vacation requests, as well as who is currently on vacation or leave.
• Employee development. Set, track, and complete goals, privately or shared. Get feedback and peer input, and collect notes and comments for performance reviews. You can also securely store employee evaluations for future reference, and track and rank employee skills company-wide.
• Employee notes and feedback. Privacy-controlled note-taking for employees and managers, as well as public employee recognition and company feedback.
• Shared resources. Post and store files for employee access and viewing. You can even track who acknowledges viewing the files you post.
• Job postings. Post available jobs for your organization and accept applications, make and share notes, and rank applicants.
• Reports. Generate reports for taken/available vacation and sick time, goal progress, skills, and file reading acknowledgement.

TribeHR also provides data portability, so you can export your company information. Plans range from $19 per month for up to 15 users, going up to $399 per month for unlimited users. A free trial is available.

BambooHR

BambooHR is another powerful HR software option with several great features to help  you manage your employee data:

• Employee records. Track employee information, such as contact information, dependents, emergency contacts, salary, and position history.
• Vacation/leave Tracking. As with TribeHR, BambooHR allows the tracking and management of employee leave time and allows employees to request time off for manager approval. It also tracks leave time accruals and balances.
• Training time tracking. Track one-time and recurring training, and even set due dates and alerts so that you can monitor employee training.
• Benefit tracking. Track benefit eligibility and enrollment dates, plans and coverage, as well as employee and company contributions.
• Online document storage. Store and share forms, applications, documents and performance reviews.
• Reports. Generate employee data reports, including job and salary history, leave time used, turnover rate, and create your own custom reports using BambooHR’s filtering and sorting capabilities.

Plans range from $79 per moth for up to 50 employees, going up to $599 per month for 1,000 employees. A free trial is available.

Effortless HR

Effortless HR offers features to help you centralize and manage employee information:

• Employee records/management. Save important employee information, including contact details, job information, benefits, skills, and performance data.
• Employee portal. Employees can update information, request time off, and clock in or out from within the Effortless HR platform.
• Employee email. Send company or department emails and announcements.
• Time tracking. Employees can clock in or clock out through the online interface and can view the hours they’ve worked in a given week. Managers can export time reports to work with your payroll software.
• File area. Share files with your entire company or with specific employees.
• Reports. Import and export employee information.

Plans range from $29.95 per month for up to 19 employees, going up to $99.95 per month for up to 1,000 employees.

iEmployee

iEmployee provides web-based time and attendance management and tracking through four separate products (costs are not disclosed on the website).

• Online paystubs. Provide paystub information online to eliminate printing and distribution costs. It also allows you to maintain an online archive of all paystubs for future reference.
• Timesheets. With its online tracking system, iEmployee provides an easy way to process payroll and improve accuracy.
• Vacation/leave tracking. Managers and employees are able to track vacation and sick time, and employees can request leave online for manager review and approval.
• Time clocks. The online interface, as well as optional time clock hardware and Integrated Voice Response (IVR) telephony features, allow employees to clock in and out.

All the solutions outlined above provide the ability to track and manage employee information remotely, making human resources yet another aspect of your company that can be accessed and stored completely online.

How do you manage and track employees and HR data?

Photo courtesy Flickr user Alex E. Proimos

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