The first time I met “Jay,” I sat across the desk from him in his executive office at Visa. I was struck by the 10th-floor view and how stark his office was — just two plaques, both noting Visa awards, and a list of To Do’s pinned on his bulletin board.

I was there as his new leadership coach, and we jumped into his objectives: the scale of his global responsibilities were expanding rapidly, and he knew that, in addition to increasing his capabilities with analytics, building employee trust would be a key factor for success. As we discussed trust, I described how we each have “privacy curtains,” and we each make the choice for how much we slide those open for others to see who we are, especially in the workplace. He responded with a hearty laugh and said, “In my case, it’s an IRON curtain.”

For Jay — just as it has been for me and so many others — becoming more transparent and bringing more of yourself to work is hard. It’s hard because, for over a century, corporate culture has dictated that to be “professional”, we must separate our business and personal lives. Making a shift to be more “real” with those we lead is uncomfortable. It feels risky. But in learning how to inspire people and be effective leaders, we must take that risk.

Competence and connection are the core elements of GP Strategies’ view on inspiring leadership . GP Strategies’ ongoing research on how to inspire employees underscores this: in 360 feedback data collected for thousands of managers and executives, the majority of leaders get higher ratings on the competence items than on the connection items.

That may not be surprising — remember that century of conditioning in the corporate environment? What is compelling, however, was a revelation in a different part of the data: feedback givers were also asked to give overall ratings for how inspiring, and how effective the leader was. The leaders who were rated highest overall were not the ones who scored highest in the competence items, but rather, the ones scoring highest in the connection items, particularly trustworthiness.

As it turns out, revealing more of ourselves and being real at work are key ingredients to great leadership . For people like Jay who don’t come by these behaviors naturally, is there any potential to make that shift? The good news is, yes, there is. We can identify trust-building behaviors and begin trying them out. They may not be easy at first, and they’ll require experimentation and practice, but they are skills that can definitely be learned.

Here are 4 ways to get started on building employee trust:

1. Share your Story
   When Kirsten Wolberg arrived to lead IT as CIO at Salesforce.com, she began her first divisional meeting with a personal story. A colleague approached her afterwards to give her feedback, “That approach with stories might have worked at your last company, but this is a different culture here. Stories won’t go over so well.” She thanked him for his concern and counsel — and promptly ignored it. She began every meeting with a story, sometimes a work anecdote, other times about growing up in Alaska, or Saturday Shabbat with her kids, relating the story to a key message she wanted to convey. She became a much beloved leader, and upon departing, her tech employees shared with her that what they always looked forward to about her meetings were the stories she shared.
   
2. Have the Hard Conversations
   Scott Kriens recounts one of the first tough conversations he initiated a few years in as CEO of Juniper Networks. Up to that point, they’d been riding a wave of success and there had always been good news about company performance. Now, they’d hit their first real crisis and would need to let people go. Scott was dreading the conversation. It would have been easier to communicate via memo or have the CFO explain the rationale with numbers. Instead, he decided to show up fully for that conversation. He shared how painful the decisions were for him personally, and he made the space for people to respond and ask honest questions. Afterwards, one employee reflected back to him that “that was one of the best meetings we’ve ever had,” and others sent emails saying they were willing to take a pay cut to help. That’s when he learned how hungry people are to have an authentic conversation, even if — especially if — it’s a tough topic. Scott’s takeaways? Don’t avoid it. Don’t sugar coat things. Go all in.
   
3. Wear Your Values on Your Sleeve
   While doing consulting work at Pacific Gas & Electric, I asked, “Who is an inspiring leader around here?” Several managers mentioned the same VP. How did they describe her? “She always says, ‘Be safe.’ ‘Do the right thing.’ ‘I care.’ Those are her personal values and it’s genuine.” Why was that inspiring? Because she had the courage to share explicitly what was important to her (not the norm in many corporate environments). The greater act of courage, though, was going on record with her values publicly, which is ultimately an invitation for people to judge whether or not she was consistent with her walk and her talk. Was she? You bet. They gave examples of her taking a stand for safety even when costly, and giving her own time and energy to celebrate a team’s contribution or arrange meals for an employee with an ill spouse. When a leader shares his or her values, and then demonstrates them by their personal actions, people notice—and they are inspired.
   
4. Admit Your Mistakes / Be Vulnerable  
   Michael Knight was the head of the Central US for Charles Schwab, and his employee satisfaction scores were dipping. He decided to enlist someone from HR to facilitate. He gathered his team and said, “I want to know your honest feedback about what I can do better as a leader. I’m going to leave the room and you can say ANYTHING.” Twenty minutes later, when the HR partner emerged from the room, he exhaled and said, “Phew, it’s over.” She was actually coming to get more flip chart paper. After an hour, when he was invited back in, it was a humbling moment to see all the phrases on the walls around him: ”Michael gets defensive when …” and, “It’s only about results.” He took it all seriously. He made changes.  And he saw the impact.  His region’s results steadily rose to the top.  The people who worked for him talked about the things he had demonstrated during that meeting – humility, commitment, and courage – for years to follow.

Remember Jay at Visa?
I went on to work with him for 6 months as a leadership coach on how to inspire his employees. And despite his skepticism about opening his “iron curtain,” he committed to trying on some new behaviors in order to build employee trust. He added things to his office walls and bookshelf that reflected his interests outside of work as well as his cultural heritage.

Before, he would only initiate meetings with colleagues on a “need-to-know” basis, scheduling meetings when they had objectives to tackle or a deadline that needed trouble shooting. Instead, he began inviting peers to coffee just to get to know them more. I sat in on his staff meetings and watched him begin taking time to share little known facts about himself. He was awkward at first, but it was evident that his team began to engage with him differently as he continued to experiment with how to inspire his employees.

A year after we began working together, Jay got a promotion to a critical VP role. While he had initially been skeptical and afraid that trying on the new, more authentic behaviors might weaken his credibility, in the end, they actually increased it. His reputation as an impactful leader within the organization had grown; he had become more visible and more trusted.

Competence and connection matter when you are trying to inspire people. Opening the curtains and getting real is learnable. In Jay’s case, and for most of us, it takes courage. But the returns are well worth the risks.

About the Authors

Christy Tonge

In the last 5 years or so, I have had the pleasure of working with a number of different companies in quite varied industries to understand performance excellence—to understand what behaviors are unique to those individuals who consistently achieve exceptional results in their field. As you might expect, the behaviors vary widely and are typically specific to the role in question, from developing their own tools to solve a particular problem to conducting research that their peers never considered. Through their unconscious competence, top performers take steps above and beyond the normal routine, often not even for their own benefit but to improve processes for their customers or colleagues. These behaviors become the framework for new training and performance support solutions, introduced in an effort to elevate the performance of the masses, that is, for other performers in the same or similar roles.

This approach can have a powerful impact on organizational effectiveness and on improving bottom-line results. However, individual performance excellence must be closely tied to organizational business objectives from the very beginning, and performance improvement measures must be comprehensive, rather than treated as a single training event. (Think Gilbert’s model of behavioral engineering: information, tools, motivation, knowledge, skills, and incentives all working together toward success.)

In my experience over the years with multiple roles across many different industries, I have noticed a few common themes emerging that may not translate quite so directly into new performance interventions but that are worth noting as intangibles of performance excellence.

The first of these is mindset. Top performers in many roles have a certain level of curiosity, a willingness and a desire to continuously learn new things, and a focus on improving and growing themselves and their organization. They are the individuals who keep abreast of trends in their industry, who are most likely to volunteer to work on a taskforce, to be creative, and to innovate and collaborate with others.

Top performers also tend to be relationship oriented; they are able to quickly identify key stakeholders, staying close to customers and advocating for their interests (customer-centric thinking). They also have strong internal networks with colleagues across the organization and often with peers in other organizations in the same industry. They are then able to gain and apply a broad perspective on how to get things done most effectively.

Resilience and perseverance are the final characteristics that seem to span multiple roles and to achieve breakthrough results. Top performers seem to push through adversity, often defining new pathways to do so. They adapt to change and may even become champions for change, stepping into informal leadership roles to guide others to the goal line.

While these observations may not speak to specific learning and development solutions, they do suggest a new perspective on human capital management. These themes so central to performance excellence suggest our need to consider different recruiting messages and tactics, varied questions for potential hires to reveal their natural curiosity, and opportunities to identify high-potential, persistent employees in whom we want to invest to retain and grow for our future success.

For more information on successful strategies that will ensure your people strategy is focused on training and development, please explore People Development.

About the Authors

Sydney Smith

As I meet new people, I often share in my introduction that I’m an Army brat. I share that not only because I’m proud of my dad for his service (and my mom for her devotion to him and our family through all of our adventures), but also because it really defines so much about who I am. We traveled around the country as I was growing up and even spent a few years in Germany. Discipline was tight; love and family were even tighter. And my three brothers and I were continually encouraged to be all that we could be. (Sorry! I couldn’t resist.) So much travel growing up created a bit of wanderlust in me, which is not a bad thing for a consultant to have. Going new places and meeting new people is so exciting and rewarding and offers new perspectives and experiences each and every time. I really enjoy talking with people in all sorts of roles, getting a behind-the-scenes view of how varied industries operate. It is pretty handy to have had 16 years of experience meeting new people and establishing new relationships every couple of years. Before finding my ‘home’ with GP Strategies, I enjoyed a career in technical writing, still helping employees to be successful by creating user guides and similar documentation. That, too, required interacting with different people to understand processes and technologies so that I could effectively document them. While with Computer Sciences Corporation, I was also introduced to Total Quality Management (TQM) and found even greater interest in process improvement. That began to open my eyes to a different spin on performance improvement and became a wonderful reason to transition to a small company called RWD Technologies (later acquired by GP Strategies). One of the first things that attracted me to RWD was the motto: “Our focus is on the end users.” My early assignments helped to create a real passion for frontline employees and the work that they do. During those early days, I delivered some instructor-led training and was thrilled when I could see light bulbs going on around the classroom. Today, I find great satisfaction in working with people to uncover business challenges—analyzing the people, processes, systems, and technologies—and, together, finding ways to resolve those challenges. I’m still learning and growing by meeting new people all the time, and I am still thrilled when I can help light bulbs to brighten and problems to be solved.

There are many comprehensive HR cloud solutions on the market today, all with different benefits and key features. But, they are only as good as the features that benefit your organization.

In this blog, we will lay out three of the top solution providers and their benefits as well as the steps to consider during your implementation.

Before you even discuss systems, it is important to understand your goals for the implementation. One of the biggest problems that we see is when organizations implement new technology just for the sake of implementing technology. The business case is key to success in any implementation.

Define what you want to accomplish and then choose a system with the features that will help you to achieve those goals.

Three of the top comprehensive HR systems

SAP SuccessFactors

In 2012, SAP acquired SuccessFactors and has continued to build and improve on the existing product. Now, it is a full comprehensive HR solution that covers all areas of the HR business unit. Over 2,000 companies using SuccessFactors to power their HR processes, demonstrating the many benefits to choosing SuccessFactors.

Benefits:

• You can purchase and implement one module at a time or the entire suite.
• You have the option of Rapid Deployment Solutions. This is beneficial for organizations that have a short timeline and don’t need a lot of customization.
• You are able to integrate with third party providers through Dell Boomi or through SAP Cloud Platform Integration (SCPI).

Oracle

Oracle is one of the largest cloud platforms and solution providers worldwide with over 430,000 business running an Oracle solution.

Benefits:

• Upgrades are efficient and low cost.
• The database is perfect for companies with large amounts of data with the need for high-integrity data.
• Oracle has flashback technology. This allows you to not lose your data if there is a power outage.

Workday

Workday was formed in 2005 by two longtime HR professionals. Since then, they have grown the business to be a flexible, manageable, and comprehensive HR system.

Benefits:

• The solution is designed for medium-to-large-sized companies.
• Workday has in-memory technology that secures the data instead of fields. You set up the security once and it governs across the entire platform.
• The mobile-focused platform is designed so that there is no interruption to user experience from desktop to mobile processing.

Note: These are not the only benefits of each system, just some of the top ones that we recognize. Also, this is by no means a comprehensive list of ERP solutions, but merely an example of comparing strengths based on your organizational needs.

Implementation Process

1. Define your project plan.

Define your plan, resources, and timeline before starting and STICK TO IT! It is important to stay as close to the plan as possible; otherwise, your implementation will go off in a direction that you didn’t expect, and your budget could be blown in the first phase. This is largely going to be determined by the implementation partner you choose as this is a large responsibility of the partner.

2. Secure your resources.

Your internal resources will likely be splitting their time between this implementation and their normal jobs. To make sure that your implementation stays on track and your business still runs smoothly, scheduling is key.

If your internal resources and the resources from your implementation partner will not be enough, you may need to consider hiring more outside help.

3. Define your integration and migration strategy.

Your implementation is only as good as your data. Confirm with your implementation partner what the best integration and migration strategy for your organization will be based on a host of various factors, such as follows:

• Number of interfaces with third party vendors
• Complexity of the integrations required
• Current integration or middleware technology your IT departments uses

Depending on what you plan on using as your system of reference, this could impact your strategy.

This is also a good time for you to scrub your data and get rid of anything that isn’t accurate or necessary. Work with your legal team to understand what your data retention requirements are for the various types of data you have.

4. Determine business requirements and configuration time.

Each software application has various functionalities, some of which may seem very appealing. However, all functionality that you choose to implement MUST have solid business requirements (i.e., the business is asking for the functionality); otherwise, you may find that it is difficult to validate requirements and thus test adequately. In addition, you will have larger change management and communications challenges with explaining functionality that was not requested or desired.

In addition, always give yourself more time than you think necessary to validate your business requirements as this will drive the time it takes for your partner to configure the system. If you don’t allocate enough time or don’t have a firm handle on your business requirements, this will be the fastest way to a change order from your implementation partner. Expect that even if you stick to the plan, things will come up and you’ll need time to address.

5. Testing

You will be responsible for managing and driving User Acceptance Testing (UAT). If you have never written test scripts, ask your implementation partner. They should have sample scripts that you can tweak to fit your needs but recognize that the testing scripts need to reflect your business requirements. Thus, you need to have people that understand your business processes very well involved in creating and reviewing test cases and scripts.

Again, this will always take more time than you think. It is a good idea to build in more time than you think necessary for this phase of the project.

6. Go-Live

While UAT and user adoption are critical to the success of your project, go-live is equally as important as it is the culmination of all the work to this point. It requires thorough planning down to a low level of detail, even down to specific timeframes, depending on the cutover activities.

The Go-Live phase is also where it is critical to have your Change Management and User Adoption plans in full swing. If your implementation partner doesn’t have a Change Management department, it would be ideal to hire someone who specializes in this area. They will prepare your users for the new changes to come with training and continued learning after go-live.

If your users aren’t onboard with the new technology and processes, they won’t use it, which will in turn make the project ineffective.

If you are having trouble deciding on what platform is best for your organization and the project plan that best fits your organization, you can speak to the various implementation partners for each of the applications. They can help you decide on the platform and a project plan moving forward based on their experiences implementing with different companies across various market sectors.

NEXT: You have done your due diligence and examined both the needs of your organization and the strengths of potential enterprise systems. You have made your selection and begun to implement your solution – now what? Read our blog on using your new technology as an opportunity to create an agile, fluid, & well-equipped workforce.

Resources:

1. https://www.techwalla.com/articles/the-advantages-of-oracle-databases
2. https://www.betterbuys.com/hrms/workday-vs-sap-successfactors-comparing-key-features-and-functionality/
3. https://blogs.sap.com/2011/07/08/why-workday-is-a-major-threat-to-sap/
4. https://comparisons.financesonline.com/successfactors-sap-vs-workday
5. https://www.workday.com/content/dam/web/en-us/documents/datasheets/datasheet-workday-human-capital-management.pdf

About the Authors

Adam Kvist Lamaa

Adam Kvist Lamaa has been with GP Strategies for more than 5 years. Holding a professional Employee Central certification, he has lead multiple global EC implementations. Currently working as an Application Architect, Adam ensures that clients get the full value out of their SuccessFactors solution by integrating and extending it for full return on investment.

Digital transformation is the transformation of business and organizational activities, processes, competencies, and models to fully leverage the changes and opportunities of a mix of digital technologies and their accelerating impact across society in a strategic and prioritized way, with present and future shifts in mind.

What is digital transformation really? It is about being more efficient, making decisions based on data, having a continuous process improvement, and finally, having the tools available to capture return on investment.

However—without people to connect your technology to your processes and outcomes—your transformation is going to be fraught with challenges.

Here are a few different categories of people, and roles within those categories, that are critical to the success of your digital business transformation:

The Change Agent: Because change is hard—but it doesn’t have to be THAT hard.

• Leaders: to provide guidance and stability
• Early Adopters: to help you test and improve your implementation and output
• Early Majority: to get on board and help convince others to do so as well
• Trusted 3^rd Parties: to answer the question you will inevitably have: Has anyone else ever done this?

The Coach: Because everyone needs support.

• Leaders: to consistently communicate the change and provide support to next-level leadership
• Experts: to answer questions, identify best practices, and provide external data
• Peer Mentors: to support the changes to process and job roles and help onboard new hires
• Facilitators: to help with the implementation of digital training programs to keep the human connection to learning, even in a virtual manner

The Data: Because garbage in, garbage out!

• Leaders: to utilize existing systems and dashboards for reporting—and make the data count
• Analysts: to make data interpretation easier through dashboards and make it available for all
• Data Entry: to ensure the appropriate data is captured and verified to be accurate
• Quality: to get the data into a system clean—and keep it that way

The Decision Makers: Because that’s why we are all here—data drives decision-making.

• Leaders: to continue to leverage data to make better decisions
• Consulted: to provide data to support their opinion
• Informed: to review data supporting a decision before objecting to it
• Advised: to trust the decisions based on data

If you’ve gotten this far, you’ve noticed a trend. Our leaders are so critical to the success of any digital business transformation. We need them to be change agents, to coach us through the change, to support the use of the data in a consistent manner, and to demonstrate how this data helps drive better decisions.

Consider your digital transformation journey and reflect on your own human analog connections. Are you engaging all the different types of people we discussed in this session? Are there any areas that you need to focus on for a better engagement strategy? Let’s continue the conversation on where you think you might want to go from here in the comment thread. In the coming months ahead, we will have additional sessions, pulling in thought leaders inside GP Strategies and some of our valued partners to provide more specific recommendations on those human connections.

But the first connection starts here—comment below and connect.

About the Authors

Sheri Weppel

Sheri Weppel started her career as an art teacher covered in finger paint, clearly teaching people about out-of-the-box thinking (or at least off-the-construction-paper thinking). While working on her master’s degree in Instructional Design and Development at Lehigh University, she realized that we could learn a lot from the public-school classroom. Concepts like micro-learning, learning styles, gaming, and training on demand were common in grade school, but were considered new concepts in the corporate sector. Because one degree is never enough, Sheri continued her studies at Lehigh with a focus on Gaming for Instruction. In her spare time, she spent her evenings losing to her husband in Scrabble and wanting to throw the letter Q across the room, making her realize the emotional attachments we can have to games. If we could harness that desire to succeed, compete, or win to a learning environment, what impact could we have on learner motivation? Countless games of Scrabble later, Sheri started at GP Strategies as an Instructional Designer and was able to inject those concepts into solutions for her customers. This is often a challenge for customers that want to use gaming but often don’t believe they have the time or budget required to successfully launch into the gaming space. Sheri is driven to help these clients find a balance in embedding gaming elements into instruction in a practical manner. In the past nine years, Sheri has held many roles within the organization, from instructional designer to sales lead for blended learning, and is now focusing on the off-the-shelf product GPiLEARN+, growing the product into a true blended learning solution. Regardless of her role, Sheri is always focused on working with customers to help build impactful training solutions that focus on the needs of all populations. She helps clients determine specifically when to incorporate gaming versus using hands-on, traditional approaches. When she is not working, Sheri enjoys having adventures with her dog Olivia, attending barre classes, and learning new three-letter words that begin with the letter Q.

When was your last light-bulb moment? For me it was using social media. No, not looking at my friend’s silly cat pictures, but while doing research for a social selling project. I realized that the landscape of building relationships is changing. I can certainly relate because one of my first jobs out of college was as an outside sales rep for an office furniture company. Somehow that “sales” component of my experience never left me.

From a 2014 State of B2B Procurement study from the Acquity Group, 94% of business buyers do some form of business research online. This online research provides the knowledge that empowers buyers to make informed decisions. Salespeople are encouraged to repost articles from experts in their field and use open-ended questions to spark a discussion. Perhaps a blog post could be written to share real stories and experiences. Sharing thoughts could possibly solve a problem for someone else. This is what customers want—to have someone help solve their problems. Why couldn’t instructional designers use these same principles?

Most of us already use social media for personal use. How about using it for work? We do research on a regular basis, and guess what? When you figure out how to teach something, you learn it. While sharing a great article from an expert in your field or tapping into what we use every day, figuring out the, What’s in it for me? and sharing it online helps connect you to more people with common interests.

It is not a stretch to see that Learning 3.0 is a natural fit for instructional designers to use social tools in a new way to teach and communicate with others. You can use this to make your mark by growing your social brand and adding more value.

Do you think you could allot a few minutes each week to reposting articles from experts in your field? How about writing a blog post? Before you know it, you are getting more LinkedIn requests, establishing yourself as a thought leader, and building your network with like-minded people.

Maybe, just maybe, you are having fun because not only did you learn something new, you helped others do it as well. Social media certainly isn’t going away, and most of us will continue to use it on a regular basis. You might as well use what you are doing every day to build relationships!

About the Authors

Lisa Aliquo

I am among the many people who fall into the category of “Accidental Instructional Designer”. Truth be told, it is one of the happiest accidents that has happened to me. Not only do I get to do what I love and constantly get to learn new things, but I also get to build relationships and partner with clients to find solutions to meet their learning needs. Most of my experience has been developing end-to-end solutions and wearing many hats as a facilitator, e-Learning developer, Instructional Designer and Project Manager. Maybe it is the challenge that I really enjoy while at the same time getting to use my creative side. Whatever it may be, I am thankful to have spent the last year working as an Instructional Designer with GP Strategies. Not only do I get to work with amazingly talented colleagues, but I get to be part of the cutting edge work we do every day.

Let me first make a confession. If there is a personality quiz, I will take it. Replace my (non-existent) dating bio of “Enjoys long walks on the beach and deep conversations that last until sunrise” with “I am an ENTJ, but I have been both a high I and high D on the DISC assessment, and my love language is Acts of Service.”

Point being, I have tried to use tools like Myers-Briggs, DISC, 5 Love Languages, and StrengthsFinder to not only learn about myself, but to see if it can help me connect with others. Honestly, I’ve had mixed success.
It’s interesting to evaluate myself and the people closest to me, but it’s not easy to apply the knowledge much further. I find myself swimming in alphabet soup trying to remember which characteristics go with which term or how a term is even being used.

So, what does an instructional designer like myself do? I work on cross-functional teams of designers, editors, developers, project managers, and directors. How do I look at the team’s diversity so that we collaborate effectively? I look at the commonalities.

When trying to appreciate and understand people at work, there are three best practices I’ve learned to apply.

Listen

Listen without an angle. Be present with the person you want to understand. Notice things like what they choose to talk about and how they talk about it. Some best practices are below.

Empathize

This may feel like a buzzword at this point, but when dealing with humans, empathy will never lose its importance. When you empathize, you meet people on their turf, on their terms. We know humans are complex. We know there is a constant brew inside each of us that includes id vs. ego, thoughts and feelings, hopes and fears. So, I’m saying start with the basics like asking questions and listening, halt your judgments, don’t jump to decision-making, and learn about who you are talking to, and try to see the world through their own brew.

Synthesize

This is the point where you implement most of the personality/preference/style tools. Once you have a code or label to work with, the tools often come with pointers about relationships, career choices, communication best practices, and other “So what?” factors. This is nice but is really only useful to those who actively want to apply it (and only if all parties truly understand the lingo being used). So what is standard?

• Connect what you learned with what you already know.
  • See if you can identify patterns or themes. Have you seen this before? How is it alike or dissimilar?
• Identify topics you are not familiar with.
  • See if there is a lack of knowledge on your end. Is this a difference in terminology or interpretation? Is it just something you don’t know?
• Double-check your judgment.
  • While trying to make sense of the situation, make sure you aren’t adding your biases or judgments to the point they outweigh what you’re trying to learn about the person.

Technologies will continue to advance and change, but people remain the driver. We need to continue to make an effort to understand and appreciate those we work with. It’s easy to make quick decisions based on what we already know, but I challenge us to keep listening, empathizing, and synthesizing.

About the Authors

Carly Patterson

Carly is a senior instructional designer with a journalism background, which means she loves mining for and sharing information. She has performance improvement experience within several industries, designing and developing different kinds of learning interventions. Carly enjoys looking at the macro view as well as the details, as seen in her 15 years of experience writing for small town newspapers and designing training for Fortune 500 companies. She enjoys diving into the work and has been photographer, video editor, paginator, writer, editor, mentor, trainer, designer, developer, and project manager. She is now returning to her roots and publicly sharing some of the information she has gathered along the way.

For more than 10 years, GP Strategies has helped clients implement the full SAP SuccessFactors HCM suite, guiding our clients in what best practices to use and which standards to follow. We are fully committed to the idea of helping clients standardize as they make the move to the cloud. We help them achieve new performance benchmarks, reduce operating costs, and have an HR system that is continuously evolving.

During this time we have also seen our fair share of situations where clients did not 100% fit into the standard. Having to fit in a “one box fits all” system results in some transitional and operational pain points. The core of the problem is that you need to extend the functionality provided by the cloud, but still want to support your organization from the cloud. The solution lies in the SAP Cloud Platform.

Having been the lead implementation consultant on multiple global Employee Central implementations for clients coming from SAP on premise or customized solutions, I have often wished for the opportunity to customize the system to the client needs. This is why I find it so satisfying to finally be able to provide clients with a real alternative when they cannot fit in the box—not because their requirements are not reasonable. They are just not ordinary due to a requirement not anticipated by SAP, and this no longer has to be a showstopper for moving fully to the cloud. No need for those Lotus Notes databases or SharePoint forms that might close the gap but give a bad user experience and nightmares for the IT department.

In this article I will briefly explain:

• What the SAP Cloud Platform is
• When you should consider this as an option
• How it works with SuccessFactors and other systems

What is SAP Cloud Platform?

The SAP Cloud Platform is a Platform as a Service (PaaS) offering that enables clients to host a custom-developed solution, allowing you to extend SuccessFactors in areas where your organization is not happy or able to use the standard solutions offered by SAP. In fact, it can be used to extend any system with API capabilities.

The SAP Cloud Platform contains a powerful toolkit of services ranging from the internet of things (IoT), gamification, and machine learning to a fully web-based development UI. Applications are built the with SAP JavaScript based SAPUI5 framework. They are built to easily fetch and model data from OData APIs and align with the FIORI design guidelines. This enables SAPUI5 applications (or extensions depending on how you view it) to seamlessly support your organization’s processes in the cloud.

The platform supports a range of programming technologies, but most commonly extensions are built as HTML5 applications. The SAPUI5 framework ensures that your extensions are supported and responsive across browsers and devices.

SaaS vs PaaS

As a SuccessFactors client, you are already familiar with Software as a Service (SaaS), a full system hosted and maintained by SAP, taking away most of the operational responsibility of keeping your HR system up to date and bug free.

With the SAP Cloud Platform, you move to a lower tier in the cloud offering in terms of service, but gain in flexibility. In the PaaS model, SAP still provides the servers that your solution is hosted on, but the solution is tailored to your company and processes. In essence, you gain control over the Application and the Data layers from the SaaS model.

Does this not raise cost?

Well yes, moving from SaaS to PaaS definitely has a cost implication. This is also why not all use cases are suitable to be solved via a SAP Cloud Platform application.

When should you consider an extension?

GP Strategies does not advocate that you built a custom UI layer on top of the entire SuccessFactors suite. For the vast majority of your HR processes, the SuccessFactors suite will support your needs, just as it has for thousands of other clients. With the Metadata Framework (MDF) you can further extend the system for use cases where SAP has not delivered a standard solution. For example, you would like to be able to capture and store employee grievances or have a simple way to manage assets provided such as laptops or phones.

When should you make use of extensions?

• You need to support a complex process that cannot be simplified.
• You have higher than normal requirements to the user interface due to the target audience.
• You want to optimize a critical process that has high volume and cannot be implemented efficiently in SuccessFactors.
• You want to pull data from multiple systems into one overview/form/action.

In essence, you should use an extension when you have complex requirements that cannot be fulfilled with SuccessFactors-provided tools on a critical process. An example is the recently announced standard SAPUI5 based extension “SAP SuccessFactors Visa and Permits Management.” Intended to close the functional gap for visa application processes in the Middle East, it is an example of a complex and multi-stepped process that involves multiple roles, a scenario that is hard to fulfill with the workflow framework in SuccessFactors Employee Central.

Complex and regular data transformation beyond what the Rule Engine in Employee Central provides can also be accomplished via an extension. This can be covered by Java-based extensions that allow for server-side scheduling and execution of jobs in which you need to pull data stored in SuccessFactors, transform it, and either share with third parties or store in SuccessFactors for reporting needs. We have seen use cases in this domain related to clients moving from SAP on premise and having custom BADIs set up to calculate key inputs to their compensation or bonus process.

How does it work with SuccessFactors?

A SAP Cloud Platform extension will be hosted on either your own SAP Cloud Platform account or your service provider’s account in case you leverage a standard solution. Just as with SuccessFactors, the cloud is located in multiple SAP locations, and depending on your contract with SAP, it would still be in Amsterdam or St. Leon-Rot if you choose a European location. For full detail check the below link:

SAP Cloud Platform regions and service portfolio

The architecture of a Cloud Platform extension can change, greatly depending on the use case. The example below illustrates how an extension might be used to enable SuccessFactors users to access data stored in MDF in a tailored UI. Outputs of the extension could be sent to SAP or third party system. Your imagination is the limit when it comes to what you can create.

The integration with SuccessFactors is, in the above case, twofold:

1. Security: The security part between SuccessFactors and the SAP Cloud Platform enables a seamless user experience by automatically authenticating the user. By using the built-in SAML authentication between SuccessFactors and the SAP Cloud Platform, the end user will not even notice that the extension is not a standard part of SuccessFactors.

2. Connectivity: Data can be retrieved over the REST OData APIs in SuccessFactors BizX, LMS, and JAM. It can, of course, also be retrieved from other SAP products that expose APIs like Concur, Fieldglass, or Ariba and non-SAP products that you might have in your IT landscape.

Where is the data stored?

This is your decision, and something that you should of course consider carefully if you are a European-based organization or operate within the EU, considering the new GDPR regulation.

The SAP Cloud Platform provides the ability to create custom databases that you can store data in and expose via your custom extensions.

In most cases, we have however opted for storing data in the SuccessFactors Metadata Framework, as this has several benefits:

• No license implications on data storage are needed as long as you still have available custom objects in SuccessFactors.
• Data can easily be reported on via ORD.
• With the SuccessFactors Q2 release, data can be scheduled to be deleted after defined retention times.
• This option allows your SuccessFactors system administrators to easily access and correct the data without the need for SAP Cloud Platform training.
• No potentially sensitive or confidential data will be stored in the SAP Cloud Platform, giving you one less database to worry about.
• Make use of the built-in Audit features in SuccessFactors MDF.

Real-life use case

An example of a real-life use case is our MIMIR extension, which enables a more comprehensive employee feedback process, beyond what badges allows for in SuccessFactors standard. The simple badge feature is an option that many of our clients have been interested in, but never used as it had too many limitations in SuccessFactors.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DgXQF8ejymU

As you can see from the above video, the user experience is not impacted because you have functionality supported by an extension. Authentication between SuccessFactors and the SAP Cloud Platform automatically logs in the user and gives them the right access based on the configuration in SuccessFactors RBP framework.

Let us help you extend your cloud

At GP Strategies, we are ready to help you design, develop, and deploy extensions for your every business need. We are also continuously working on closing any open gaps we might see in the existing functionality.

Do you have gaps you would like us to help you close? Contact us today.

GP Strategies is a long-time trusted partner of SAP and has more than 550 SuccessFactors implementations behind us and 150 live clients being supported. Contact us for expert guidance on any SAP SuccessFactors topic, SAP Cloud Platform, SAP Cloud Integration, and Dell Boomi.

Web: www.gpstrategies.com and www.effective-people.com

About the Authors

Adam Kvist Lamaa

Adam Kvist Lamaa has been with GP Strategies for more than 5 years. Holding a professional Employee Central certification, he has lead multiple global EC implementations. Currently working as an Application Architect, Adam ensures that clients get the full value out of their SuccessFactors solution by integrating and extending it for full return on investment.

“The Only Thing That Is Constant Is Change” —Heraclitus

In few places is this old saying more appropriate than in the HR technology space. HR has moved completely out of sight of the “Personnel Department” that they were in the 1980s and 1990s. The need to manage, expand, and groom talent has become a critical piece of a company’s strategy, and the idea that HR staff are just paper pushers and gatekeepers needs to be transformed along with the needs of the organization. This requires new skills sets and a wider array of software to support the organization’s needs.

On the other side of the equation, employee needs are evolving, too. The concept of employee engagement has taken hold and requires more than just annual reviews and salary increases. While the concept of continuous reviews has recently become more widespread, there are stops along that continuum between annual and constant feedback. Things like “quarterly conversations” are a good waypoint between the two.

Solutions, such as SAP, have risen to the call for talent management innovation in several ways. Their focus on software as a service (SaaS) based solutions has allowed them to step up their release cycles to a regular quarterly release. This brings enormous benefits, including fast turnaround for bug fixes and the ability to release new features on a rapid basis. During these quarterly update cycles, there can be dozens of updates across the entire suite. Some are mandatory, but many are flagged as “opt-in” to allow administrators some control over the release of the feature.

“Get me off this crazy thing!” —George Jetson

These changes, like any organizational change, bring some challenges to overcome. Your users are likely use to the way the system works, warts and all. If menu options suddenly shift, the order of operations changes, or even text on the screen is different, they may be unsure of how to proceed. This can be true even if the change is for the better or is involved in fixing a bug for which they have a work-around in place already. Some, like highly regulated industries, may have an even tougher time managing this pace given the need to adhere to strict validation processes to meet guidelines.

The difficulties are both human and organizational.

“We cannot solve our problems with the same level of thinking that created them.” —Albert Einstein

Fortunately, the solution is essentially organizational change management on fast forward. Change can be managed properly in multiple ways. The specific solutions vary as to your company, industry, and staffing levels, but all of them offer at least some management for change at a dizzying pace. You may choose to:

• Directly assign a person to manage the release process. Typically, either a senior administrator of your learning system or a consultant is charged with keeping up with all the release notes SAP shares before, during, and after an update. They should likely be a certified learning administrator as the Delta certification process involves much of this already.
• Opt-in intelligently. When possible, only choose the updates and changes that you need. This can help minimize the overall change and help reduce user adoption friction.
• Provide on-the-job training (OJT) or job aids to help users adopt the new processes where applicable. This requires some additional time investment but pairs nicely with having an assigned person handling the process.
• Bring on board a change management consultant to help you design a customized way to handle the speed of change.

Change in the HR space is inevitable, and the pace is only increasing. This is reflected in the speed of change in the technology supporting HR and talent initiatives like the SAP talent suite. Although the changes in this type of software are technology focused, they require people management and people solutions to be successful.

About the Authors

Chris Olive

“Specialization is for insects.” – Robert Heinlein, Time Enough for Love My parents were both technology focused teachers when I was a kid, and my father was a high school math teacher so in the ‘80s he was the “computer teacher” too. This meant I was lucky enough to have an actual computer in our house, an Apple //e. I clearly remember my father bringing home the sample programming exercises (in Basic!) for me to practice. From there, I moved on to entering the example programs from the back of computer magazines myself and tinkering with them. It was this that made me realize that the flexibility of the computer made it the ultimate tool to solve problems. I also read a lot of science fiction when I was a kid. They were mostly the “classics” of the genre from the 1950s or so. I clearly remember Heinlein’s exhortation and that the main characters were inevitably able to do just about anything they needed to do to survive with their wide-ranging knowledge of multiple subjects. They knew metallurgy, biology, survival skills, hunting, cooking, sewing, and more in a large array of skills. I resolved to do the same. While I have not come close to mastery in all these skills, the notion of the “Renaissance Man” drove my early desire to learn as much as possible about as many things as possible. This led me to the Jesuits and their idea of “care for the whole person” and eventually led me to have my undergraduate education at Loyola College in Baltimore (now called Loyola University Maryland). Combining both technology and the humanities helped put perspective on how computers and other technology really were just tools and that we were solving people problems even though we were using technology to do so. That remains true even now with the clients I help. They are just trying to overcome an obstacle and the method to fix it is immaterial. I happen to use technology as a tool for much of the time but there are human fixes that can be applied to human problems too. At the bottom of every request there is a person trying to do their job. Sometimes they don’t really know what the source of their frustration might be which is why I always start by asking “What is the problem you’re trying to solve?” I figured if it was good enough of a starting place for Richard Feynman it would have to be good enough for me. Once these problems are clearly outlined, they are solvable. I enjoy helping people and solving problems. These things all work together.

Awhile back I was consulting on a project where the client wanted to apply more science to their decision-making. Though my team and I did a great job assisting this client, that request has been bouncing about the recesses of my mind for some time. I spent long hours appreciating and defining the problem to be solved and researching the related landscape. A few questions I am grappling with include:

• Where should we start with data?
• Is it appropriate for a transformational initiative or program to have its own data strategy?
• How would a program data strategy align with an enterprise data strategy?
• What are the critical components of a data strategy?

I read many books on data, including topics ranging from establishing corporate data strategy and the use of analytics to harnessing big data for competitive advantage.

I wanted a concise template that I could put in my consulting toolbox and use to help clients posture their program for success by creating a programmatic approach to data before they jumped into the process without a thoughtful plan. Due to the nature of consulting, in which every company’s needs are different, I asked myself if I was being realistic in my quest for a template where “one size fits all.”

My research uncovered some common data strategy themes. I also came to the conclusion that it is completely appropriate to have a data strategy at the program or initiative level. My position is that when you know you will be working with data, you are well served if you begin with a strategy.

I did not find the simple, concise data strategy tool that I wanted. So I developed my own tool, as shown in Figure 1.

Each component of my tool deserves at least a chapter, its own book, or a lengthy conversation to fully grasp its rationale, nuances, considerations, and approaches as you begin to work through them for your specific company.

This blog is not the place to immerse you in all this information. Suffice to say, Figure 1 is a data strategy template that is scalable from project level to enterprise level. As you consider working with data, use this tool to prepare for and guide your thinking and discussion about a data strategy for your unique situation.

Figure 1. Data Strategy Critical Components

I believe business today is at an inflection point; I see more and more businesses asking for assistance to apply science to their decisions. We are watching the information age unfold before our eyes. Each day, we are experiencing new ways of data collection and learning how data is being used to grow businesses and enrich our lives. We are also seeing examples of when data planning gaps are exposed (collecting the wrong data, data breaches, etc.) and even when data may be used for nefarious purposes (influence elections, etc.).

Embracing a data strategy will not only contribute to a more comprehensive data plan, it can help align your work with corporate business goals, drive efficiencies, and improve decision-making confidence—it is also necessary to help you stay ahead and win in a competitive market.

How does this data strategy template compare to the way you think about data?

About the Authors

Rocky Ellens

Rocky Ellens is a GP Strategies Sales Enablement Practice leader, helping drive client business-to-business sales team performance. Rocky has over 15 years of experience providing innovative thought leadership and performance consulting across Fortune 100 clients in Manufacturing, Retail, Finance, Food and Beverage, and IT market segments. He holds an MS in Human Resources and Organizational Development. He is a retired Army Colonel experienced at providing a foundation of leadership training and teaming designed to pull work groups together in pursuit of a common objective or goal. Follow Rocky on LinkedIn

This is part 2 in a two-part series. If you haven’t read part 1, you can read that here.

Are you planning to implement SuccessFactors Compensation or Variable Pay? The intent of this blog is not to provide you answers to all of your questions, but to help you think through some options that may be relevant to your company. Some questions, when answered early, can make the requirements-gathering sessions a little less painful and ensure a successful implementation for your organization.

How many plans do I need?

• A compensation plan can support multiple countries, currencies, and languages so that will not be a deciding factor for the number of plans that you will need.
• If different groups (countries, locations, etc.) run the processes at different times, you will need a separate plan for each occurrence. It will be in your best interest to standardize your processes to run at the same time wherever possible as this will not only make your implementation smoother, it will also make ongoing support within your company easier.
• Some companies choose to divide the different pay frequencies into separate plans, that is, hourly vs salaried. This is not necessary, but it is an option.
• Which processes will be included could play a role in the number of plans. A compensation plan could include Salary Review (Merit, Adjustment, Promotion, and Lump Sum), Short-Term Incentives (Bonus), and Long-Term Incentives (Stocks, Options, or Restricted Stock Units [RSUs]).
• Do you need to create one or more Variable Pay forms as opposed to using only Compensation forms? Based on the information from my previous blog, you should have a good idea whether you will need to create a Variable Pay Plan to address all of your needs or if a Compensation Plan would be sufficient. If your bonus cycle runs at a different time than your compensation cycle, you can create a separate compensation form for Bonus only.
• With the Q2 2018 Release, SAP introduced a Total Compensation Planning template that allows planners to view the total cash compensation of employees in one worksheet. This includes salary, stock, and variable pay in one worksheet.

Where will the data come from?

• Non-Employee Central Customers. For each field in the worksheet, you need to define where the data is coming from. Your options are:
  • User Data File (UDF): You will define an import key in the worksheet for the fields that are coming from the data file. A download of this file template specific to a compensation plan will include all relevant master data for you. You can then maintain the compensation fields and upload the file prior to launching worksheets to populate fields with an import key.
  • Formulas: The field is calculated based on a formula that you provide.
  • Lookup Tables: Lookup tables are used in custom formulas to map data to an employee based on certain attributes if the required information is not listed in one of the compensation worksheet columns, for example, Budget % by country. If you maintain it in the UDF, you have to enter it for every employee. If you maintain it in a lookup table, you only maintain it once. If this data changes, enter the new value in the lookup table and run the worksheets update to update the values for relevant employees.
• Employee Central Customers
  • You now have a choice on whether you want to use the UDF (as stated for Non-Employee Central Customers) or whether you want to use the integration between Employee Central and Compensation.
  • If you choose the latter, you will no longer be able to maintain Import keys. Instead, you will maintain the data in Employee Central and map it to the worksheet fields in the Compensation Plan.
  • Formulas and lookup tables will remain the same as for Non-Employee Central customers above.
• Talent Hybrid Customers
  • “With many customers migrating from an SAP on-premise solution to an SAP and SuccessFactors talent hybrid solution, we get a large number of questions around integration. SAP delivers an add-on that helps automate much of the data transfer between the two systems, but it is only a framework for integration. There is still quite a bit of configuration and development required to send data back and forth between the two environments.”
  • The above statement is an extract from a great blog, “The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly of SuccessFactors Talent Hybrid Integration” that was written by a colleague of mine, Michael White. He explains what is available and what is required to make this fully functional. To read in full, click here.
  • In this blog, I will not cover the different ways that you can move data from SAP on premise to SAP SuccessFactors other than this can be automated with configuration and/or development work.

Who will need access to worksheets?

Are certain fields hidden for one group of users but visible to others? Think about the different roles that you will need and for each role, what (on a high level) they will need to see.

Here are a few examples of roles and responsibilities:

• Compensation Administrator
  • Make changes to the worksheet configuration if needed (update the guideline matrix, update eligibility rules, update budget calculations, change formulas, etc.).
  • Proxy as planner to troubleshoot issues.
  • Launch worksheets.
  • Delete worksheets.
  • Run updates.
• Planning Manager
  • Recommend increases, adjustments, and lump sum payments to direct reports.
  • Promote direct reports.
  • Approve increases, adjustments, lump sum payments, and promotions for indirect reports.
• HR Administrator
  • Proxy as planner to troubleshoot issues for planning managers within their group.
• Executives
  • Review a combined list of all direct and indirect employees within their departments and file by location, department, and other select criteria as needed.
  • Review the overall budget for the entire group.

Who will be planning and approving worksheets and what process will you use?

There is more than one way to route the forms through the process.

Route Maps:

A route map determines the workflow for a compensation worksheet. Compensation worksheets need to be routed to several employees. For example, a compensation worksheet could start with the manager to make the initial recommendations, then move to the second level manager for review, and finally to the HR representative for approval. The path followed by a worksheet is determined by a route map.

You can set an automatic forward date to route all forms to the next step regardless of where the manager is in the planning process. No planning data will be lost in the process.

Figure 1 – Route Maps

Hierarchy-Based Approval (HBA):

This is an alternative way of handling workflows. Customers can use HBA instead of the traditional route map approach. It provides tree navigation for the organization hierarchy and a simplistic approval process based on the hierarchy.

Planning is still done on individual worksheets but approval or rejection is done for the entire organization at one time.

Figure 2 – Hierarchy-Based Approval (HBA)

Executive Review (This option can be used regardless of whether you use route maps or HBAs.):

This provides a way for users to see and/or manage the compensation planning process for a large population of employees—usually an HR Representative, a Compensation Administrator, or as the name indicates, Executives to view their entire organization.

Executive Review enables a user to see all data that a compensation planner can see on a worksheet, including demographic data, merit increases, adjustments, and etc. Whether data can be updated will be determined by permissions granted.

Executive Review is not tied to the route map in any way. A person with Executive Review permission does not have to be in the workflow and can be inside or outside of the hierarchy. Companies typically choose to have a holding step in the route map where all worksheets are sent to an administrator. Executive Review is used at this time to view the data in the worksheets. There is no approval feature in Executive Review, which is only available for viewing and editing. Once all updates are made within the Executive Review, the administrator will complete all worksheets.

Figure 3 – Executive Review

How many statements do I need?

If using compensation and variable pay, you have the option of creating one statement for each worksheet or you can select to have one combined statement for both. Also consider the number of languages this needs to be displayed in. Who will do the translations? Who will have access to view statements, and when will each group get access?

Before you decide on the format of your statement, look at the standard statements. Project scope is usually based on a statement that follows the standard layout unless otherwise specified.

Do I need to use Rewards and Recognitions?

Reward and Recognition occurs outside of the regular compensation planning period. They are often subject to the same budget, eligibility, guidelines, and approval process as focal events, but since participation is limited, they do not lend themselves well to worksheet tools.

If you are planning to use Rewards and Recognitions, here are some questions to consider:

• Will you allow peer-to-peer nominations or only within your manager hierarchy?
• If you allow peer to peer, who will approve?
• Will there be a specific budget?
• Who will be eligible to receive a reward?
• What will the approval process be for an award and will it differ based on the amount that is awarded?

In closing:

I hope that the information provided in this document will assist you in making some important decisions regarding your project. Remember that this is an opportunity to streamline processes—it is not every day that you get this opportunity so make the most of it! More important, have fun and good luck with your project!

References:

1) Compensation – Process Summaries from the SAP SuccessFactors Process Library

2) SAP SuccessFactors Compensation Configuration Workbook

3) Variable Pay Implementation Guide – Document Version: Q1 2018 – 2018-04-06

4) Compensation Implementation Guide – Document Version: Q1 2018 – 2018-04-06

5) “The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly of SuccessFactors Talent Hybrid Integration” – Blog written by Michael White. Published on November 10, 2017

6) “What Is the Difference Between SuccessFactors Compensation and Variable Pay? Do I Need Both?” – Blog written by Vivian Reynecke. Published on April 26, 2018

Note: You need an SAP S-ID to access the first four resources. The two blogs can be accessed by everyone.

About the Authors

Vivian Reynecke

I started working on SAP in 1994 and I was hooked the first time I saw the system. I have worked in the HCM space right form the start, so I have evolved with the system. Because of my SAP experience, I had the opportunity to immigrate to the USA with my husband towards the end of 1995. I worked on all HCM modules but around 2005 my focus was the Talent Management modules (Learning Management, Compensation (including Variable Pay), Recruiting, Succession & Career Development and Performance Management). By the end of 2009 I was the Capability Lead for the SAP HCM Talent Management group. In 2012 (shortly after the acquisition of SuccessFactors by SAP) I started training on SuccessFactors. I was very excited because everything that was “missing” in SAP ECC, was covered in the SuccessFactors Modules. I was given so many wonderful opportunities over the years to expand my knowledge – I worked on proposals, resource allocations, project pricing and so many other things. As with everything else, life threw me a number of curveballs, but with the support and the encouragement of all of my colleagues, friends and family, I was able to overcome stumbling blocks. I recently became part of the GP Strategies family and I am very excited to see where this new adventure is going to take me.