In This edition

1. Reporting Results: Managing Measurement
2. Managing at the Right Level
3. Workforce Performance Management: The Time Is Now*
4. Case Law & Legislation Review: Dismissal as Sanction
5. Book Reviews
6. Web Reviews: What's in the journals
7. Unsubscribe & Moving Soon

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1. Reporting Results: Managing Measurement*

By Michael Brannick who can be contacted at mbrannick@clomedia.com.

Return on investment (ROI) and risk mitigation are important drivers of many corporate learning initiatives. But without proper assessments, organizations lack the ability to measure either of these attributes. The need for valid measurement is at the very core of every learning program. Knowledge training and assessment programs provide an abundant source of rich data, in multiple formats, that could transform the way your business operates.

If not carefully supervised, the often vast amount of data generated by learning and assessments can make information management difficult. This information might include training durations, time spent on different subject areas and assessment exam questions, integrated survey responses, employee demographic information, question sequencing, correct response and test-taker response ratios, exam results, biometrics and other security data. To grasp the true potential and ROI of any corporate learning program, there must be a valid and reliable system for capturing, storing, evaluating and communicating the sheer volume of this data. Digital data management services make this possible.

Data management lessens the administrative burden associated with managing and accessing the data from learning programs. Organizations that take advantage of these services have actionable measures of job knowledge and skill requirements, and the proof needed to validate learning and development investments. Utilizing this knowledge is essential to the creation and maintenance of any corporate-sponsored learning program, and the key to success is high-quality, trusted data that allows you to learn more about your employees' abilities and properly allocate your learning budget. As a result, you are able to make better, more informed decisions regarding the future of your corporate learning programs and ultimately, the future of the business.

The introduction of digital data management services is a forward-looking practice. Its ability to meet every business's objective of increasing customer satisfaction is revolutionary and is making its way around the business world. It is actively used throughout the certification and licensure industry. "Data management services provide the ability to more efficiently manage and grow our certification programs," said Bill McCulloch, training and certification programs manager for Adobe Systems. This kind of self-sufficiency permitted by data management services puts the power of the learning program in your hands.

According to research outlined in the American Society for Training and Development's (ASTD) 2004 State of the Industry Report, the percentage of payroll invested in employee learning in 2004 increased from 2.2 percent to 2.5 percent among all companies. The percentage of learning expenditures outsourced, as well as the number of hours spent learning, has increased steadily from 2002. It's worth noting that the use of technology for delivery, specifically Web-based delivery, continues to gain market share. Given the increase in money spent on educating employees, the need to prove ROI is more important than ever. This is further evidence of the increasingly important role knowledge assessment plays within the corporate market.

In addition to Web-based delivery, consideration also must be given when delivering more sophisticated assessments into secure testing centers. Advanced items, such as those involving workplace scenarios, complex sets of activities and simulations, must be accounted for in your data management planning. The need for robust data management becomes even more important if you offer assessments internationally, particularly in multiple languages.

Managing this information through the right data management service allows you to isolate learning performance differences and determine potential risks. This simplifies the recovery, maintenance, analysis and communication of learning results. Also, it can be essential to the ongoing advancement of the learning process and the mitigation of risks that come from poor hiring decisions and employee placement.

How Does It Work?

With the right learning measurement service in place, you are meeting the three key functional areas of any successful data management program:

Deployment of a robust framework to support the collection, access and analysis of data.

Development and ongoing maintenance of strict program privacy and security measures.

Providing the highest level of customer satisfaction possible. Through this access to comprehensive and simplified data and support, you are in control of your learning program. You can turn this data into knowledgeable and opportune action-action that will positively impact the success of your learning program and the business.

To start, you have the option of hosting the data management technology or outsourcing the hosting responsibilities. While the technology could be designed, implemented and managed by you and your staff, outsourcing can be more efficient and cost-effective. These outsourced programs are normally configured and customized for each client. Choose a vendor with solutions that are scalable, flexible and secure, that acclimate to your current business and that have the flexibility to evolve and grow with your business. The best are seamless despite your operational environment and, used appropriately, promise to become a transparent part of your organizational culture.

What's more, fully hosted solutions eliminate the need to implement and sustain data management hardware, as well as the need to maintain the expertise necessary to manage the technology. Data can be sent directly to the outsourced vendor for instant uploading. In turn, this information is instantly available for your review and use. Standardized data also can be made available through a Web interface. No matter what size your learning program is, you won't need programming skills to create or update the system's content. Quality vendors will collaborate closely with you and your staff to determine the full requirements and map the right data management system and content for your business.

Executive-level management needs to focus on the results of your corporate learning programs, not the technical infrastructure that supports them. Once implemented, those in your organization who support the learning programs will be relieved of the administrative time and headaches associated with customer support, allowing them to more fully and efficiently address customer satisfaction issues. Instead of mediating employee concerns, you will be able to focus these resources to positively influence business outcomes. You will help your staff work more effectively and provide your customers-your employees-with greater self-sufficiency to manage their personal learning performance.

Reports

Digital data management services often include real-time access to customizable, comprehensive reports. These reports configure the data to identify learning result patterns and trends. Ideally, this information serves three main purposes for the business, all designed to mitigate risk and prove ROI:

>> Triggers program maintenance and development.

>> Manages the administration of the program.

>> Directs strategic and operational business planning.

For example, you will be able to identify areas that employees have mastered or, equally important, areas that are common pitfalls. This allows you to effectively allocate your learning budget to the areas that need improvement. Acting on that information virtually guarantees an effective learning program.

Reports can easily include statistical information and synopses of employee, training and assessment exam performance. Assessment results are analyzed for item difficulty variations and overall performance. With this knowledge, your assessment questions or objective parameters can be altered to match the evolution of the corporate strategy.

Report information also can include training history, assessment scores and learning patterns or trends. All reports can be customized to the business and localized into different languages. Each is exportable in a variety of formats, such as PDF, spreadsheet and word processor documents.

Format options are useful when creating employee performance and objective planning reviews or reports. As a result, you will have a single, shared view of your employees' capabilities with a complete audit trail of changes and updates. With this access, you can promptly check and confirm employee history and resolve any learning gaps.

For example, let's say you want your HR employees to achieve HR certification status. Using your reports, you will be able to determine all of the employees who started the path toward certification but never achieved this status. Using this data, you now are able to target that audience and promote the benefits of completing the HR certification track.

Often, corporations use the results of pre-employment knowledge assessments to measure personality traits against predetermined job requirements. By using the data derived from these knowledge assessments, you can enhance employee recruitment and hiring practices, ensuring the right applicants are hired and placed in the right roles within the company. As a result, hiring costs are reduced through lower employee turnover. As these employees' performance is monitored on an ongoing basis using the data-management reporting function, the business has the assurance and proof it needs to align human capital with business objectives.

Security

The best data management services maintain strict privacy and security levels. The system should protect your data using multiple levels of sophisticated security protocols. These security measures include user sign-on requirements and user verification. During implementation of the data management technology, you will be given the opportunity to define who from your business has access, and their user roles and rights, including such controls as who can view and create data, and who has permission to edit and delete. You will be given the confidence you need to know that only the individuals you assigned are accessing the data appropriately, as outlined by their user rights.

Your Learners

Organizations that provide employees with access to formal learning programs face a variety of fascinating and trying opportunities. If used correctly, the data derived from these opportunities can not only improve risk mitigation and the way learning programs are administered, but also provide the knowledge needed to get closer to the workforce and their needs.

The improved synergy between employees and the business comes from timely and accurate feedback of their training results, benchmarked against their learning objectives and a snapshot of their personal learning progress.

Data management simplifies the process, while improving productivity, reducing costs and increasing customer satisfaction. Theoretically, employee performance could be monitored 24 hours a day, seven days a week. This anytime, anywhere access to such critical information is a powerful method for achieving business results. Correctly managed, this knowledge can enhance learning and development, allowing you to truly manage the program, rather than just the program's data.

Use this knowledge to engage and develop the value of your human assets. Assess the quality of learning and development efforts, and institute ongoing improvements and updates to further mitigate risks. Analyzing and communicating the data associated with learning programs is made less expensive through the sheer volume of easily accessible business information. Having this kind of visibility into the learning program will allow you to make decisions that positively impact employee performance, thereby enhancing profitability.

Do something proactive for your learners: Track your human capital and help improve the quality of their learning program. Make real-time business decisions and grow the value delivered by your learning program. This is true business intelligence.

*Reprinted by permission of the Managing Editor CLO Media

IN-COMPANY WORKSHOP: MANAGING CHANGE & TRANSITION IN THE NEW WORLD OF WORK

An Intensive and Practical 2- DAY WORKSHOP FOR HUMAN RESOURCES AND LINE MANAGERS TO DEVELOP THE CONFIDENCE AND COMPETENCE TO PLAN FOR AND LEAD TEAMS THROUGH CHANGE & TRANSITION. Enhance your ability to plan for and lead a team through the transitions triggered by a continuously changing world of work. Contact Jeff Sacht to request a workshop flyer and to arrange an in-company workshop customised to your requirements. Facilitation is charged on a realistic daily rate and not a per person cost. Also available as a web download for self-delivery/in-house use under license agreement. Contact jeffs@worldonline.co.za

2. Managing at the Right Level*

By Jonathan Byrnes who can be contacted at jlbyrnes@mit.edu.

Are you managing at one level too low? Many managers are frustrated by the difficulty of engaging their colleagues in paradigmatic change. Very often, the root problem is that they are managing at one level too low.

Several years ago, the CEO of a major telecommunications company was disturbed by the seeming inability of his company's managers to initiate and manage renewing change. The company was facing new competitors and major market changes, and it was imperative to respond with quantum improvements in operational efficiency, market development, and competitive positioning.

Yet he perceived that his managers were mired in day-to-day operational details, and "didn't have time" to conceive and manage fundamental change. Moreover, he felt that they had a "victim" mentality, in which they saw their own organizational gridlock in the face of competitive encroachment and felt an inability to break out of the bind.

When I looked at the organization and met with the managers, it was clear that they had a problem-a problem I've seen in many organizations, both before and since. Each manager was doing the job that should have been done by the manager below. The vice presidents were functioning as directors, the directors as managers, and the managers as supervisors.

Managers at multiple levels throughout the company were focused on the same set of work, and most did not fully trust their subordinates to perform without close supervision. When I looked closely, a surprisingly large proportion of the subordinates' work consisted of gathering information to answer managers' questions, not to actually get something done.

This was so pervasive that nobody saw it, and it was paralyzing the company's ability to innovate.

Managing effectively

It is surprisingly natural to manage at one level too low. Managers are promoted because they are good at their jobs, so it is most comfortable to continue managing in the way that was successful in the past. Also, promoted managers are rarely explicitly retrained and reoriented to understand how to manage differently at the new level. Most often, it is simply assumed that they will "get it."

Yet, managing appropriately at different levels of an organization requires very different skills, activities, and time horizons, because the objective of management changes radically. Managers who recognize these differences succeed in their new positions and rise rapidly in the organization. Those who do not remain mired in the day-to-day, often feeling victimized and helpless, not really understanding why.

In essence, managers at different levels of a company have fundamentally different jobs.

Managers oversee and operate functional areas within departments. They are responsible for efficient execution and process improvements, and they generally operate in a relatively short-term time frame.

Directors are department heads. They are responsible for overseeing the efficiency and development of the staff of their departments. But this is only half their job. The other half is a combination of restructuring their department's work for quantum improvements and coordinating with their counterparts in other departments to jointly improve the company's performance. Note: "Jointly improve" is very different from "jointly manage." Here, the timeframe of management is primarily medium-term.

Vice presidents are responsible for the company's future. They should spend the preponderance of their time working with their counterparts to develop and oversee sweeping programs of renewing change. This involves gauging and understanding profitability patterns, market opportunities, and company effectiveness, as well as evaluating, adopting, and tailoring what "best-practice" companies are doing. Vice presidents should not be focused on managing the company as it is today, but rather on creating a fundamentally new and better company. This involves close coordination and teamwork, and a long-run perspective.

This may sound obvious, but let's try an exercise. Imagine you have a videotape of the work each manager in your company performed last week. You give this tape to an outside observer who simply counts the minutes each manager spent on each sort of activity described above.

What would the summary chart look like? How much time would managers at each level have spent on process renewal and change management versus managing the day-to-day? This quick diagnostic will tell you whether they are managing at the right level.

Recently, I had dinner with a top manager of a well-known multibillion-dollar company. He shared his concerns about his company's managers. The company's operations department had a tradition of largely promoting from within. Many of the managers were very experienced at running their day-to-day operations, but they had difficulty focusing on process improvements that changed the basic nature of the business. In essence, he was describing an organization in which everyone managed at one level too low.

Interestingly, in this company, this problem did not occur across the board. The sales and marketing managers were operating at the right levels and being very effective. The prime problem lay in the operations department. In other companies, the situation is reversed. Often, the problem of managing at one level too low can be found in some departments, but not in others.

Management-process quality

In just-in-time inventory systems, the objective is not merely to lower inventory levels, per se, but rather to force the organization to stop using inventory to hide the underlying problems. Remove the inventory, and the quality problems become apparent. So do process-coordination problems. Drain the swamp, and the stumps appear.

Just as excess inventory can hide a myriad of process and coordination problems, managing at one level too low can obscure many management-process problems. To drain the swamp, managers must refocus their attention on the level right for their job. Once this happens, it will be straightforward to institute lasting improvements.

If a manager is operating at one level too low, the effects spread widely. Not only is the manager ineffective, so are all who must coordinate with that manager to create change. The organization quickly becomes gridlocked. And the problem is hidden: No one sees the opportunity cost of diverting management attention from new initiatives and change management.

This happens in company after company, and more often than not, no one realizes the tacit cause.

Management imperatives

In last month's column, ("The Age of Precision Markets"), I described how companies are increasingly creating strategic advantage, differentiation, and quantum market share increases through a combination of account management, supply chain management, and change management. Successful companies are surveying their markets and targeting certain accounts for tightly coordinated relationships, and other accounts for arm's-length relationships. Innovative managers in suppliers are creating rapid, extraordinary sales and profit increases by developing inter-company operations that radically increase the profitability of their customers' sales of the supplier's product.

This process requires a high degree of coordination at all levels of the company. Vice presidents have to work closely with one another to conceptualize and develop these new capabilities. Directors across the company have to work with each other to redefine market segments, target accounts, and create integrated processes for account development. Managers must become adept at working with colleagues from other departments in scatter-site in-account operating teams.

Managing at one level too low creates an insurmountable roadblock to succeeding in the new paradigm. When managers are preoccupied with the day-to-day, they lose the vision and capability to create this new way of doing business. Not only do they fail to create new efficiencies within the old way of doing business, but, more importantly, they lose the opportunity to succeed in the new. Their companies fall further and further behind.

Managing management effectiveness

What can a manager do? Here are three action steps to secure your company's organizational effectiveness.

Videotape your managers, figuratively. Do this in two steps. First, have your managers list the components of their jobs and estimate the proportion of their time spent on each component. Second, have the managers keep time logs for about a week to check their perceptions. In my experience, many managers see their situation clearly, but feel helpless to change it. Others need a snapshot like this to understand what's happening.

You can follow this with an assessment session, using an internal or third-party resource. Here, the managers look at their tasks and identify both those that could be done at a lower level and those that should be done but are not. It is important to have managers at different levels work on this together, as each manager affects the others. The group can then make a process improvement action plan and follow up with the same exercise six months and a year later to ensure that the change occurred.

Redefine their jobs. Using the process described above to gather the input of the managers involved, create a new set of job descriptions for managers at each level. These job descriptions should reflect the proportion of time to be spent on managing stasis versus creating change. This is critical. All job descriptions say that managers should improve the business, but unless you specify the amount of time to be spent changing things, the day-to-day will always crowd out the innovative.

Here's an issue: If a manager spends a lot of his or her time doing unproductive work, and a new lower-level resource would be needed to free up the manager, the cost of the new resource will count against budget while the results of the manager's new activities will be harder to measure. Thus, in most companies, there is a built-in bias against managing at the right level.

But the results can be dramatic. I recently worked with a company that got the equivalent of a 25 percent increase in the size of its sales force by offloading administrative work onto a few new clerks at headquarters.

Institute selective training

When managers move up a level, they need a brief, highly focused intervention to ensure that they understand the critical change in focus that the new position requires. As a manager moves up the organization, he or she not only becomes the top expert, but more importantly needs to shift focus from operating the current company to creating the future company. It is imperative to have a periodic third-party "checkup" on the mix of activities, using either an internal or external resource, because it is very difficult for a manager to detect the natural drift toward managing at one level too low.

New productivity

As managers become more knowledgeable and disciplined about managing at the right level, their subordinates will become more capable, and performance will improve surprisingly quickly. The whole organization will become more creative and productive.

At the same time, the level of stress among managers will decline noticeably.

Stress is caused by two factors: the nature of a job and an individual's feeling of lack of control. Of these, the latter is far more important. For example, an emergency room doctor has a difficult job, but lots of control. An assembly-line worker has a routine job, but little control. Most often, the doctor feels less stress than the assembly-line worker.

Managers who manage at one level too low tend to overmanage their subordinates. These subordinate managers feel a lack of control that they experience as stress, gridlock, victimization, and helplessness. This is what the CEO of the telecommunications company I described earlier saw in his company.

Top managers who guide their organizations so that everyone manages at the right level gain an enormous lever to improve their company's performance, both in the near term and for the future.

*Reprinted under license agreement with Harvard Business School, Working Knowledge

IN-COMPANY WORKSHOP: MANAGING FOR DIVERSITY

An Intensive and Practical 2- DAY MANAGEMENT/ SUPERVISOR WORKSHOP to develop insight and self-knowledge about intercultural competence and enhance your capacity to work with a diverse workforce. Contact Jeff Sacht to request a workshop flyer and to arrange an in-company workshop customised to your requirements. Facilitation is charged on a realistic daily rate and not a per person cost. Also available as a web download for self-delivery/in-house use under license agreement. Contact jeffs@worldonline.co.za

3. Workforce Performance Management: The Time Is Now*

By Josh Bersin who can be contacted at jbersin@wpsmag.com.

One of the biggest challenges in any organization is alignment. Organiza-tions have strategic, operational and tactical goals. Yet these goals are worthless unless everyone in the organization takes specific responsibility for actions, deliverables and commitments to support them.

In the 1980s and 1990s, business objectives and plans were typically "rolled out" through a series of management meetings and initiatives that reached different levels of the organization. Ultimately, the line manager was made responsible for creating a process to establish supporting goals and development plans, monitor progress, coach and create improvement plans for individual employees.

Today's managers often have very large spans of control. Many employees work at home or remotely. Large call centers and operational functions are often outsourced. In this new business environment, how can an organization maintain alignment and hold employees responsible for delivering on their commitments?

The answer is workforce performance management (WPM). It is no longer sufficient to have a robust employee appraisal process-it now must be an enterprise-wide operational performance program. When Bersin & Associates asked several thousand HR managers what their top priorities were for 2005, the number one answer was workforce performance management.

What Is Workforce Performance Management?

Workforce performance management is a systematic process for planning individual performance, managing and monitoring performance, improving performance through development, and appraising and rewarding performance. In an ideal situation, employee performance plans are linked directly to the corporate business strategies.

For example, Aetna has a corporate-wide, three-year business-planning process that establishes an annual operating plan. The annual operating plan is then used by departments and divisions to build departmental operating plans. Once these departmental plans are complete, managers must develop individual employee performance plans that contribute to these departmental goals.

To develop these plans, managers meet with employees to discuss expectations, learning and development needs, performance measures and how performance will be evaluated. Each employee is required to create an annual learning and development plan. Aetna has established a scorecard that enables directors and vice presidents to see the status of such performance plans and roll up results into overall business goals and strategies. This highly refined process is supported at the top executive level at Aetna. Today, more than 99 percent of Aetna employees have a development plan.

The bottom line is that workforce performance management is part of an ongoing process for managing the business. When well executed, performance management draws upon corporate business goals and operational goals; it creates and feeds the department or division's learning and development plan; it provides the input for talent management and succession planning; and it makes hiring and workforce planning easier and more focused.

The State of WPM Today

The example set by Aetna is not as widespread as one would hope. Research shows that there is a very wide range of processes, systems and approaches used for WPM today. Fewer than 20 percent of organizations recently surveyed have any systematic performance management process or system at all. Fifty-nine percent said that they have poor compliance with the processes they do use, and 47 percent said that they need to improve managers' skills and ability to use the processes. It often takes a major financial event or significant operating loss to drive a company to develop and embrace an enterprise-wide workforce performance initiative.

For instance, prior to Sept. 11, 2001, American Airlines did not have a company-wide approach to workforce performance management. Each operating department had its own manual process, based on individual objectives. After 9/11 and its accompanying impact on the airline business, the company realized it needed a significant new focus on alignment, new skills, new processes and compliance. American developed a turnaround plan that focused on teamwork, customer value and financial goals. American's program uses cascaded objectives, performance appraisals, ongoing feedback, and learning and development. The company implemented a system from Kenexa to manage the process, and today more than 8,000 people have 50,000 objectives aligned directly with the turnaround plan. In this case, the financial stress of 9/11 drove American to implement this enterprise-wide system.

Workforce performance management is an area where technology approaches are still new. Many organizations that do have performance management processes use paper-based approaches. These are time-consuming and do not guarantee consistency. The technology vendors that provide workforce performance solutions are generally small. Most WPM "systems" are internally developed.

Bechtel, for example, has a well-refined process for establishing performance plans for first- and second-line managers. Individuals must report on their weaknesses and areas of improvement directly to subordinates and seek peer feedback. The entire process is automated through an internally developed worldwide Bechtel system, which was developed years ago. No vendor-provided WPM solution has yet been able to replicate what Bechtel does. (For more information on performance management at Bechtel, read the Application article on page 32.)

Do these strict and formal WPM processes result in improved business results? Some evidence says yes. A recent study by Aberdeen seems to indicate that higher-performing companies do have more formal WPM processes. But does this mean that WPM processes cause this impact? Or does it mean that organizations with WPM processes are also better at managing other business processes, such as sales, order processing, customer support and manufacturing? Bersin & Associates is currently conducting a study to determine if and how WPM directly impacts business outcomes.

The Convergence of WPM and LMS

One of the biggest trends in the market is a coming convergence between workforce performance management systems and learning management systems. The LMS market is rapidly maturing, with approximately 20 to 30 major vendors selling highly scalable and complete solutions for the management of training, customer education and e-learning. These learning-and-development-focused applications typically have skills and competency databases and include a variety of manager tools to help employees create and manage learning plans, certifications and certificate programs. Research shows that nearly 40 percent of major corporations have some kind of LMS today (many are still internally developed), and these systems provide excellent business value.

Should companies purchase both an LMS and a WPM system? Or will these converge into a single application? Best practices show that organizations integrate or converge these two systems into one-and this seems to be a clear trend in the market.

As organizations look at the details of workforce performance management, they find that many of the functions needed for WPM are closely tied to those in the LMS. Let me highlight just a few reasons for this convergence:

# Development plans: One major element of the workforce performance management process is a development plan. The LMS can take the development plan and map it to specific training programs and learning offerings. The LMS tracks scores, completion and compliance with these programs. This data, then, should be integrated into the WPM system.

# Demand for supporting learning programs: Development plans lead to a demand for supporting training programs. Learning departments, which continuously struggle to stay close to the business, want to monitor this demand closely. The LMS, then, can essentially be fed from these development plans to help the training organization schedule enough courses, purchase the right content and develop the right programs based on managers' and executives' needs.

# Data and organization hierarchy: LMSs are deployed to every employee and manager in the company. If an organization already has an LMS, and it is populated with every employee's data, why replicate all this data and effort into a second system? By integrating WPM and the LMS, the system can share the same detailed data about employees, reporting structure, accounting codes, geography, language and more.

# Assessment tools: LMSs are often built around powerful testing and assessment tools. WPM systems need similar functionality. Why wouldn't the WPM system and LMS share the same tools, database and reporting?

Suppliers Moving in This Direction

Just as Aetna and other companies tie their performance management and learning management systems together, vendors are doing the same. A growing number of LMS companies are starting to add WPM functionality to their products, including CyberU, KnowledgePlanet, MeridianKSI, Saba and many more. SumTotal Systems, a leading provider of LMS solutions, partners closely with SuccessFactors. This is a trend for the future.

What Should You Do?

An increasing number of research sources say that workforce performance is the ultimate problem they want to solve. How do you implement such a solution? What are the first steps?

Gain executive support for an enterprise-wide focus and process. The process does not have to be highly complex, but it should be consistent and thoroughly understood.

Decide your business strategy. What business problems do you want WPM to solve? Are you trying to create alignment? Accountability? Flexibility? Strict measurement of results? These goals are the drivers that will help you develop the right process and select the right solution.

Review your technology strategy. If you have an LMS, can you build upon or extend your LMS investment to evolve into a WPM solution? Perhaps your LMS vendor has a solution. Does your enterprise resource planning (ERP) vendor have a viable approach? How well will it integrate with your LMS solution?

Set up a multi-disciplinary team. Research and consulting with learning and training organizations have shown that a team approach is critical. HR, line management, training and IT must all be involved in any WPM solution. Together, the team will raise the right issues and help you avoid implementing a process or system that no one will use.

The time for WPM is now. We look forward to giving you more insights into this emerging and fast-growing approach to human capital management.

The Emergence of WPM Systems

As companies become more connected and familiar with internal systems, the workforce performance management (WPM) applications market has started to grow. Today, approximately two-thirds of companies using any kind of technology automation tell us that their WPM systems are internally developed. Yet a growing array of vendor solutions is becoming available. At latest count, nearly 30 companies deliver some kind of WPM solution.

This market is experiencing evolution similar to what the LMS market experienced. In the early 1990s, LMS systems were all internally developed. By the late 1990s, vendor solutions started to become widely available. Now, enterprise-wide LMS solutions are becoming more widely adopted, and the overall number of viable options has grown significantly.

The same thing is happening with the WPM market. The largest provider of WPM software today, SuccessFactors, is still a small company. SuccessFactors competes with a wide range of suppliers, including Authoria, CyberU, Effective Technology Solutions, Exxceed, Halogen, Human Asset Technologies, Inscope, IPS, Kenexa, Mindsolve, Organizational Metrics, PeopleIQ, Pilat, Recruitmax, Softscape, Synygy, Via People, Workscape and Workstream. Each of these companies markets a software solution that addresses different components of workforce performance management. SAP and PeopleSoft (acquired by Oracle), both recently entered the market and claim to have hundreds of licensed clients. However, most of these are just starting to implement the solutions.

Similar to the early market for learning management systems, the WPM market is fragmented, difficult to understand and filled with companies that serve different customer types. Over the next few years, as workforce performance management becomes more popular, leaders will emerge.

*Reprinted by permission of the managing editor of Workforce Performance Solutions

IN-COMPANY WORKSHOP: EMPLOYMENT EQUITY COMMITTEE TRAINING

An Intensive 2-Day In-Company programme For ELECTED EMPLOYMENT EQUITY (EE) MEMBERS & CHAIRPERSON To Competently & Confidently Represent Co-Workers. Contact Jeff Sacht to request a workshop flyer and to arrange an in-company workshop customised to your requirements. Facilitation is charged on a realistic daily rate and not a per person cost.

Also available as a web download for self-delivery/in-house use under license agreement. Contact jeffs@worldonline.co.za

4. Case-Law & Legislation Review: Dismissal as Sanction

By Gary Watkins who can be contacted at

www.caselaw.co.za  ; www.workinfo.com 

Case No: MEGA2300

Award Date: 17 February 2005

Jurisdiction: MEIBC: Johannesburg

Commissioner: Gaylard JM

# SUBJECT DISMISSAL AS SANCTION

ISSUE: The employee claimed that there had been no agreement to change to a two-shift system but that the employees had been locked in against their wills and were thus prevented from leaving early. The employee had failed to lodge a grievance concerning the new shifts which had been introduced after extensive consultations with the workforce. The employee had refused to work his working hours and despite numerous discussions and warnings, he continued to leave early, ignoring instructions. The sanction of dismissal in this instance was appropriate.

SUMMARY OF FACTS: The employer claimed that the employee was dismissed for "poor work attendance", in that over a period of time, despite warnings from the company, he left the workplace early. Due to the operational requirements of the employer, consultation took place to change the shift cycle to two rotating twelve-hour shifts. The employees accepted this arrangement and worked according to the above working hours for a period of about a year. At this juncture, the GP section was relocated in order to save costs. After the move took place the employees requested to revert back to the old shift system, working hours of 6h00-17h30 and 18h00-5h30. This request was considered by management but an immediate change was not possible as a result of the manufacturing process. The employee, however reverted to the hours as requested by the employees and despite several warnings, continued to leave early. The employee claimed that the changed shifts were never agreed to by the employees, but that before they moved premises, they were unable to leave early as the gate would be locked until the time when the employer wanted them to leave.

SUMMARY OF JUDGEMENT: As the employee failed to lodge a grievance about being "locked in", the Commissioner accepted the version of the employer that the change in shifts had been agreed to. The Commissioner found that the version of the employer was more probable and that the employer would not have taken disciplinary steps against the employee if there had been no agreement to the changed shifts. A second employee, who had also been leaving early, stopped doing this after receiving a warning. The employee refused to stop his misconduct. The Commissioner found that dismissal was an appropriate sanction under the circumstances.

5. Book Reviews

# House of Lies: How Management Consultants Steal Your Watch and Then Tell You the Time

By Martin Kihn, Warner Business Books, 2005

Martin Kihn, a Columbia Business School graduate and Emmy-nominated comedy writer for the MTV networks show Pop-up Video, serves up satire to convey his provocative and absolutely cynical view of the management consulting profession. He should know: He spent time as a consultant for a leading firm, whose identity is disguised here.

Kihn relies on his proclivity for comedy writing, and at times House of Lies reads like a script for Saturday Night Live. While the theoretical purpose of management consulting is to analyze businesses and help them succeed, in reality, says Kihn, management consultants spend most of their energy scouting for new business. After reeling in their clients, they charge enormous fees yet offer very little in the way of valuable insight.

The book is arranged into four sections, but the logic behind the structure is somewhat unclear. "Top-Tier Management Consulting for Absolute Blithering Idiots" describes the supposed importance of the power that is embedded within the hierarchical organizational structure of large consulting firms. "Consulting Craft Skills for a Well-Stocked Tool Kit" focuses on tips for effective communication as a management consultant and outlines some consulting lingo. Kihn is particularly amusing in a scenario on giving and receiving "erroneous" feedback from colleagues and partners. Another section, "In the Client's Own Godforsaken Town," describes a day in the life of a top-tier consultant. Finally, the section "Analyze This: A Minute History of Classic Consulting Texts" contains a survey of popular consulting texts such as Michael Porter's Competitive Strategy as well as Kihn's sarcastic condemnation of the business book industry in general.

Managers might find it difficult to take House of Lies seriously, but it may give them second thoughts the next time they consider spending thousands of dollars to hire a consultant to solve their organizational woes.

6. Web Reviews: What's in the journals

We've looked at (and admired) the Economist.com site before. But this feature-a regular wrap-up and commentary on leading articles from a number of business journals-should be on your to-do list at the first of every month. Journals reviewed here include our own Harvard Business Review as well as Capital Ideas, Academy of Management Journal, Strategic Management Journal, and Journal of Management. For example, summaries in the June issue include a Strategic Management Journal piece on "attribution theory," a fresh look at the effectiveness of online banner ads from Capital Ideas (the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business), and a Journal of Management look at top management pay and performance in multinational companies.

View the website: http://www.economist.com/agenda/displaystory.cfm?story_id=2765728 

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