Protecting HR Investments in Services and Technology

By Elliot H. Clark
For many years, HRO Today has provided numerous customer satisfaction based rankings of providers through the HRO Today Magazine Baker’s Dozen Customer Satisfaction surveys. We appreciate the notoriety and respect the practitioner community has placed in the methodology of the ranking. However, we only perform this kind of study in up to 10 areas of technology or service. This leaves many categories that are not covered or fall neatly into the Baker’s Dozen programme.
Juxtaposed to these needs is another disturbing trend. As workforce issues heat up with the global economy, there is a greater demand for HR services and new technology solutions. This causes new providers to flood the space—which can be both good and bad for the market. New providers can bring new approaches and innovations. But when a new provider fails to perform, word can spread through the HR community and raise concerns in the entire industry. I have long referred to unqualified providers that claim to have capabilities beyond the scope of their experience as “Faux POs.” There needs to be a way to protect unwitting clients from the lure of a Faux PO provider. A more comprehensive system is necessary to help identify the best providers.
HR That Fits the Bill

Aflac’s CHRO Matthew Owenby explains why a customized approach to HR drives an 87 percent employee engagement rate.
By Debbie Bolla
“Most companies don’t want to customize HR, but if you want employees to feel cared for, it’s a must.” This is the philosophy behind CHRO Matthew Owenby’s unique approach to HR for Aflac. Whether it’s providing easy access to on-site healthcare services to overcome rising benefits costs or giving employees the platform to share feedback that often gets incorporated into the business strategy, the insurance provider understands the impact of employee-driven initiatives. Simply put: People are core to their success.
Driving Corporate Strategy

Find out the key takeaways from this year’s top sessions.
By Marta Chmielowicz
This year’s HRO Today Forum was jam-packed full of best practices, engaging conversations, and valuable insights that will continue to deliver in the coming year. Here are some highlights from a few of the standout sessions:
Closing the Talent Gap

Organizations are using data and analytics to get ahead of succession and hiring planning.
By Audrey Roth
Long gone are the days when succession and hiring planning were considered cutting-edge HR. Today, both initiatives are essential components to the overall talent management strategy. When executed efficiently, talent gaps will be minimized, and all employees from the entry-level to the C-suite will understand their path to success within the company. Succession planning frequently focuses on senior-level roles, which is certainly a necessity, but lack of a broader organizational strategy can lead to lower levels of engagement and higher levels of attrition.
Rewarding Success

By Debbie Bolla
A large part of HRO Today’s mission is to cover, share, and celebrate the incredible work that HR leaders and teams accomplish. One way we do this is through our CHRO of the Year and Talent Acquisition Leader of the Year annual awards programs. In Industry Innovators, we take a deep dive into some of the impressive initiatives of our 2017 HR Leaders of Distinction for EMEA. We recently wrapped our HRO Today Forum in Dublin where we announced the 2017 CHRO of the Year EMEA award winners. Each of these leaders is transforming not only the world of HR, but are also making a great impact on their employees, their communities, and their organizations.
Winner: Sustainable Workforce
Reputation Matters

Corporate scandal continues to cost companies
By The Editors
The impact of corporate reputation on employer brand is more significant than ever before and directly affects the cost of hiring, finds the 2017 Cost of a Bad Reputation study from HRO Today and Cielo. This year’s results show that with the U.S. unemployment rate continuing to drop and the economy projected to expand moderately at 2.2 percent into 2018, organizations have to be more aware than ever of the impact of a bad reputation on their employer brand.
HRO Today 2017 Resource Guide

We know that the readers of HRO Today magazine turn to us as a go-to resource in the HR industry that delivers trends, insights, and the top resources for all of their HR operations and service needs. In our annual resource guide, we aim to showcase providers and product vendors across 18 sectors of HR services.
Here, you will find providers of everything from recruitment process outsourcing (RPO) to benefits administration and multi-process HRO, not to mention a treasure trove of HR technology, consulting services, and other ancillary products.
We hope that our 2017 Resource Guide will serve you well as a starting point in your search for appropriate vendors.
View the 2017 Resource Guide here
A New Approach

Measuring both internal and external factors helps provide HR with critical insight for business decisions.
By Sandhya Johnson
Measuring HR is a daunting task for many professionals in the field. There is typically a flurry of activity at the end of each month, quarter, and financial year to gather and report many of the traditional, delivery-based HR metrics. The five usual suspects are turnover, time-to-fill, tenure, training hours/days, and total HR spend. These metrics are useful in monitoring if core HR functions are performing, but they are not enough. These measurements have limitations—they are lagging and aren’t specific to the overall human capital strategy of an organization.
Focus on Fact

A new study examines the impact engagement has on driving business outcomes.
By Dr. Scott Mondore
Does engagement cause business outcomes or do other elements of the work environment play a bigger role in driving outcomes? This is what SMD set to find out using advanced cause-effect analytical methods. Unfortunately the phrase, “Everyone knows that engagement drives business outcomes,” has been uttered countless times by hopeful human resources professionals over the past 20 years. Why? It seems plausible and certainly makes a connection between HR work and the bottom line. But often, it is not based on facts, data, and research. Academic research (Work & Stress, Journal of Applied Psychology, and Journal of Vocational Behavior) has demonstrated, at best, mixed results in connecting engagement to outcomes.
Minding the Gap

By Nathalie Bression, Tony DiRomualdo, and Harry Osle
Transformation remains a main initiative for HR organizations in 2016, finds the 2016 HR Key Issues study from The Hackett Group. Many companies are planning to overhaul key components of their service delivery models in order to meet business and HR performance goals.
The bottom-line findings of this research are threefold:
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