Competencies -- I must be missing something

For several years, the one talent management application most frequently correlated with the best financial performance, has been competency management. It has always made a lot of sense to me: if an organization knows the competencies it needs for the future, it can assess what it currently has and if deficient can either train or hire. And, I'll make the assumption that if they know the competencies it has, then it knows which ones deliver the best performance. See: www.cedarcrestone.com/research for the latest research reports.

Today, I came across this competency list from Harvard University. It sure seems to me that these are awfully generic. Doesn't every organization have people with these competencies? Don't organizations really need to have information on the competencies that make them unique?

Quilt in progress from Asilomar 2009

Just back from Asilomar where I took a class with Carol Taylor. Here's the "work in progress."


Now I must move from quilting back to dealing with TOO many emails and too much analysis.

Benchmarking from the survey data

My life is about to be balanced with a one week visit to quilt camp! Yeah..... quilting with girlfriends and learning from some great teachers: I'm taking a class from Carol Taylor:

What that is balancing is weeks and weeks of deep benchmarking analysis for some really large companies that are looking to change their HR systems and implement more talent management applications. But, it has been interesting. We've discovered that the "top performers" adopt a lot more technology. Yeah...yeah...so they have the money for it. BUT....this is such a consistent finding. Year and year, those with MORE technologies that help manage people do better. And statistical geeks that we are, the directional causality is: have technology>>do better, rather than doing better>>buy technology.

Quilt....survey. I'm going quilting.

HR survey data released this week

Two reports:
Our first CedarCrestone HR Survey "Pulse" report that collected data in December about expected changes in HR technology expenditures. Not as bad as expected: 70% of respondents said "no change." Of the remainder, 11% indicated expected increases; 19% expected decreases. The net change was -6% although it varies by type of technology and by industry. See www.cedarcrestone.com/research. The category of Strategic HCM applications (talent management focus) was the least impacted.

We also published our first CedarCrestone HR Survey focused on Asia and Australia. This effort was sponsored by Oracle, BUT responses came from organizations with varying solutions. This first CedarCrestone Asia Pacific HR Systems Survey of 277 organizations representing over 2 million employees discovered:
• The number one business initiative for APAC survey respondents is a focus on metrics and analytics whether in the form of developing a metrics strategy, integrating data sources, or implementing business intelligence applications to enable metrics-based management. Aligning employee performance with organizational goals (including implementing a performance management application) and business process improvements are also top initiatives.
• Self service and moving to an HR service center approach enables organizations to serve more employees with their HR staff.
• Talent management and business intelligence applications matter—those organizations that have these applications report higher financial performance than those without these applications.
• An integrated talent management approach enables organizations to achieve a lower total cost of ownership. Organizations with such an approach also reported higher sales and more than double the operating income growth than those with alternative approaches (44% vs. 17%). In this economic environment, an integrated talent management portfolio is a best practice.
• Web 2.0 is at the innovator stage among APAC respondents, but early adopters worldwide are achieving early positive advantage of double the sales growth of those without these technologies.
• Oracle’s Human Capital Management (HCM) software suites (PeopleSoft Enterprise and Oracle E-Business Suite) are the top choices of APAC organizations for administrative, service delivery, talent management, and business intelligence applications. These software solutions enable organizations to successfully automate their HR processes, provide employee and manager self service, manage and retain talent, and gather HR-related business intelligence in support of metrics-based management.

Sacred Places

It's been too long since I've written here but I want to share some thoughts with a dear friend and this is a good place to do it. I've been wanting to post some pictures and talk about my "spiritual journey" in China this past November.
I am a practicing Buddhist who belongs to a local sangha in Auburn. I am also a lapsed Methodist. I get more sustenance from meditation and weekly discussions at the sangha.
My trip to China was mostly for work, but my husband and I had 8 days to "see" China. Whenever we could, we visited Buddhist sites and other sacred places. Remind me to share those pictures, but here are a few that were special.

The Laughing Buddha is a delightful carving near the entrance of the Lingyin park and temple in Hangzhou. There are hundreds of carved buddhas....this is my favorite.

It is said about this buddha:
"His belly is big enough to contain all intolerable things in the world;
His mouth is ever ready to laugh at all snobbish persons under heaven."
May his belly hold any pain that dear friend Bonnie has today.

But the destination here is the Lingyin Temple where you see a 55 foot Buddha statue made out of camphor wood.



This is the Sakyamuni Buddha statue. My heart was so filled with peace and love and true joy seeing this statue. I know it is just an icon, but I think the day, the journey, the fact that I'd been on a 7 day vacation with my husband and had trekked in the cold cold with thousands of people to get to this place, at that time led me to this sense of peace and joy more profound than I've felt anywhere other than in simple meditation.

Asia Pacific High Level Survey Findings on state of HR technologies adoption

This first CedarCrestone Asia Pacific HR Systems Survey of 277 organizations representing over 2 million employees discovered the following. This survey report will be published in the next week:
● The number one business initiative worldwide, including for APAC countries, is a focus on metrics and analytics whether in the form of developing a metrics strategy, integrating data sources, or implementing business intelligence applications to enable metrics-based management. Aligning employee performance with organizational goals (including implementing a performance management application) and business process improvements are also top initiatives.
● Self service and moving to an HR service center approach enables organizations to serve more employees with their HR staff.
● Talent management and business intelligence applications matter – those organizations that have these applications report higher financial performance than those without these applications.
● An integrated talent management approach enables organizations to achieve a lower total cost of ownership. Organizations with such an approach also reported higher sales and more than double the operating income growth than those with alternative approaches (44% vs. 17%). In this economic environment, an integrated talent management portfolio is a best practice.
● Web 2.0 is at the innovator stage among APAC respondents, but early adopters worldwide are achieving early positive advantage of double the sales growth of those without these technologies.

How old would you be if you lived on Mars?

For me, I'd be 34. I rather like that. Check this out this birth calculator for each of the planets. And, I'm really young on Saturn!