What a whirlwind the last few weeks have been! Between the HR Technology Conference, being sick and the Royals’ winning playoff streak I have been consumed! I haven’t forgotten about the post I promised dishing all of the dirty details from the HR Technology conference, it has just taken a little longer to compile all of my thoughts.
In case you missed it, last week was the 17th Annual HR Technology Conference at the Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas, Nev. There were 300 exhibitors and almost 4,000 attendees. Those few days were crammed with so much information; I am not sure where to start! Before I dive into what I picked up from the different education sessions, I wanted to give some of my team members who were roaming the expo hall the stage to share their thoughts.
First, there was an overwhelming amount of Talent technology vendors. (Talent = Recruiting, Applicant Tracking, Onboarding, Learning, Performance and Succession. Forgot? Read more about Talent Management here.) There seemed to be a lot of new Talent vendors that I haven’t heard of before, specifically in the Recruiting and Onboarding areas. Digital interviewing seemed to be a big trend with both live and on-demand versions available. Digital interviewing is prescreening job applicants through a video interview either live (similar to Skype or video conferencing) or pre-recorded footage of the applicant answering a list of questions (on-demand).
Another interesting trend we noticed was predictive analytics taking center stage. Using the video interviewing above, HireVue is offering a way to review 15 attributes in the video interview responses from job applicants to analyze the candidate and tie the interview responses to future job performance. Predictive analytics are taking digital interviewing a step further and could help lower costs and provide better and more consistent hiring.
German Talent Management vendor, Haufe, made its HR Technology Conference debut. Haufe is Europe’s largest talent vendor and is expanding its presence in the U.S. Haufe’s talent solution includes Recruiting, Onboarding, Compensation and Learning management. Haufe’s product is in 120 countries and in 60 languages. Their clients’ sizes range from two to 5,000 employees, with the average being around 1,000 – 1,500 employees.
We also noticed more wellness vendors than in past years. There was a wellness vendor that incorporated all aspects of overall employee wellness including financial and emotional, not just the standard physical. Welbe offers a free app to track the overall wellbeing of your organization by connecting with employees’ fitness trackers (fitbit, myfitnesspal, RunKeeper, Jawbone, etc.).
Vendor Infor announced that by the end of Q1 2015 they plan to release a multi-tenant SaaS version of their HR/Payroll module. Previously, Infor only offered an on-premise or single tenant based hosted solutions. Although a little late to the party, all of Infor’s modules will now be available in a SaaS-based model.
Benefits Administration vendor Workterra announced their HCM which includes Recruiting, Onboarding and Wellness solutions that integrate with their benefits platform. Absence Management, PTO and Performance Management are on their roadmap.
ACA technology vendor Health e(fx) won the Top HR Product of 2014 award presented by Human Resources Executive Magazine and the conference.
The Benefits Administration point solutions were not in abundance, but we did have some great conversations with ADP, Benefitfocus, bswift, Businessolver, Empyrean, and Thompsons Online Benefits.
Ultimate Software’s Onboarding solution is geared towards helping employees get acclimated to their new organization, new team, and new surroundings. The key themes center around personalization of the onboarding experience, a collaborative way to meet others virtually and exchange messages, view profiles on LinkedIn, introduce a new hire to a mentor, and provide easy access to learning opportunities important to their role. As expected, the Ultimate Onboarding solutions allows automated completion, review, and signing of electronic documents such as tax forms, eligibility forms, and policies. The look and feel of the Ultimate onboarding area is very clean and very intuitive.
We also learned that OneSource Virtual no longer has exclusive rights to resell Workday’s technology in the under 1,000 life space. OneSource Virtual will continue to support the clients they brought on, but after the first of the year, Workday will sell the technology in the under 1,000 market. OneSource Virtual will continue to provide wrap around services to Workday in all market segments.
This was by no means an all-inclusive list, but just a few of the many things we found interesting. If you are interested in more or something more specific, let me know. Next week I will share some of the nuggets I picked up during my educational sessions. That is, if I can come down off of my “the Royals are going to the World Series!” high and write them out! Were you able to make it to this year’s conference? What did you think? Anything noteworthy not mentioned above? Please share!