Dear Santa…

I love making lists.  I’m OCD like that – to-do lists, music play-lists, best-of-whatever lists, lists about things that suck that should stay in 2009, and yes, Christmas lists (notice the obvious omission of grocery lists – that’s one list I don’t do!).  This year is no different, and I have my business Christmas list here ready to share!  It’s Christmas Eve – I have a bad sweater on, spiked eggnog in hand, and am hoping that Santa brings me these things in the business world for 2010:

1. Better Demos from Vendors – Seriously.  I spent a great deal of 2009 in software demos on behalf of my clients, most of which completely missed the mark. It’s not that hard: show up on time, connect, demo to the clients needs, be cognizant of your audience (and especially your buyer!) and PLEASE don’t start talking about shortcomings in this release that are fixed in the x.xx release that is going GA in 9 months from now.  Capiche?  Michael Krupa shared similar sentiment in his blog post Psst Vendors – Some Software Demo Tips For You.

2. Transparency in Corporate Communications – The economy is taking a nose-dive.  Lay-offs are coming.  You (HR leadership/Management) think it’s a big secret, but everyone else knows it’s coming, and guess what – they are talking about it!  I saw this a lot in 2009 – companies unable to come out with some true candor in their communications around staff reductions.  The rumor mill becomes reality, and your best employees might just get scared and jump ship.  In 2010, there will likely be more opportunities for them to do just that, which brings me to my next point…

3. Employee Engagement Initiatives - Companies need to continue to find both ways to be competitive, and ways to retain top talent.  Strategically investing in improving (and effectively measuring) employee engagement can help you with both.  The problem?  This is hard to do, and it’s hard to measure.  Lance hits on this on his blog Rehaul with his post My Christmas Wish: Employee Engagement.  I’m with Lance on this, let’s get this on the agenda for 2010.

4. More focus on Adoption for Technology Projects – Project managers and Business Sponsors are defining user adoption too narrowly.  Most projects are at least trying to manage adoption for their true end-user.  The neglected aspect, in my experience, seems to be managing a wider view of stakeholder adoption within the organization.  I have seen A TON of this in 2009.  HRIS upgrade goes live – we throw a big party – Employees and Managers know what’s coming for ESS/MSS, and global operations teams trained on all of the changes to run operations, but my new data model smacks finance in the mouth and breaks their executive reporting.  It also breaks Comp’s total comp process because all of their files leveraged bank titles, job codes, and the organization hierarchy, which has all changed – their expectations haven’t been managed on the changes and they are involved far too late.  Massive #FAIL.  In 2010, lets see Project Managers and Business Sponsors manage all stakeholders – and make sure your definition of “user” is wide enough to cover the employee, manager, administrators, and anyone who depends on that data downstream.

5. Accountability – 2009 was a bit of a mess in this area wouldn’t ya say?  Economic meltdown.  Bear Stearns – gone.  Lehman Bros – gone.  American Home Mortgage – gone.  AIG – should have been gone but was saved by taxpayers.  Executive compensation was never discussed with such furor.  People wanted accountability for greed and corruption on Wall Street, and for the much slimmer 401K’s and new retirement time lines.  In 2010, standards have to be higher.  We need to hold companies, and individuals accountable.

What things do you want “under your tree”?  Comment it up!  Let’s get this party started early!

Tagged as: Adoption, Communications, Employee Engagement, HR, HRIS, Software, Technology, Transparency