Salesforce to Rypple gamification and social media out into HCM space

Just before Christmas, Salesforce.com made a move that was either very surprising or totally predictable, depending on your interpretation of events. The move in question was the decision to acquire Toronto-based HR system provider, Rypple. This was a surprise to the extent that Salesforce.com’s chief executive Marc Benioff had previously been resolute in his intent […]
Talent Spot: Helene Speight, head of HR at Endava
“My experience on ‘The Apprentice’ didn’t teach me anything about business, but it did teach me about the media and it also taught me a lot about myself,” says Helene Speight, group head of talent management at nearshore IT outsourcing services provider, Endava. And having self-awareness and an understanding of one’s own strengths and weaknesses […]
Salesforce.com follows SAP into Cloud HCM market
Following on from last week’s SAP acquisition of SuccessFactors, customer management specialist Salesforce.com has also gone Christmas shopping, and with what looks like a similar idea in mind. Its target is Toronto-based Rypple, which like SuccessFactors is a player in the HCM sector. Unlike SuccessFactors, however, Rypple is a 2008 start up business with just […]
Gamification: How to play ball with staff engagement
Engaged employees are more effective and innovative because they are showing their true selves at work. Involvement is key to engagement and games have always epitomised that. So it stands to reason that an effective route to employee engagement is to encourage people to play games. In our recent international executive survey, which explored […]
Case Study: Rentokil Initial introduces “cohesion” by integrating HR processes
Rentokil Initial has automated and integrated its HR processes in a bid to make them more cohesive as part of a broader company-wide initiative to standardise administrative and operational procedures. The pest control and cleaning specialist is a £2.5 billion global organisation that employs an international workforce of 66,000. But, according to group HR operations […]
Cloud TV: SuccessFactors’ Paul Roberts on HCM and the cloud
At this year’s Business Cloud Summit, Neil Davey, editor of HRZone’s sister site, myCustomer.com, sat down to mull over cloud computing, HCM and business execution with Paul Roberts, Software-as-a-Service vendor SuccessFactors’ country manager for the UK and Ireland.
Four-year central government HR framework deal goes to Logica

Responsibility for providing transactional HR, payroll and finance services to central government has been handed to Logica under a four-year framework contract valued at between £50m and £500m. Marie-Helene Durif, head of sourcing and category management at the Government Procurement Service, said: "The award of this contract is another milestone in the government’s strategy to […]
News Analysis: The HCM battle begins – Will HRDs finally get technology they like using?
The human capital management software market was always going to be a turbulent place in 2012. The battle lines were to be drawn by Oracle rolling out its next generation Fusion applications, while Software-as-a-Service specialist Workday continued its attempts to steal away customers with ageing PeopleSoft systems from under Oracle’s nose. But last week, […]
Talent Spot: Andrew Powell, COO of Colt Technology Services
Andrew Powell landed a six-week consultancy contract at Colt Technology Services in 2006 and has been there ever since. Despite falling into employment with the telecoms and IT services firm “completely by accident”, he is now chief operating officer after having held five other senior positions at the company within five years – which includes […]
Police officers left “directionless” during riots due to equipment failure
Equipment shortages together with failings in the Airwave digital radio network led to police officers being left "directionless" during this summer’s riots, a highly-critical leaked report has said. The Police Federation review, which was leaked to the Observer, revealed that the Police National Information Co-ordination Centre, the body set up to co-ordinate the response to […]
Business Cloud Summit: Cloud = the end of tech talk for HR
A key advantage of cloud computing in an HR context is that it removes the need to talk about technology with professionals that have to date shown little interest in it. Teresa Farrell, IT and projects manager for Irish Life and Permanent Plc’s group HR service centre development, said during a panel discussion at the […]
SAP’s $3.4bn SuccessFactors’ takeover to change HCM cloud market forever
Two years ago electronics giant Siemens surprised the world by electing to replace fellow German firm SAP as its HCM and talent management software provider with Cloud HCM firm SuccessFactors. It was a massive propaganda victory for the Cloud firm and resulted in what remains the largest Cloud Computing applications deployment in the world – […]
Live blog: Business Cloud Summit 2011 #BCS11
Replay live coverage from the Business Cloud Summit, the UK’s most established Cloud Computing event, from 9am on Monday 5 December. See below for a live blog of the business stream. The Twitter hashtag is #BCS11. Business stream: cover://v/fdcb4f2a88
What role does HR play in social media usage?
Sift Media’s analyst and research arm, K2 Advisory, has unveiled a significant new survey in order to understand the role that HR plays in shaping the use of social networking tools in today’s workplace. The world of work is changing at a very rapid pace and many of the drivers of this change are technology-based: […]
Update: UK worker loses race discrimination claim against Chinese telco
A UK worker has lost his case against a Chinese telecoms company that he sued for race discrimination after claiming that 49 workers in Basingstoke were axed and replaced with Chinese nationals. Judeson Peter, a customer support engineer who was paid £48,000 per annum by Huawei Technologies, accused the firm of making him redundant because […]
CIPD Conference: Creating a culture of innovation
Innovation does not simply happen of its own accord. It is instead born out of a corporate culture that allows individuals to challenge what is possible, but also to make mistakes without being afraid of the possible repercussions. These were the key findings of a keynote panel discussion entitled ‘Creating a Culture of Innovation […]
Case Study: Lancaster Landmark Hotels focuses on attitude to boost retention
The Lancaster Landmark Hotel Group has boosted both staff retention and customer service levels by focusing on recruiting and developing personnel who it believes have the right attitude and behaviour. The organisation operates three high-end London hotels, each of which is managed independently and caters to different types of customers, which made it difficult to […]
The changing face of the European HR technology market

Over the last few years, the delivery of HR services in Europe has evolved significantly, driven largely by a need to balance increased demand with the ability to manage costs – and improve quality. European economies are more diverse than in any other region of the world and businesses are under tremendous pressure to be […]
Video Interview: HR, execution and the cloud
Doug Dennerline, president of SuccessFactors, talks about how to bridge the gap between cloud strategy and execution. Watch this video to find out where he thinks cloud computing is headed in 2012.
Blog: High-performance HR – it’s about technology AND social media
“I only have 90 connections, I know but I was only connected to LinkedIn about a year ago.” “Yes, I did look her up on LinkedIn and I thought: ‘how you could be the head of HR and only have 32 connections?’” These statements came from people I spoke with last week concerning the […]