Human Resource Executive’s 14th Annual HR Technology Conference and Exposition was held October 3-5 in Las Vegas, and it was the biggest, and by many accounts, best of its kind yet. The numbers included around 4,500 people in total, paid attendance up about 40% from last year’s event in Chicago, and over 200 solution providers in the expo hall. Personally, I found the conference lived up to the hype and promotions from conference co-chair Bill Kutik and others, so I want to start by giving both thanks and congratulations to Bill and the entire LRP team on a well-run, educational, and all-around valuable conference for the industry.
Any recap or review of an event such as HR Tech will necessarily provide only a slice, a single perspective on the event’s sessions, new product launches, announcements, conversations, networking, parties, and other happenings. That said, here is my recap of the event, focusing on some of the individual sessions I attended and some of the general trends and themes I witnessed.
Transformative and Strategic HR
The conference began with an opening keynote from John Boudreau, Professor at the USC’s Marshall School of Business, and co-author of the new book Transformative HR. Boudreau made the case for strategic HR practices that will create transformative results for their organizations. His five principles include logic-driven analytics; optimization through selective investment; segmentation of the talent in your workforce; developing a more sophisticated approach to risk management; and taking an integrated view across talent management programs and functions. For more on these principles, see Mike Prokopeak’s coverage in the article “Five Principles of Transformative HR” at Talent Management magazine.
The Great Debate, Round 2 Bloom and Averbook
Last year’s Great Debate featured Jason Averbook of Knowledge Infusion vs. Jim Holincheck of Gartner. This year’s featured a return of Averbook matched “against” Naomi Bloom of Bloom & Wallace. I say “against” because Bill Kutik admitted that these two are largely in agreement about a great many topics, so they had to work together ahead of time to find some areas of disagreement for this “debate.” Kutik pitched them each questions, and in typical debate format they had chances for rebuttal. The back and forth was both educational and light-hearted, with Averbook at one point presenting Bloom with socks embroidered with the letter “K” in response to Bloom’s predictable stressing of the importance of KSAOCs (her term for knowledge, skills, abilities, and other characteristics).
In general, I found this (as forewarned) to be less of a true debate and more of an excellent discussion of historical and current trends in HR technology. I think Bloom more often raised key concepts, from her favorite KSAOCs, to important concepts like the sunk cost fallacy with regard to legacy applications (sunk costs tie you to the past rather than letting you move forward) and the increasing phenomena of disintermediation of some aspects of the HR function. Averbook also raised many unique perspectives, but I think also did a good job of taking Bloom’s ideas and building on them in a very practical way for the audience, e.g., stressing the need to talk the language of business rather than the language of HR. Perhaps for that reason, based on the vote conducted by text messaging, Averbook was the winner this year. There is a caveat, however, as the question put to the audience was not who won the debate per se, but who you would you rather have lunch with to discuss the topics further? So perhaps Averbook won on the merits of their respective points and arguments; perhaps he was aided by having been in the previous debate last year; or perhaps it was Bloom’s humorous insistence (twice!) that Jason would pay for your lunch but that she wouldn’t. Regardless, much thanks to Bill, Jason, and Naomi for a very stimulating discussion.
Concurrent Sessions
You know the mark of a good conference when you regularly feel the need to clone yourself. That was certainly true at HR Tech, as for each time slot of concurrent sessions there were between 2-4 sessions that I considered “must attend” or “really interesting.” These sessions ranged from case studies on how an organization gained value from the use of particular HR technologies, to panel or expert-led discussions on a topic, to sessions presenting the latest research or major new product announcements.
The first type of session, the case-study approach, is obviously very hit or miss for any particular attendee, but can be the most compelling if there are enough similarities regarding your organization (size, industry, etc.), the business challenge you are facing, and so on. That is why it was so great that HR Tech had so many of this kind of session to choose from, with outstanding organizations — Intuit, IBM, Walmart, Facebook, UnitedHealth Group, and many more — sharing their success stories across a range of topics (see Chris Brablc’s “What I Learned in Vegas: #HRTechConf Wrapup” for highlights Walmart and Facebook sessions.)
For our part, Taleo’s customer Western Digital told their story of growing from being “data rich but information poor” to gaining the full benefits that Taleo’s talent intelligence approach to integrated talent management provides. They noted that they wanted a broad solution that was both high tech and high touch, integrated and scalable. So they started with Compensation, but in phases have been adding other solutions from Taleo, including Recruiting, Onboarding, and Performance. Those solutions, along with their core HRIS data fed into Taleo’s suite, allows them to leverage robust talent profiles to better allocate pay raises / bonuses to top talent; reduce a particular comp-related process from seven days to only one day; significantly decrease the exceptions, issues, and complaints they had been seeing; and perhaps most importantly, achieve a holistic view of their data, one that tells a far more complete story and allows them to make better business decisions. Now when questions arise regarding talent gaps, where to find people with particular skills, or how they should best adjust their compensation approach, they can answer with the confidence that talent intelligence provides.
In terms of new research findings, the highlight of the conference for me was the public debut of CedarCrestone’s 14th Annual HR Systems Survey. Lexy Martin presented the highlights of the research, which spanned top HR system initiatives, licensed software vs. SaaS deployments, a focus on integrated talent management, a variety of perspectives on vendors, and a new focus on social and mobile solutions. Be sure to see the free whitepaper from CedarCrestone that goes into greater detail on this research.
In general, I would include as some of the major themes of the conference the following: social, mobile, global, gamification, cloud solutions, improving user experiences, and big data/analytics/intelligence. For each of these, HR leaders today need a strategy as to how they are going to embrace, leverage, and integrate these trends across each HR area. For more on some of these areas, see Rob Garcia’s post where he describes the topics and then opines on “What HR executives must watch out for.” See also Naomi Bloom’s insightful posting “Impressions from HR Technology Conference 2011.”
The Expo Hall
HR Technology is both a conference and an exposition, and the list of exhibitors this year was again impressive, with over 200 vendors (big and small, spanning all areas of HR technology), and some 50+ (including Taleo) that had pre-announced that they would be unveiling new products or services at the show. One thing I liked about HR Tech, as compared to some other industry events, was the ample time allowed in the program schedule to spend in the Expo Hall. I certainly made good use of it, spending most of my time speaking with the many Taleo premier partners who were exhibiting, learning about their latest products and services that complement Taleo’s offerings.
The Expo also provided what was, in effect, an extension of the conference program. There were 20 vendor demo sessions, and these seemed to be very popular judging by the in some cases standing-room only attendance levels. Taleo’s packed demo session was hosted by Senior Director of Product Marketing Matt Rice, who provided an overview of the value of talent intelligence and gave demos of several of the key features in Taleo’s talent management solutions.
Just roaming around the Expo, it was striking how many vendors — several dozen, including Taleo — were giving away iPad 2 (or at least original iPad) devices. While there were a variety of other compelling give-aways and services — from massages to photoshoots with Star Wars characters or for — Apple’s tablet seems to remain a top draw (in addition to the ubiquitous supply of sugar treats to keep everyone fueled for the day!)
Booth designs continue to evolve and improve as well, with more vendors (including Taleo) realizing the benefit of thinking in three dimensions to maximize their floor space (think stairs to an upper level.) Most of the booths, from the smallest to the largest, I thought did well at encouraging conversation — of which there was clearly plenty throughout the event. I actually didn’t spend much time at our Taleo booth, but whenever I walked by it seemed that Taleo’s merry band of sales managers, solution consultants, product marketers, and executives were very busy engaging with attendees in demos, conversations, presentations on the benefits of talent intelligence, and more.
Other Items of Note
For those who were not able to attend HR Tech this year, the following are a few more notes to give you a fuller perspective on the event:
Jugglers. The lunch-time entertainment on day 1 was provided by “keynote” jugglers The Passing Zone, the Jon Wee and Owen Morse duo who juggle everything from traditional balls and pins to the more exotic and dangerous blades and chainsaws. Definitely entertaining, and a solid metaphor for what HR professionals often find themselves dealing with — juggling so many priorities and needs in their organization, and yes, at times seeming to juggle chainsaws.- Tweetstream. HR Tech this year had a strong and consistent group of Twitter users, as evidenced by the flow of tweets on the #Hrtechconf event hashtag (which continues strong even now). I did my part by tweeting from the sessions I attended, but as usual got more than I gave by benefitting from the tweeted highlights from the sessions I couldn’t attend.
- Parties. Another sign of a good conference is that organizers and attendees recognize the need to “work hard, and then play hard.” This is certainly true of HR Tech, where again this year there were plenty of after-hours parties to attend, from the official events on Monday night to the various, smaller and sometimes impromptu gatherings. Thanks to everyone involved in organizing and sponsoring these fun parties!
No recap or review — whether of a book, a movie, or an event — seems complete if only positives are described with no hint of something that could be improved. The problem is, I found HR Tech to be well-planned and well-executed (good support, generally good signage, etc.), with just the right mix of different kinds of sessions and time allotted for networking and the expo hall. The only complaint I can think would be the, at certain times and places, weak WiFi support. In only one session was I able to tweet easily and frequently using my laptop; in all others I gave up in frustration and had to resort to tweeting from my smartphone. HR Tech is far from the only conference I’ve been a part of as speaker or attendee that has had this WiFi bandwidth or coverage issue — but given how important WiFi support has become, hopefully it will be one of the last.
Naturally this recap posting is just one of many already posted from HR Tech attendees, with no doubt many more to come in the days and weeks ahead. In addition to those I’ve mentioned inline above, I also wanted to recommend John Hollon’s recap at TLNT.com and Steve Boese’s posting “The HR Technology Conference: Everything’s Amazing But…” (which is playing off the classic YouTube clip with comedians Louis C.K. and Conan O’Brien titled “Everything’s Amazing and Nobody’s Happy.”) Also, Mark Stelzer of Inflexion Advisers wrote eloquently of the conference, noting:
The beauty of this event is that every type of imaginable commerce fills the halls, briefing rooms, expo booths, plenary sessions, hospitality suites, evening events and intimate dinners. Whether you’re a VC seeking to invest in the highly lucrative human capital space or a CHRO who has been tasked with securing the proper solution to what ails you, this is the place to be. Analysts swarm through a cacophony of client and provider briefings. Providers explore and consummate reseller, co-marketing, OEM or M&A transitions among their peers. Practitioners digest and procure the latest thought leadership and solutions on mission critical topics ranging from workforce analytics and talent management to social media and the candidate experience. Pundits engage in punditry. Bloggers blog. Tweeters tweet. Action is taken, minds are expanded and relationships are built.
Finally, I’ll close by agreeing with what Lisa Rowan of IDC aptly said via Twitter, that this conference amounts to “one case where what happened in Vegas should NOT stay in Vegas – let’s keep the energy and innovation coming!”
