Chip.Luman
Chip Luman is the Chief Operating Officer and co-founder of HireVue where he leverages more than 25 years of general management, operations and human resources experience to ensure the success of HireVue's customers. Chip serves on the advisory boards of PTO Exchange and Patheer and the board of trustees of KRCL Radio. His off hours are spent with family and seeing live music. You can follow him on Twitter or on his website.
History
- Member for
- 11 years 6 months
Articles by Chip.Luman
To name my blog I listed ideas and adjectives describing the philosophies and passions that shape how I approach life and work.
The world is constantly bombarded with the emergence of new tools and technologies that change the way we live and work. And while many of these innovations can bring new efficiencies to the workplace, implementing these solutions can present a number of challenges. In addition to gaining executive buy-in and company-wide adoption, another key aspect is ensuring that any new technology acquisition complies with both the company’s legal processes and the larger local and federal regulations.
The last few years have seen the creation of an enormous amount of mobile applications designed to transform the way work is done. As more people ditch their laptops for the greater convenience of tablets, demand for mobile apps that can facilitate tasks and communications has never been higher. With developers racing to create the next great app, it can be challenging to determine which solutions will bring the most positive results.
As many companies are still in the midst of their planning for 2014, there are a number of factors that will impact the way they hire new talent and manage their employees. As the HR space is constantly changing, with new ideas and technologies constantly cropping up, organizations need to identify how the latest developments can improve their talent management processes and figure out how they can be integrated into their current systems.
To say that today’s employees and job candidates value a company that can provide a strong work-life balance is an understatement. With more flexibility in work schedules and work from home arrangements in greater demand, employers unable or unwilling to meet those expectations will have a hard time keeping their best employees – not to mention, finding new, high-quality talent to replace them.
The multitude of new HR systems and solutions currently on the market all promise to bring greater efficiencies to the way we conduct our talent management processes. And as HR technology continues to evolve, so has the way these solutions are implemented. Long gone are the days of on-premise implementations and heavy involvement from the IT department; as SaaS-delivered solutions have become the norm, organizations can simply implement a new system with the press of a button.
Succession planning has typically been a very politicized process – decisions about who should be advanced are often kept in the board room, where managers discuss in private the merits of their various employees. Behind closed doors, they often use subjective methods and play favorites. Yet, to be most effective, succession plans should be derived from objective data to ensure that the most qualified employees – those than show the greatest skills and aptitude to take on a leadership role – are advanced.
This should come as no surprise, but the HR department is crucial to the operations of any business. Identifying and onboarding the people responsible for delivering key objectives, keeping current employees engaged and working productively and ensuring all employees receive necessary training and development are just some of our more high profile functions. What is surprising, though, is how few HR professionals realize their value and their power to drive change.
For HR professionals, ensuring their company maintains compliance with all regulatory requirements is a key aspect of the job and necessary to avoid compliance issues and the resulting penalties. Yet, it is easy to get lost in all of the legal verbiage and numerous acronyms; keeping track of policies like FMLA, ADA, ADAAA, ENDA, FSLA, ADEA, IRCA, ERISA may have you asking: HUH?
Today’s companies recognize that every individual on their team is important and that their contributions have an impact on the company as a whole. At the same time, in the age of big data, more information is widely available to all stakeholders, shaking up the traditional, top-down communication style. These changes bring about a state of collective leadership – where individuals can easily collaborate to make decisions that improve performance, at both the personal and business-wide level.
When interviewing candidates for a new Head of HR position at HireVue, I had a simple question for each applicant: If you could have a clean slate and start the talent acquisition process totally anew, what would you do? Surprisingly, the majority of candidates were unable to provide a good answer. Most just talked about doing things the old way, but using new tools.
One of the most exciting things about working in HR is that the field is always changing, constantly bringing about new trends and technologies to our daily operations. While this means that we must always be on our toes and be committed to learning new things on a regular basis, each new development that we embrace will help to make our jobs easier and bring greater efficiency to the entire HR function.
As new college graduates continue to inundate the job market and economic concerns have caused older employees to stay in the workforce longer, today’s companies often have employees representing four distinct generations. With more than 50 years separating some employees, managing these multigenerational teams can be incredibly challenging.
Globally, companies are struggling to find talent in a market saturated with applicants. For most organizations, the problem is the gap between available skills in the talent pool and their current job requirements. There are simply not enough people with the requisite experience, education and knowledge to drive and fuel innovation and growth.
What have you done for me lately? It's a vital question for both manager and employee.
The answer is readily apparent with increasing ease and frequency. As information flow and transparency become ubiquitous in the workplace, managers have everything necessary to provide real-time feedback.
We can be nimble and, in turn, help our teams and companies do the same. The days of the regimented quarterly and annual performance reviews are over.