“Goal achievement for teams.”
Business will continue to evolve around mobility, social networking and team engagement, Deloitte wrote in the recently published HR Technology Disruptions for 2018 report. Which is right in the wheelhouse of MyObjectives, and, in fact, our product was mentioned in the report.
What really struck us about the report, written by Josh Bersin, was the growing emphasis on teams. At MyObjectives, we’ve led with the “goal achievement for teams” mantra from the get-go. And while the concept of team-based management has begun to take root in recent years, not too long ago, it was still a disruptive concept.
The end of the 20th century focused on process management, the early 2000s shifted towards people management. In 2015, with the launch of MyObjectives (a tool which we had deployed in private beta for several years leading up to the public release), we asserted that MyObjectives was the first team-based solution that provides real-time feedback on team success. We had introduced a solution to the market that, for the first time, prioritized teams over individuals in order to improve business outcomes.
MyObjectives is first and foremost a workforce productivity tool.
However, it’s one thing to make claims about one’s own product and the significance of its value proposition in an evolving market, it’s another thing to have those claims validated by an independent, and highly regarded research entity in HR technology and performance management industry. Deloitte’s research branch Bersin, called out 10 disruptive trends to look out for in 2018.
We’ll discuss the first three in this blog. They are particularly relevant to MyObjectives, what we were doing back then, and what we continue to do today.
1) New focus on tools for workforce productivity
“These mobile-enabled tools resemble social networking platforms, letting employees post pictures and create groups and alerts, and are designed to facilitate team-based communication in ways email can’t.”
MyObjectives is first and foremost a workforce productivity tool. With the team scorecard as the heart of the product, MyObjectives aligns team members across an organization in pursuit of a common goal. This year we stepped it up a notch by introducing mobile apps for both the iOS and Android platforms. Now users can update progress on goals wherever, whenever. Additionally, we are constantly making improvements to the interface and user experience for MyObjectives. Many of these features, as Bersin highlights, are valuable in their effectiveness of creating a social community vis-à-vis the company’s primary productivity tool. Face bubbles, in-app alerts and messaging, leaderboards, badges, and customizable personal profiles contribute to the engaging nature of MyObjectives.
2) ERP and HCM move to the cloud as the talent market reinvents itself
“Talent management is being redefined as part of a new category we call “team management.” These tools do not behave like talent or people management systems because they are designed with the team at the center. Another emerging subcategory likely to grow rapidly is gig- or project-based work management systems.”
We swear we didn’t pay them to say that. But it’s great to have the validation that workplace productivity is driven by a focus on team orientation.
What exactly do we, and Bersin mean by team orientation? Well to put it one way: In the final moments of making a play, a goal is usually scored by an individual, though the entire team worked to create the successful drive. MyObjectives focuses on the team effort, reinforcing the truth that teams succeed together, even in business.
With MyObjectives, the senior leadership team can align the business’ organizational structure with the scorecard team structure. And because MyObjectives is a cloud-based, subscription model, users are assured secure, reliable, and on-demand access to their data. This at a price that organizations of any size can afford. Lastly, the recommended quarterly cadence for setting up goals, working towards them, and evaluating performance at the end of the period, is well aligned to the idea of a gig- or project- based work management system. In another word, teams!
We don’t want to toot our own horn here – if the team scorecard is the heart of MyObjectives, continuous, performance management is the spirit – but Bersin did it for us.
3) Continuous performance management has arrived
“Companies are now looking for tools that adapt as people move from project to project and team to team, and make employee-manager interactions simpler. Some of the leading tools are designed by game designers, making them easy to use, agile, and data-driven.”
We don’t want to toot our own horn here – if the team scorecard is the heart of MyObjectives, continuous, performance management is the spirit – but Bersin did it for us.
“Of course, the market has not waited for the big vendors to adapt. A fast-growing set of exciting new tools has also entered the market. Some of the leading tools were designed by experienced game designers, which means their systems are typically very easy to use, very agile, and very data-driven. This category includes companies such as Alliance Enterprises,” the Bersin report said.
Alliance Enterprises is our parent company, of course. When we first designed MyObjectives we did extensive research with independent game designers to improve the gamification aspect of the product. What resulted was a solution that is not only incredibly effective as a performance management tool, but one that employees enjoy using. As we all know, a tool is only effective when in use, and with MyObjectives we see weekly, and in some cases daily, interaction with the tool.
Many team scorecard owners use the scorecard as the template for their daily scrums, others use it to guide one-on-one discussions about performance and growth opportunities, while business leaders use it to get a birds-eye view of performance across the organization to see where teams might be struggling and in need of assistance and where other teams may be ready to take on new work.
Though not a surprise to us, we’re thrilled that our app is associated with emerging trends in HR technology and employee engagement. Here’s to a lot more team success in 2018!