The following post that I wrote was published on the Knowledge Infusion Corporate Blog, Infusion Nation. I’ve cross posted here to share with those who may not follow the KI blog, but follow mine. If this happens to be you – please check out the Knowledge Infusion blog as well here: http://www.knowledgeinfusion.com/ondemand/blogs/infusionnation/
Stop me if you’ve heard this story before; The Acme company has been using Vendor X for talent acquisition/talent management/Core HR/Payroll/etc for the past three years. While they went into the relationship with Vendor X with high hopes and enthusiasm for great business outcomes somewhere along the way their enthusiasm wore off. Now, staring at the end of a three year contract the Acme company is beginning the process of surveying the market and evaluating potential replacement solutions to address the challenges that they’ve experienced with Vendor X. In short, they’re breaking up.
So what went wrong between the selection of their first vendor and the end of the contract that is causing Acme to look elsewhere? Did their chosen vendor really not have the functionality necessary to deliver against the expectations that were set at the onset of the selection and implementation? Did the functionality radically change from the point of selection to the expiration of the contract?
I’ve seen this play out countless times and often the root cause of failure lies within the four walls of your own organization. As hard as it may be to accept at times, we as HR professionals sometimes make decisions which drive the business batty. Here’s a few reason that I’ve heard as to why a company is pulling the plug on a particular vendor and seeking a replacement technology:
- User adoption was sub-optimal
- User experience was lacking
- We had issues with data integrity / maintenance
- Application support was lacking both internally and from the vendor
While in some cases there are products that contribute to some of these factors, more often than not the reasons for each of the above are self-inflicted. See the below diagram for an explanation:
Does this look familiar? In the above example, not a single point of failure is related to the technology which was chosen but rather decisions made internally related to the implementation, deployment, and support of a solution.
While HR is quick to believe that a new application will help to erase the sins of the past and fix current challenges, unless you’re able to address the underlying root cause you will find yourself right back in the same place.
I hate to put it so bluntly, but it’s not your software, it’s you!
Wow. This pretty much sums up a large percentage of the HR technology projects I have worked on the last 10 years. Great post and good information for HR peeps to read. Unfortunately it’s not just SaaS applications. Many times HR will purchase some sort of on-premise application (MS Access, Visual Basic, proprietary single user application) and then turn to IT for an automated interface. My mantra has always been and continues to be that HR and IT must establish a close working relationship and collaborate on all new HR Technology decisions.
@mike – thanks for the comment. I think you and I are in the minority in our thoughts on this, as I see it far too often out there. The key is to help HR execs understand the value of not just technology but having people on their teams who have a people/process/technology mindset. It’s a valuable skillet, and quite rare out there.
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Nice post, Bryon. You could probably right a whole book on that topic.
I’d like to add one other, very simple, internal reason for failure that I have seen play out many times. That is, the original HR person spearheading the selection, purchase and implementation…..leaves. He or she transfers to another area, is placed on a different project or terminates from the company.
When this happens, a new person comes in and doesn’t always have the background on what the original objectives were and/or why the vendor was selected. Sometimes the new person thinks they will play hero and cut costs by dropping various technologies without understanding the ROI that they bring. Other times they don’t get trained on the technology or establish a relationship with the vendor.
Many companies have room for improvement when it comes to knowledge transfer on managing the relationships with the various technology providers with whom the company does business.
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by The HR Technologist. The HR Technologist said: Does your performance review software stink? Look in the mirror before you blame the technology http://bit.ly/aesNji [...]
Wow. This pretty much sums up a large percentage of the HR technology projects I have worked on the last 10 years. Great post and good information for HR peeps to read. Unfortunately it’s not just SaaS applications. Many times HR will purchase some sort of on-premise application (MS Access, Visual Basic, proprietary single user application) and then turn to IT for an automated interface. My mantra has always been and continues to be that HR and IT must establish a close working relationship and collaborate on all new HR Technology decisions.
[...] said this in earlier posts, but its not the software’s fault that you can’t take advantage of the full feature-set [...]