Now that all the analysts have spoken and market insights have been given, a lot has been said about the Aon and Hewitt Merger. Both good and not so good comments have been made about this upcoming union, and most having to do with the impact of this merger on the human resources outsourcing market and HR consulting market.   In case you haven’t heard, Aon Corporation announced on July 12th that they plan to purchase Hewitt and Associates for $4. Read the Full Article

I often hear the question, what do the Business leaders want from HR? – Especially from solution providers during briefings and product/service updates. I actually heard that question twice last week - while speaking with 2 major HRO providers.   To this type of question I usually have 2 follow up questions: Are we asking about executive level business leaders or line managers? Are we asking about what they “need” or “what they want”? So, I thought I'd capture a few comments and insights on this topic from our research on High Impact HR organizations - I've had the opportunity to conduct both HR and business leader interviews now, and can share some interesting findings from those discussioins. Read the Full Article

I attended Mercer’s analyst day last week and had an opportunity to chat a bit about the Health Care Reform changes. In our space today, HR professionals can’t afford to work in silos and the newest Health Care Reforms are just another reminder of the importance of working as a team with integrated efforts. One of the many upcoming changes in the new legislation will be the 2014 requirement that large organizations offer “full-time” employees and their dependents the opportunity to enroll in minimum essential coverage under an employer sponsored insurance plan. Read the Full Article

 “How do you Change Corporate Culture?” is a recent question asked in a LinkedIn online discussion group that I participate in from time to time with Executives and Leaders from around the world.   On average a good post in this group gets between 3 to 5 comments. So when I saw that a particular topic had over 30 comments, I took a deeper look at the discussion thread about Corporate Culture’s and found some interesting comments and themes posted by these leaders: Culture is created and supported by the leaders Culture is based on behaviors in an organization not words or marketing efforts It could be both a positive and a negative for an organization, but always has an impact It doesn’t change easily and is built over time Corporate culture is seen as “how work gets done” in an organization Finally and most interesting, to me, was a lack of clarity around the role and impact of training, HR, and process improvement efforts in changing culture. Read the Full Article

Can we really measure the impact of integrated talent management efforts? A focus on talent management measurement strategies will be the next step for most organizations that have spent both time and energy on system implementation and process integration efforts.   Business leaders are beginning to expect HR and talent leaders to provide data that can help them make critical business decisions. Just before our Bersin & Associates IMPACT conference last week, I had the great opportunity to visit Zurich and co-facilitate a workshop with three phenomenal companies (2 large international financial organizations, and a large international pharmaceutical organization). Read the Full Article