Workstream Inc

One-to-One Talent Management

The impending launch of Workstream Compensation Professional – the first-ever on-demand compensation solution designed specifically for mid-market companies – got me thinking about the various talent management challenges mid-market firms face in growing their businesses.
  

Talent management is crucial to a company’s success, as it impacts an organization’s ability to hire and retain top employees. In an increasingly competitive job market, the best and brightest candidates are snatched-up quickly, putting pressure on every firm – particularly those in the mid-market – to step-up recruiting, compensation, performance management and development efforts.

As has been discussed in this space before, managing processes as complex as talent management is a logistical nightmare with spreadsheets and other paper-based tools. What companies need, of course, is a comprehensive, easy to use and unified suite of applications, which can be “personalized” for one-to-one talent management down to the every manager, every employee level.

Here’s what I mean by one-to-one talent management. Managers know best what their employees need to be successful, and so talent management solutions should provide managers up-to-date company information and flexibility to accommodate each employee’s unique situation. For example, compensation likely varies across a manager’s group. That manager needs easy access to data regarding company guidelines for salary, stock and variable pay, as well as the flexibility to make exceptions to suit the needs of specific employees. This same scenario applies to development goals, performance management and all parts of talent management.

Advanced talent management suites, such as that which is offered by Workstream, provide managers access to tools that help accomplish this balance. Workstream in particular puts critical budget information, powerful in-line analytics capabilities for planning purposes, and the flexibility to offer a variety of compensation options, at the fingertips of every manager.

Going forward, businesses leveraging Workstream will be able to provide employees access to a centralized, personalized dashboard for reviewing performance metrics, total compensation opportunities, job descriptions, and more. The result is visibility and transparency between employees and employers, and agreement on what is expected to happen today and in the future.

To learn more about one-to-one talent management, take a look at the Wall Street Journal’s article entitled, “The new goal for human resources: establishing a workforce of one,” or the HR.com blog article entitled “Managers: a key factor in employee retention.”

Unified talent management systems that drive one-to-one experiences are key to competing in the global marketplace. With Workstream solutions for mid-market companies, accomplishing this goal has never been easier.

~ Stephan Millard, Director, Product Marketing, Workstream Inc.

Mitigating Mid-Market Madness

The last few months at Workstream have been a whirlwind of activity, as the whole company has been gearing up for the launch of the new Workstream Professional series of on-demand Talent Management (TM) solutions designed specifically for mid-sized businesses with between 100 and 2,500 employees.

The best part about this process has been the opportunity it’s provided me and many other Workstream employees from engineering, sales and marketing to get out and speak directly with customers and prospects. Of course, this is something we do anyways as a natural course of business. But the conversations lately have been more valuable than usual, because we’ve had the chance to hear firsthand from mid-market companies about the critical need they have to automate and integrate key HR processes, and the dearth of one stop solutions available to them today.

There is a definite sense of frustration among mid-market companies, a massive group that has for far too long been underserved by the technology community. Like larger companies, these businesses have a dire need to eliminate manual processes; hire, develop and compensate their best employees properly; and remain compliant with federal employment regulations, among other things. But unlike large enterprises, mid-market companies have limited financial resources for technology systems, and far less room for error if a system doesn’t pan out as expected.

In the process of preparing for our launch, we heard from mid-market companies whose employee data was mainly on spreadsheets or in disparate applications, making it near impossible to run accurate reports and access information quickly. I spoke to one company that was using email and paper documents to manage hiring. The HR team was simply overwhelmed by the amount of paperwork and email trails they were tracking. Rather than focusing on finding and hiring the best job candidates, potential employees were slipping through the cracks.

On top of everything, the company felt horribly exposed as regards compliance with federal employment and financial regulations. Managing these issues is disproportionately difficult for mid-market companies. As their businesses grow, a lack of auditable, traceable processes presents a very real and serious danger to the entire organization.

We also heard that a large number of mid size companies have gone with niche vendors for recruiting and performance solutions and are looking for a one stop shop to meet their TM needs; a vendor who offers end-to-end integrated suite. They realize that they don’t have the time, money, and resources to manage multiple solutions hosted by different vendors; not to mention the quality of service issues dealing with different vendors. They are looking for a one stop shop and this is exactly what we provide.

It was also interesting to find out that most vendors have taken the approach to offer lower end functionality products to mid-size businesses. These businesses are not only complex but are also growing organically or through merger/acquisition therefore their needs are always changing. They are finding that their current solutions are so low end of functionality that they are unable to meet their evolving needs without upgrading to an enterprise version of the products with their existing vendors. This generally entails a major technology upgrade requiring substantial investment and risks and a lengthy implementation. Prospects told us that they are looking for a solution that can grow with them without the need for an upgrade. This convinced us to pre-package our current enterprise product and offer it to a mid-size customer providing quick and fixed price implementations, functionally rich products, and above all a solution which can grow with them as mid size customers’ needs change.

Listening to these customer stories convinced us that we are truly unique in our offering of an end-to-end integrated suite of talent management solutions and pre-packaging our existing enterprise solutions to deliver quick value to our mid size customers. This allows mid size companies to start from something which is out of the box and easily configure it to meet their evolving needs.

There were plenty of other interesting stories. From companies that failed to drive management initiatives through the organization because they lacked a system for measuring employees performance against key initiatives, to others that were losing their best people because no system was in place for clearly and concisely articulating employee development plans.

These stories and many more like them crystallized for me the need to deliver a suite of on-demand HR solutions for mid-market businesses. Which is why today, we are announcing Workstream Professional Talent Management suite that includes Recruitment, Performance and Development. These systems are unlike any in the market today. They are smart, easy to use, painless to deploy, seamless to integrate, intuitive for compliance, and spreadsheet-free. Mid-market companies can finally realize the same HR process automation benefits that larger companies have been experiencing for years. And the best part: we are offering these with a 30-day free trial, so you can test drive the solutions before making any commitments.

What salesforce.com has done for on-demand CRM, Workstream is doing for on-demand HR. And few would argue that the need to automate and integrate HR processes is critical to every organization, which is why the market for HR applications is among the fastest-growing of any software category. So, if you haven’t already, please take a minute to check out our new web site – www.workstreaminc.com/midmarket – and kick the tires on the new solutions. We think you’ll find that Workstream is uniquely capable of meeting your HR process automation needs.

~ Deepak Gupta, Workstream CEO