A Wrap-Up of #HRTechConf 2013

Guest post by Chip Pike, Chief Product Officer for InterviewStream

Our team returned this week from the HR Technology Conference in Las Vegas. We all know the saying, “What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas.” Not this time. I am excited to tell you all about our experience and to share some insights gleaned from the many excellent conference sessions.

Thanks to our fantastic marketingteam, our vendor booth was a hit at the show. Attendees will remember us for a long time with our white jackets (sort of a “rat pack” look) and the mind-blowing illusions from Nick Ivory. We had lots of visitors to our booth and many interesting and fruitful conversations.

The vendors attending the conference represented a broad range of products and services, including: applicant tracking systems, assessment, e-learning, HR management systems, performance management, recruitment, screening, staffing, talent management, testing, training and development, and workforce planning. There were seven video screening and interviewing vendors with booths indicating that video interviewing continues to increase in popularity and demand. It is always good to see and interact with the competition to understand where we stack up in the industry.

The conference sessions covered a range of topics representing eight strands (strategic view, social in the enterprise, talent management, workforce analytics & planning, HCM & workforce management, recruiting, service delivery, and expert discussion & HR tech talks). I attended many of the sessions and will briefly summarize some of the information that stood out and caught my attention below:

• The conference started with the opening remarks and keynote from Don Tapscott. He talked about radical openness and how organizations are embracing transparency and collaborating on a large scale. This revolutionary new approach is affecting every facet of society but comes with risks and responsibilities.

• Cigna’s presentation, “Collaboration Connects the Enterprise at Cigna” highlighted their new social and collaborative portal that is being used by all 33,000 employees. The portal includes an all-company blog that any employee can post to on any topic and has become the first stop of the day for many employees.

• Hilton Worldwide is using video screening and interviewing to help their 50 recruiters hire 70,000 new employees every year. They use digital sourcing and screening to hire hourly workers, college graduates, veterans, management team members, and executives. Hilton built an online micro-site that is branded and personalizes the candidate experience. Video screening and interviewing allows Hilton to broaden and deepen their candidate pool leading to quality hires.

• The session from CedarCrestone revealed some interesting data from the 16^th annual HR systems survey. Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) replacement is at a tipping point and mobile applications are over-hyped with only six percent of employees using them. The survey is the broadest in the industry and included over 1,300 responses. Key initiatives for 2013 and 2014 include talent management, business process improvement, HR systems integration, business intelligence, and expanding HRMS globally.

• I thought “The Recruiting Technology State of the Union” was one of the most interesting presentations of the conference. The majority of companies surveyed didn’t have a recruiting solution currently in place but do have processes and technology to support recruiting. Recruiting technology today includes everything from reference checks, job posting, and event management to video interviewing, workflow management, and predictive analytics. Companies are aligning their solutions through evolution, experimentation, explosion, and adoption.

• The session on “MOOC’s, Mobile and the LMS: Learning Systems Strategies in 2013” provided some good data on the status of learning and content development. The design elements of most LMS’ come from ideas that are 10 to 15 years old. Traditional LMS vendors have morphed into talent management solutions with a cloud-based focus. Tools for mobile, social, and game-based learning have exploded and Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) are transforming the industry. Learning needs to be ubiquitous, personalized, and on-demand. The focus of content development must be scalability, community, and connection.

I can’t wait until next year so we can do it all over again! Hope to see you there!