Do This. Know This. Be Observed Doing This

When a supervisor in a manufacturing plant, a utility, a brewery or an oil drilling rig, schedules workers for a shift, he or she normally uses a workforce scheduling software. This workforce scheduling software is connected to a system that keeps a record of the competencies of workers. For example the system knows that a worker has done something, knows something or has been observed performing a task. Based on this knowledge, the system verifies that the person assigned to a machine or task has the required competencies at the required level before operating a machine or performing a task. For the oil and gas, manufacturing and utilities industries, doing this right could mean millions of dollars in savings and significant reduction of risks and safety incidents.

At the heart of this is the employee competencies record system. This employee competencies record systems is usually updated by various systems that impart, monitor or alter the competency of a person. For example, the learning system can tell the competency system that the worker has acquired a new competency. The learning system can also tell the competency system that a current competency has expired. ( Like a drivers license expiring for example).

The typical landscape of the above scenario could look like this.

Even though this sounds simple, very few organizations in the world get this right and keep it simple. The norm is that every plant or department maintains its own competency system and catalog. Nobody agrees with anybody and they end up building a complex landscape that is hard, not to mention expensive, to maintain. This is a good problem to address. We are taking some steps towards it.

Consolidate SAP HCM Systems To Save Money And Access Innovation

Bulding Social Business By Muhammad Yunus

Started listening to the book "Building Social Business" by Muhammad Yunus. In my daily work, when some one talks about making a business social, they usually mean using one's network to get something done or selling something to a person based on knowledge derived from that person's social network.

On the other hand, social business is about building a self sustaining business that brings about social change.

SAP Jam Acts Like A Catchment Area For Knowledge

Internally at SAP, many teams use SAP Jam to share their knowledge. Like trees in a forest holding water and releasing them for use over months, SAP Jam acts as a catchment area of knowledge and makes that knowledge available in a lasting manner for people thirsty for it.

Last week, I had to present to IT and business executives from an European banking customer on the topic of SuccessFactors Analytics, among other cloud HR topics. I am not the solution manager for the Analytics topic. So I had to prepare for it and put together my own story. I have a very difficult time using other people's presentations. I find it hard to present on a topic, unless I write my own story. So, I went to the SuccessFactors Workforce Analytics Jam group where I found every piece of content and learning I needed on the topic.

I found a video of Lars Dalgaard talking about the value for Analytics for CEOs. His knowledge was available to me even though Lars is not with SAP anymore. I found the videos shared by Mick Collins, the principal consultant,  explaining how to communicate the value of Workforce Analytics. I found a video of how to prepare to demo Workforce Analytics. I found all the sample presentations and the discussions around the content in those presentations.

Here is a screen shot from my presentation.

I probably saved about ten hours of preparation time and improved the quality of my presentations many fold. The problem with such rapid learning is that I might end up doing more SuccessFactors Analytics presentations to customers. When I have some time, I might post a video of how I spoke to this customer about Workforce Analytics.

Here is a screen shot of the Workforce Analytics Jam group. It is arguably the best run Jam group at least in the people cloud area.