Managing Your ''Greatest Asset'' - Human Capital - CFO.com

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Talent-management software can add consistency to compensation programs and light a fire under ''laggards'' in your workforce.
Lisa Yoon, CFO.com
March 22, 2006
'People are our greatest asset.' That truism is too warm and fuzzy for Paul Murray, chief financial officer of Proxicom, a developer and manager of Internet-based software. The consultants who make up the majority of Proxicom's workforce are what Murray calls 'billable resources' — and they're not billing hours, he notes, if they're 'wasting time on administrative tasks.'
Take performance reviews, which hadn't been conducted in the three years before Murray joined the Reston, Virginia-based company in 2004. The first efforts to resume them lacked any discernable system or organization — 'tons of Word documents floating around' is how Murray remembers it.
advertisement Last October, Proxicom turned to a Web-based solution of its own: talent management technology from SuccessFactors. The San Mateo, California-based company is one of a growing number — others include Halogen Software, Authoria, Taleo, and Recruitmax — that are introducing sophisticated talent-management software that's much more user-friendly than in years past. Indeed, technology consultancy Yankee Group expects the market for such products to grow by 20 percent this year alone.
The SuccessFactors product is based on a suite of seven modules. The performance-management module, for instance, automates reviews (no more Word documents) and offers a 'writing assistant' to help managers and employees choose appropriate "