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Recently, WebWorkerDaily phoned up Gene Zaino, a Net:Work 2011 speaker and CEO of MBO Partners which offers a package of back office services to independent workers they dub a “passport to independent work” — they’ll sort out your taxes, benefits, insurance and the like if you hand over a small percentage of billings — for a wide-ranging conversation about his predictions for independent work in the year ahead. (Check out his full predictions in infographic form here.) In his role at MBO, Zaino deals closely with a number of corporate HR and procurement departments, and his view of how quickly companies are coming to terms with the changing landscape of work varied significantly from the opinions of those who paint corporations as slow to adapt. For one, he defended HR against its critics, at least when it comes to taking advantage of independent talent:

HR organizations are very focused on the full-time employee segment of their business because that’s what they do, and they typically don’t deal with non-employees. Non-employees are paid through accounts payable or through procurement, so they tend to not be part of their system.

Now the more forward-thinking companies have decided to partner HR and procurement to figure out how to [handle independent workers], because HR gets upset when you hire an independent contractor who’s sitting next to or working alongside one of the full-time employees and they start talking. There’s a culture issue there, and I think the smarter companies have assembled teams or new positions, which have representation from HR, from procurement and from legal, and they put together a strategy and make [independent work] one other component of how they get work done.

And outside the boundaries of HR, Zaino insists, in the last few years, companies are really starting to grasp the benefits of hiring independent workers, as well as how to maximize their value while minimizing the compliance risks of nimble hiring.

I’ve seen tremendous change. Today most Fortune 500 companies have an actual position – sometimes it resides in HR, sometimes it resides in their procurement department, sometimes it’s a new department. It always has someone from legal involved because it’s generally a compliance issue. But they generally have someone that manages their non-employee labor and in more and more companies there’s much more publicity, much more education, much more awareness.

Most recently in 2011, for the first time, I’ve even seen public companies in their annual reports start talking about how many independent workers they have as compared to employees. Caterpillar is one where they actually boasted because they consider that a strategic advantage to be able to be nimble in terms of their cost structure. So there has absolutely been a dramatic increase in education on the corporate side that has taken about ten years to happen, but it’s prominent today.

As Zaino points out, ruthless economic realities are pushing companies to be equally ruthless about cutting costs and maintaining flexibility, but he also explains that a vigorous compliance drive by tax officials partly explains why companies are getting more savvy about managing their independent workers.

“There’s a huge enforcement effort to reclassify people as employees that companies are paying as contractors,” he says. “Today there are 14 new bills pending that will increase penalties for companies that try to engage independent workers who would otherwise be classified as employees, and the test for being an employee versus an independent contractor is extremely gray. It’s about behavior. It’s about control. It’s really easy for the state tax, the IRS, the Department of Homeland Security or the Department of Labor to come in and say: ‘You look and walk and talk like an employee, so we’re going to call you an employee and we’re going to give a big fine to the place where you’re working because that’s the easier way for us to go collect a lot of money.’”

Motivated by both the carrot of a more agile workforce and the stick of stiff government fines, it seems even the slowest moving organizational behemoths are learning to manage the exploding number of independent workers. (Zaino predicted independent workers will be a majority of workforce by 2020 at Net:Work.)

In your experience, are big companies dragging their heels or quickly coming to terms with the realities of the changing workforce?

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Crisp notes that for many years most HR departments saw virtual work as the domain of a handful of road warriors who could be relied on to work with their managers to sort out their individual tools and needs. But HR failed to keep up with changing conceptions of virtual work as technology and shifting mindsets allowed the idea of location independence to spread through much larger swathes of organizations. He writes:

As time passed technology made most of us capable of working remotely at least part time with few special arrangements. It also enabled more people to tie into virtual meetings via various types of collaboration programs and online tools. The emphasis shifted away from remote workers as special cases that had to be monitored to an assumption entire teams might be assembled from workers who are located somewhere other than where the leader is or teams in one location being led by a leader located somewhere else.

Or as Wayne Turmel put it in his thoughtful meditation for Management Issues on the themes raised in the Canadian HR Reporter post, “it’s impossible not to acknowledge that while IT was busy building tools (and empires) to cut costs and minimize travel, the discussions frequently didn’t include HR beyond how much they could cut costs (and head count).” He concludes: “As often happens, HR is left to come in after the cow has run off and safe-proof the barn.”

So what questions is HR now scrambling to ask and answer about virtual work? Both Crisp and Turmel have suggestions, such as:

• Are employees expected to be connected 24/7? If so, should they be paid extra for it? And, I’d add, what are the longer-term risks of burnout created by such a policy?
• Are productivity and effectiveness being measured properly when it’s no longer possible to simply drop in on an employee’s cubicle and see what they’re up to?
• Do managers need training in how to communicate effectively at a distance? Issues like the tone of email, handling conflict across distance, making the most of virtual meetings and deciding who to include in which communications come up here, as do questions of how managers can maintain an “open door” policy when they have no door.
• How should managers or HR handle the situation when cliques or subgroups form within virtual teams and information isn’t properly shared?
• How should managers solicit feedback?

What other questions do HR departments have to confront as virtual work becomes more widespread?

Image courtesy of Flickr user x-ray delta one.

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Although it’s a very niche solution, SeeMore addresses a very typical big-data problem: finding the needle in the haystack of unstructured data. Resumes and other job-application materials aren’t easily broken down into information that would fit nicely into a relational database, so searching through them to find relevant information requires lots of man-hours or specialized tools. Something like Hadoop might be overkill, but SeeMore seems to fit the bill.

Especially now, with unemployment rates higher than at any time in recent history, employers are seeing lots of applicants for every job they post, on top of the unsolicited resumes they no doubt receive. With so many choices, it’s very likely that the ideal candidate has sent in a resume, but it’s also that much easier to miss that resume.

SeeMore actually takes it a step further by centralizing all of a company’s resumes in the cloud, meaning companies might be able to fill an opening with the ideal candidate, even if that person only applied for a different job and via an entirely different channel. Semantic search is key to the process, because employers can search based on broad skill sets instead of just keywords, and the system applies context to the information included on the resumes in order to pull the right ones.

A quote included in the press release sums up Monster’s new service nicely:

‘With the introduction of SeeMore, we are transforming recruitment and talent management by taking our state-of-the-art 6Sense semantic search and applying it to resumes beyond Monster,’ said Sal Iannuzzi, Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer, Monster Worldwide. ‘Employers can now assess their company’s talent databases in one central location so everyone can be found easily, regardless of their point of origin. This, paired with the benefits of semantic search and analytics, enables companies to be more precise about their talent matching needs, reduce the time and cost of acquiring and managing talent, and improve the quality of hires.’

However, while SeeMore is great for Monster and its customers, it signals what should be a broader trend toward merging big data and cloud computing. The cloud makes it easier than ever for companies to consume niche services, and easier for providers with those niche skills to deliver that service. Data just happens to be a great focal point for a service that everyone now has mountains of and is starting to realize is actually valuable. Helping companies make the most of their data in a particular area, or even giving them access to your data in that field, is becoming a great way to drum up new business.

Image courtesy of Flickr user Brooks Elliott

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Ovia has built a platform for asynchronous video interviews — that is, interviews where both parties don’t necessarily have to be present at the same time. It works like this: A recruiter or hiring manager records a set of questions for candidates and then determines how much time those candidates have to answer each one. They typically then send an email with a link to the interview, where candidates record their responses to questions.

Candidates can then respond to the questions through the Ovia platform at their leisure. Rather than having to set up a phone interview or sneak away from their desks during work hours, candidates typically record their responses in the early morning before work, or in the evening after they’ve finished. And just like in a real interview, there are no do-overs. Once a candidate has recorded his or her answer, there’s no opportunity to erase or re-record it, so first impressions still matter.

On the recruitment side, hiring managers can evaluate all video responses whenever they have the time, rather than having to set aside certain blocks of time to set up phone meetings. And the videos can be shared among different decision makers within an organization, instead of doing multiple interviews of each candidate.

The goal, according to founder Rodrigo Martinez, is to do away with the phone interview and provide a more efficient method of screening applicants. According to him, a good deal of time that enterprises spend evaluating potential hires is wasted on unqualified candidates. The asynchronous interview reduces that bottleneck by enabling companies to screen out those who aren’t suited for the job before making it to later stages of the hiring process.

But in addition to saving everyone the time and hassle of scheduling meetings with multiple candidates, there are other benefits as well: Because video questions are pre-recorded, everyone gets the same questions in the same order and can be judged on them equally. Also, without going through a lengthy interview process with a dozen or more candidates a day, there’s no fear of fatigue on the part of interviewers.

Ovia has seven employees and is in the latest class of 500 Startups’ Accelerator program. But it’s already doing pretty well for itself: Using a pay-per-position model, Ovia has been tapped by companies like Turner, AT&T Interactive, Best Buy and Hard Rock Cafe for their hiring needs.

Photo courtesy of (CC BY 2.0) Flickr user Alan Cleaver.

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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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Here are four telecommuting concerns your human resources department may face:

1. It’s harder to brief someone if he isn’t in the office. The HR department takes point on updating employees about insurance, internal policies and a variety of other matters. This is relatively straightforward if everyone is in the office, but with telecommuters, making arrangements to brief them can become a lot harder. Additionally, telecommuters don’t hear office news in passing or talk about a particular change around the water cooler, so it’s often necessary to make special arrangements to update employees working outside of the office.
2. Benefits provision is more complex with a distributed workforce. Many organizations use their size to negotiate better prices for health insurance, for example, but when a team can be spread across state lines or even international borders, it’s harder to find one insurance provider who can handle everything. The same holds true for other types of benefits, too.
3. Hiring specifically for telecommuting positions requires modification to the application process. Not only are there different skills and aptitudes that your HR department will need to find when you’re hiring for a telecommuting position, but you may also be hiring people who can’t come into the office for an interview. That can require some major changes to your organization’s application and hiring processes.
4. If there’s a problem with an employee, you need to have a plan in place to remove their access. When your organization relies on telecommuters, the process of terminating employment isn’t just a matter of escorting them out of the building. Priority has to be placed on removing their access to your organization’s virtual systems.

Image courtesy Flickr user Mike McCune

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This conclusion is noteworthy for anyone looking to hire web workers in Asia, but it’s also interesting for the gap it describes between U.S. and Asian attitudes. The ZDNet Asia article quotes Gavin Henshaw, head of Kelly IT Resources, who sums up the difference:

while telecommuting may be money-saving alternative in the United States, it is “definitely more for employee morale and retention” in the Asian context.

Are Asian companies increasingly positive about web working? And is it true that they’re developing  a rounded outlook on the subject, seeing it as a way to retain and motivate talent not just cut costs? Survey data and a handful of stories support this view, including a 2008 poll commissioned by Avaya and conducted by IDC in Singapore, Malaysia, Australia, Hong Kong, India and China, which showed that web work is indeed increasingly accepted:

81 percent of respondents in the Asia-Pacific either agreed or strongly agreed that telecommuting improves productivity, compared to only 61 per cent in 2005…. in 2008, 76 percent of those surveyed in China and 78 per cent of those surveyed in Singapore saw telecommuting as a means of improving work-life balance among their employees.

Several recent trend pieces underline the point that opinion on web workers is shifting in Asia. In a discussion of changing HR practices in Singapore in Human Resources Magazine Asia, for example, Ben Chew, Regional Business Manager of TBC HR Consulting, Singapore says that there “it has become increasingly clear that both employees and employers are more interested in the end-results more than the location of where the work is being completed.” AsiaOne Business reports the civil service in Singapore is increasingly embracing web working, while Indian firms are apparently offering more web working to help women balance their responsibilities.

If you have experience at Asian companies, have you noticed a shift in attitudes toward web work?

Image courtesy of Flickr user Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com

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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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