Logo Why Cornerstone Solutions Resources Company Book a Demo Logo Topics Resource Categories BLOG POST Great moments, shared as a team As April whizzes past, we sit down with some of our Cornerstars, who are currently celebrating their work anniversaries, and ask them to reflect on their experiences at Cornerstone so far. In our previous blog, the focus was on the people and how it’s the employees at Cornerstone that make it such a great place to work. And this shared ethos of working together and helping each other has been talked about by each Cornerstar we’ve asked. “It’s about the teamwork, a team you can depend on, people that go the extra mile, helping and being helped. Our greatest asset is our people, I state this in every meeting I have with prospects and clients” said Max Schroeter, Regional Sales Manager at Cornerstone. Hanns Horvath, Delivery Manager, agreed and said “I like the people. They are all the best.” When we asked our Cornerstars what has been there favourite moment so far, it is no surprise that they struggled to name just one. However, the event that came up the most was Convergence. Each year we hold a conference for clients and colleagues alike to come together and connect. “Getting all our clients to come to the dancefloor and dance. It’s one of the many reasons they like coming to Cornerstone events, being able to party with the Cornerstars!” said Max Schroeter. For Christiaan Weurding, Regional Sales Manager, the overall support and activities at Cornerstone are a highlight “there is a lot of time invested in personal development, support in my daily job and great activities like development day, anniversary and Convergence.” And it’s being able to share exciting moments with their teams that drive our Cornerstars to challenge themselves. Fermin Arbea, Implementation Consultant highlights: “At Cornerstone you find a great working environment, with colleagues always willing to collaborate. Also, it is a place to find challenges where you can grow both professionally and personally.” It is this shared team spirit at Cornerstone that drives colleagues to help one another and work together to generate success. Oliver Normand Account Manager Strategic, EMEA said “it was a great team success when, after 18 months of negotiation, we signed an important contract with one of our major clients in Europe.” Overall, it is this shared culture that drive our Cornerstars to succeed. Fermin Arbea believes that “the greatest moments are ones that we share among the whole team, collaborating with initiatives in which we can help other people. These are moments in which we all unite a little more and return home with a shared smile.” Workplace Culture BLOG POST Kindness in a crisis As the coronavirus pandemic continues to disrupt and dominate our lives, feelings of anxiety are completely normal during times of uncertainty. Each person will be impacted in a different way and it is important to remember that you are not alone. Already there are so many stories emerging of human kindness and compassion and people pulling together to help and support each other. Already there are some wonderful examples of where people have demonstrated such kindness and compassion and that it is so heart-warming. I did however, read in the BBC news last weekend about a man who apparently wouldn’t give an elderly lady just ONE of a number of (the last) packets of dry pasta he had selfishly grabbed from the shelf. He said no when she asked him politely. Then this morning in the supermarket the toilet roll aisle was being policed by supermarket staff and I actually saw a woman in a wheelchair struggling to get through! We need to be supporting and looking after the elderly and vulnerable. This is a time when the power of human kindness can and will shine through. We are all in it together and this is not every person for themselves. There is no doubt about it; the world would be a better place to be if there were more consideration and kindness about. It certainly seems that over the last few years there has been a deluge of animosity, ugly fake news, bullying behavior across social media, bitter electioneering, and at times, relentless volatility and overwhelming pressure with burnout. Now we have been presented with a challenge that has turned most of lives upside down and we need to be kind and support each other more than ever. History demonstrates that a crisis will bring out the very worst or the very best in people. We all have a choice and choosing kindness will benefit everyone in one way or another This is the time to be kinder to ourselves, kinder to others and kinder to our environment. Against the backdrop of fear, isolation and inevitable loss and grief, we must not lose our quintessential traits such as empathy, compassion and kindness. Being kind is a way you can spread goodness in the world, and it’s those small thoughtful gestures, added together, that will indeed make the world a better place to be. Acts of kindness are one of the greatest ways to inspire others and those around you will take note and your kindness will be contagious and create a ripple effect. Here are ten things ways that you can be part of the kindness revolution… 1. Be kind to yourself Self-care and self-compassion are so important when it comes to being healthy, happy and resilient. Investing in your personal well-being is kindness in itself because when you feel better about yourself you will set a positive example, which will positively influence others to be kind to themselves too. 2. Make kindness a habit You are essentially what you repeatedly do and, in many ways, kindness is a habit and is one that everyone can cultivate. A great way to build the habit is to focus on kindness every day for a month. Set out to do kind things for yourself and for others. Then set aside time at the end of each day to reflect and write down some of the things that you have done. 3. Gift people your time Time is a very precious commodity and giving people your time is a valuable gift. Being truly present and listening to someone, by avoiding all distractions, and giving a person the time of day is one of the greatest acts of kindness. Take the time to truly absorb yourself in what the other person is saying before responding and demonstrate to the person that you appreciate their unique situation. 4. Be compassionate Sometimes, people may not be very nice to you and it could well upset you. It is always worth reminding yourself that often this is born out of unhappiness, insecurity, loneliness, stress or fatigue. Extending the hand of human kindness in these situations can be challenging, although this is the time when people need your kindness the most. 5. Empathise Empathy and understanding are part of an emotional process that builds connection between people. It is about ‘reading’ another person’s inner state and interpreting it in a way that will help the other person to feel supported and it also has the added benefit of developing mutual trust. 6. Avoid gossip Social media can be a playground for toxic behaviour and a place where gossip mongering is rife. Even just reading some of the cruel and unnecessarily hurtful comments about other people fuels the bandwagon and can contaminate your own thinking. Being critical, judgmental and gossiping about other people is not about kindness. You will feel much happier when you actively seek out the good in people and practise tolerance and empathy. If you haven’t got something positive, helpful or constructive to say about someone else it is better to say nothing. 7. Be optimistic Be optimistic and seek out the good in others and in the world around you. This will also help you to be resilient and deal with adversity and life’s inevitable setbacks. Optimism is the bedrock of kindness and will continuously restore your faith in humanity. Cultivating an optimistic outlook and a positive mindset will ensure that acts of kindness are delivered with genuine joy rather than with reluctance or out of a sense of duty. Now more than ever we need to focus on the positives, because even the biggest problem can bring with it opportunities. 8. Be grateful Cultivating an attitude of gratitude is a fundamental part of being kind. It is so important not to take anything for granted and thank people and let them know how much you appreciate them. Kind people are easily able to express gratitude and make a habit of being more grateful. 9. Be kind to the planet Climate change is impacting our planet and raising awareness of how much waste you can potentially create is a good place to start to counteract it. If every individual and every business made an effort to reduce their impact on the environment then together a real difference can be made. The changes that you make don’t have to be huge either and there are so many simple things that you can do at home or in the workplace that will help to save the planet. 10. Be part of the kindness revolution In a world that can sometimes be cruel and unkind, it is time to start a revolution … A kindness revolution! Wherever possible (and it is always possible), be kind. Every day of your life there will be ways you can practise kindness. So go out there and discover what they are. Life is a precious gift and every living human being has the opportunity to make a positive difference in just a small and unique way. Note from the author – Liggy Webb We are experiencing unprecedented times and there is a great deal of advice and information circulating, some of it very valuable and important, some of it is not. It is important to balance your intake of news and for every negative thing you hear or read, make sure that you actively seek out positive stories that will uplift you. A healthy balance is so important for your mental health and wellbeing. By following the advice and guidelines from the government, who are doing everything they can to keep us safe, we will get through this challenging time. The lessons we learn along the way will make us stronger and fitter for the future. By taking each day at a time and doing the small things that are in your control will help to ease the build of anxiety. Most important of all be kind to yourself, take one step at a time and remember you are not alone, we are all in this together, and this will pass. For free access to Liggy’s bite sized book on kindness and resilience please email liggy@liggywebb.com BLOG POST Liggy Webb mood boosters and how to feel better in stormy times 2020 has been a challenge for most and as much as we were very hopeful about 2021, it feels like a déjà vu. Lockdowns everywhere, the “new norm” seems like it is here to stay, face masks and hand sanitiser. We have had to learn to be resilient, it is not so much about hoping things get back to normal, but to adapt and embrace change as part of our daily routine. It is here to stay. Why is my boss in my living-room? Liggy Webb has been sharing some incredible ideas with us on how to embrace wellbeing, kindness and stay mentally healthy during this pandemic. Organisations need to champion these behaviors too. We have seen HR departments embrace our free online content modules; especially the pieces around wellbeing and health, which were the most requested courses, as my colleague Mark Lamswood shared with us in his piece “Why content… and why now?”. The line between work and life has disappeared, for those that can work remotely – and whilst we are thankful for that, it can be hard to find balance in our lives. Is this the responsibility of an employer, though? To a certain extent, it really should be. Questions around resources have been circling for some time now, do we have a laptop for every kid to connect to online classes? Do we have a spare office in the home to work? Who will take care of the kids if both parents are working remotely? Why is my boss in my living-room? Constant Zoom calls, webcams on, screaming children in the background and the lack of privacy are taking a toll on us. Here are some positives to this new cozy office set-up: I have to confess I am not embarrassed to put the webcam on while in my pyjamas with certain colleagues and the conversations around hairstyles, pets and home décor have brought us together. Please – send help! Stress used to be a big one. Non-stop travelling, meetings all day, commuting to the office and then – if time was left - your private life. Now all those different departments of our existence, have been squeezed in one home for almost a year and stress is even more acute than it used to be. “Worrying about contracting Covid-19, feeling lonely, and not thinking positively were all strongly associated with how anxious and depressed people became.” BMJ Open report In a nutshell, we are more stressed than ever. We are worrying about survival. More vulnerable to fall into unhealthy habits and the uncertainty of not knowing when and if this will be over is not helping. As Dr. Sarah Campbell explained in this video not everyone has the resources to adapt to this massive change and HR departments can help. But let us look in the mirror first and own our responsibilities. Walk the talk – together | This is not a one-size-fits-all approach but there are plenty of little things we can do! Using Liggy as my main inspiration – this is what has worked for me: Show some teeth | As lame as it may sound, I am reminding myself to smile each day. A great way to do so is by creating an e-coffee or e-lunch call with some of the team members and chat about anything BUT work. Or join a laughter group, like this one here created by a artist friend of mine called “Laughter Yoga for Creatives” in which we connect, turn the webcam on and do laugh therapy together. See the sky | Some of the lockdown rules are very strict and we do not all have the same space at home. But having a dog forces you to make that commitment to go for a walk every day. Make that commitment to yourself if you don’t have a pet, book the time in your diary and stretch, meditate, dance in the shower to your favorite tune. Studies show sedentarism is bad for your health. Get a standing desk, sit on an exercise ball or even better – get Stand Up! The Work Break Timer. Eyeliner to start the day | I am a feminist but … starting the day with lipstick and eyeliner makes me a better feminist. And it really does! It helps me get into the office mood and to not panic when I am asked to turn the camera on. Be kind | To boost my mood and give back I am always creating online donation campaigns for causes that are dear to my heart. It keeps me busy with something different to work, it connects me with other people that feel the same and it helps me channel my energy into something positive. Join us too! Start your joruney and boost your mood in this turbulent moment! Get your e-book for free today here and share your experience with us along the way! BLOG POST Lockdown life: Volunteering and working from home Sunday Session at Harmony Gardens - Drone picture by Maxime Fazilleau On a random Saturday last year, I discovered Blue House Yard in Wood Green, London. This is an unexpected place in North London, close to where I live. A red double-decker has been converted into a board games café and taproom. Small timber work sheds house local businesses selling candles, clothes, jewellery and books. Blue House Yard and Edible London market - Picture by Maxime Fazilleau I was curious, so I went to investigate and found there were tables covered with boxes of colourful vegetables and fruits in the middle of the place. I was only passing by, but the seller asked if I wanted to try one of the tomatillos and I could not resist! It was refreshing and spicy at the same time. After a few minutes of conversation, I was so inspired by their story that I ended up buying my veg and fruit from Edible London in Blue House Yard that day. And I came back! But this time I discovered fruity chocolates, organic vegetables, pea shoots and jams all organically grown by incubated businesses. After two weeks of loyal shopping, I was invited by Sunny, the energetic and mindful CEO of Edible London (https://ediblelondon.org/), to visit the greenhouse where volunteers of all ages, cultures and background grow some of the organic products. I went, for a simple visit, to volunteer for five hours that afternoon, and was taught about sowing tomatoes seeds and I learnt that they were heritage seeds and only grown organically. The following week, a friend tells me about Edible London – what are the chances! - and the work they do. Sunny, and his team are not only growing food but also organising cook ups for the Haringey community. A few days every month, they cook and invite people going through housing difficulties to enjoy heart-warming meals and a chat. Before I realised it, I was volunteering and was asked if I could help start a new project which was to create a place where Edible London could and grow more food. Obviously, I accepted. When COVID-19 started, Edible London was still operating normally. But when the lockdown was announced, Sunny decided to form a small team to prepare hampers for people who could not move from their homes. As I was working full time from home, I decided to help around my working hours – but this time behind my screen. I started looking for volunteers to prepare the hampers and deliver them. And thanks to a networking app here in the UK, we got around 20 recruits in a day! Today, Edible London is made of about 20 admins, 15 facilitators and a pool of 350 volunteers. We had to train different teams for the integration, write and create processes, online documents and FAQ for volunteers to understand what to do. We operate from two main food hubs in the council of Haringey: Alexandra Palace - the people's Palace - and one of the underground parking spaces of the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. But what is it that we are doing? Let me give you a rough idea: Food sourcing! We have teamed up with one of the big vegetables and fruit markets in London and they provide us with a few pallets of unsold food every day, that would go to waste otherwise. We also get food donations from lots of different business that believe in our vision too. Logistic and Hub! The amazing logistic team gets the different pallets and redirects them to the food hub where the magic happens. The Quality Team volunteers verify the products. This is a very important part of the process as we need to ensure good quality food goes to the hampers preparation that will be distributed to self-isolated people who cannot afford to go out. But we use all of the products and so, the food of normal quality goes to different organisations which can cook meals the same day. Vegetables and fruits that cannot be used to cook can be taken by volunteers or sent to our growing site for compost creation to be used on our growing sites. Ready to pack? Our volunteers prepare hampers of good vegetables and fruits mainly that will be handed over to the Council who is managing the distribution. The rest of the food goes for meals to shelters, food banks and key workers. But we also need to keep our hardworking volunteers healthy – and so we all eat together and make sure nothing goes to waste. Two of my favourite initiatives are the Bikers Community and the Upcycling system. The Bikers for the Community comes to the Food hub to collect meals and essentials, and take it to the streets of North London, stopping for every houseless person they see. Our Upcycling initiative involved the creation of furniture and art from the packaging by our volunteers to feel like home. EcoBricks are made and will be used later in one of our growing projects. Volunteers even ran a zero-waste fashion show, where they used packaging to create their outfits. To go from six to 350 volunteers in ten weeks has been a BIG task – believe me! Many hours and tears have gone into making this happen. Respecting health and safety with the 2m distancing rule and wearing masks did not make it any easier. But we did it! This adventure has shown me what we can do with an army of volunteers. The energy and motivation are high, and our core team is always ready for a new day. I found purpose and a community in this very difficult time – being isolated at home alone is not easy. I am glad I joined Edible London and at the same time find solidarity and hope. Thanks to my previous work experience, I know how to map a process and create communication channels. I also know what it is to be a volunteer and know what to expect from the team. With Cornerstone, I have learnt to communicate effectively – I am a French native – understand the issues fast in order to deploy solution, but most importantly, I have discovered that there is always space to learn, ask questions and be included. Delegating work to new volunteers joining the adventure is my biggest challenge, as trust is important, and it cannot be built in a few hours. But here at Cornerstone we have a culture in which we accept failure as part of our success, and in this instance, I can shadow the teams and let them make mistakes, so they understand the logic behind the processes and so we can all work as a team. Don’t let others stop you from doing good for the community. Teach them to build a resilient one instead. VIDEO Cornerstone Xplor walk-through - UK The world of work requires a new approach to help employees upskill. Cornerstone Xplor helps to put the right insight and tools in your hands so you can do more to create a workplace that works for everyone. With Cornerstone Xplor — you can have a more connected, more progressive work system with a deeply personalised experience that empowers each individual to adapt, grow, and succeed together. BLOG POST Business Unbound: A Vision and New Strategies for the New World of Work Yesterday looks nothing like today. For some companies, the COVID-19 crisis has brought business to a grinding halt—but for others, it’s kicked things into hyperdrive. The trends that were emerging before the crisis have accelerated: Digital transformation initiatives have a heightened urgency as businesses are now required to pivot on a dime. The trend toward remote work has manifested in full. The need to reskill and upskill the workforce is now an immediate concern rather than a provision for the future. Change is not optional. How to change is now the critical question. It’s an incredible challenge to adapt in these circumstances—but companies are doing it. Think about Medtronic’s sharp turn to accelerate the production of ventilators in their factories, or Honeywell, and many other companies, now making masks. Companies are demonstrating just how quickly they can move when they eliminate the constraints that were holding them back. Some constraints were the result of yesterday’s thinking, such as outdated business models or processes, to solve today’s challenges. Other constraints, such as pervasive shelter in place orders, are truly unique to today’s historic moment and require new, creative approaches that will have lasting impact. These agile organisations have uncovered their own ability to adapt, and it’s critical that they don’t rebound to routines and outdated structures after the crisis has passed. Business volatility has been increasing for decades before the crisis and will only accelerate long after it. At Cornerstone, we are committed to helping companies take an unbound approach to business. An unbound business is one that is not confined by conventions and is open to fresh approaches in tune with their changing environment. And, we believe that at the heart of an unbound business is continuous people development. Over the past 20 years, we’ve honed our software to help companies adapt quickly with the right people, the right skills and the right training. And with our acquisition of Saba, a global leader in talent solutions, we’re in an even stronger position to help companies lean into their change drivers: continuous learning, actionable data and workforce agility. The key? To continue to remove the constraints. Learning Unbound: Learning is the Accelerator Learning is the adaptability accelerator. Cornerstone People Research Lab data shows that training has skyrocketed in the last several weeks as companies help their employees adapt to this new normal, including a spike in courses about stress management and working from home. This shows that rather than use learning to only meet compliance requirements, we need to provide employees with more holistic learning to address all aspects of work life. To do that, learning must be: Ubiquitous: Available on any device, and, most importantly, delivered in their flow of work in the systems and tools where work is happening. And, when learning is offered in a variety of formats such as learning through social collaboration or learning in short form—known as Microlearning—that are quickly digestible and easily applicable. Learning retention suffers when employees learn on the company’s schedule. Instead, learning retention and effectiveness is highest when employees need it and can immediately apply it to a real-world situation. Hyper-Personalised: Remove the time and energy it takes for employees to seek out learning. Technology can help present relevant opportunities to employees that are contextualised based on their skills, experience, aspirations and preferences. A Business Enabler: For businesses to adapt quickly and at scale, they need to promote real learning – the kind that sticks with you – it requires repetition, reinforcement and nurture. And real learning is always evidenced by change. Changed mindsets. Changed behaviors. Changed outcomes. To help advance these changes forward, Cornerstone has been focused on providing people with the most modern, relevant learning content available through Content Anytime, our subscription service offering. Curated with thousands of courses from dozens of world-class content partners, we are committed to helping organisations provide their people with the right content to help accelerate learning. We also recently invested in Talespin to ensure we stay on the cutting edge of the emerging area of virtual reality training. By embracing these changes to learning at work, organisations will be prepared for whatever challenges lie ahead. In a truly adaptable workplace, learning is every worker’s constant companion, and people will be always learning. Careers Unbound: AI-based Personalised Coaching to Empower Your People The number one reason people choose to leave a company is because they don’t have the opportunity to learn and grow. In addition to career growth, people want to be seen and valued for their unique strengths. They want to feel a sense of purpose at work as detailed in a recent trend report from Mercer Consulting. They want continuous and frequent coaching sessions with their manager. They want to understand how to improve. They want to be supported on how to best challenge themselves while also maintaining a sense of well-being. They desire new experiences to help them put learning into practice and explore emergent interests. In essence, people want to be coached. This will require organisations to re-examine how they support their workforce. The first step will be to transform managers into coaches. What makes coaches more effective is that they guide individuals, not roles, and they truly understand who they are coaching and where that person is headed. This means organisations will provide managers with tools to better understand their individual employees – such as their deep skills profiles, interests, personal and professional aspirations and their emotional well-being - as well as tools to help them apply that holistic information into more meaningful conversations and personalised career navigation. In addition to turning managers into coaches, organisations will find new ways to supplement employee guidance with AI-powered digital coaching tools. These types of tools will be embedded in the technology that employees are already using and will apply the employee’s personalised data to guide and make recommendations for growth and development. For example, after an employee completes a skill-building course, they will be recommended a sequence of more trainings and activities to truly bridge their skill divide. Additionally, employees will further benefit from AI-based recommendations, nudges and conversations with intelligent chatbots, which can do everything from suggesting a new training, to an upcoming project they might be interested in, to a role suited to their skills. These tools, combined with rich conversations with managers (powered by data), provide truly personalised career navigation that’s informed by an employee’s skills, experiences and aspirations resulting in them feeling more engaged and empowered in their careers. To help enable this vision, Cornerstone has launched Cornerstone Careers, a new product solution focused on helping employees to connect with their managers and navigate their careers. Cornerstone Careers includes Check Ins and Capabilities, and we’ll be adding more features in the coming months, including Career Center to help employees navigate their careers in a fully personalised way. Data Unbound: More Holistic People Data for Better People Decisions With technology has come an explosion of data and analytics. And for years, organisations have been striving to extract insights and important business value from people data. Yet, yesterday’s data sets fell short of giving organisations a holistic, meaningful understanding of their people both inside and outside of the organisation. Businesses crave more well-rounded, data-driven insights to know the whole person: their capabilities, strengths, experiences, aspirations, mood, learning preferences and well-being. Earlier this year, we took a big step in this area by acquiring Clustree, a French technology company that developed an industry-leading, AI-powered skills engine and extensive skills ontology to help organisations match their employees’ skills with specific job roles. The benefit of this comprehensive, elastic skills data set is twofold. First, the data will allow companies to dynamically develop and deploy the right skills to projects, roles and key investments. For example, looking at data across the global enterprise will allow companies to build teams that bring together the best skills and experiences regardless of geography. With data about both internal and external talent, companies will also be able to assemble the optimal mix inclusive of employees, candidates, contractors and freelancers. Second, and more importantly, more inclusive data will allow companies to improve their employees’ well-being, engagement and retention. Employees and their managers will be able to use this data in development conversations, for example, facilitating a hyper-personalised approach to growth instead of one-size fits all. And this data must be collected for the benefit and empowerment of the employee, rather than for productivity and efficiency tracking. Data can open up a more meaningful work-life experience that ultimately benefits both the employee and the business. Cornerstone Is Adapting and Evolving with You This extreme event we are currently experiencing, COVID-19, is proof that companies must be more agile than ever to succeed. And even after we move beyond this crisis, businesses can’t return to our previous state where it takes 18 months or more to pivot the workforce. When unforeseen forces arise, those businesses that are able to act quickly not only endure the change but thrive because of it. To build that agility, companies need to remove the constraints that were holding them back and embrace a new world of work that invites change and innovation. The emergence of this new world of work comes at a pivotal time for our company as well. With our recent acquisition of Saba, we are in an even better position to help our clients transition to this new reality. Not only will we increase the speed and scale of innovation, we now have access to nearly twice as much client data, enabling us to improve A.I. within our products. As a combined company, we are committed to accelerating these strategic innovation initiatives with the intent of helping companies address these sudden new challenges, create new opportunities and transform into a resilient unbound business. BLOG POST How to Say Goodbye to an Employee No matter how much effort you put into your talent management strategy, it is inevitable: at some point, an employee will leave the company. We always talk about the importance of onboarding and first impressions, but sometimes we do not pay due attention to the end of the employment relationship and the process of offboarding. Managing this last phase of the employee's life cycle is very important for several reasons. For example, one of the most striking changes we have seen in recent years is the increase in workers returning to a company after they have left. Making a good impression at the time of departure is essential to leave the door open for the same person to return to the organisation after having enriched their profile with new experiences at other companies. To ensure a successful offboarding you have to follow a series of steps, some of which will almost certainly be used in your company. But we have to go further. The first thing is to close everything that is pending. Ensure the employee that’s leaving the company has finished his or her tasks before leaving. They must then return any technological devices and other work materials that had been assigned to them. A pleasant relationship must be maintained with the employee at all times. It is not necessary to put on the farewell party of the century, but be cordial and have a positive attitude when they leave. There are times when organisations feel that their employees are indebted to them, but this is not the case. Everything that you have invested in the development of an employee has been returned to you in the form of hard work and responsibility. The most valuable moment of all this process is the exit interview, because it not only allows the employee to be heard but it helps the company improve or adjust their human capital management based on the feedback the employee gives. To get more valuable information, it is advisable to customise the interview and ask for answers that are as specific as possible. Although it is not part of the offboarding process itself, you must have a succession plan in place to cover your employees' outlets as soon as possible. For this, Cornerstone Succession is an indispensable ally that will allow you to know and develop the talent of your staff while promoting strategic succession, further increasing the involvement of employees. Offboarding well done can reinforce attracting talent and improving the company's reputation among candidates. By following these simple tips you will not have to worry about "bad language" or your ability to attract the best employees. BLOG POST Is HR boring or cool? It seems obvious to say that life is too short for the wrong job, and I already wrote on the role HR had to play to help make everyone's job interesting in their companies. Today, I'd like to focus more on the job of Human Resources as such. When talking about typical job descriptions, HR isn't the one that is first associated with the word "cool". You'd think about other positions such as design, publicist, PR, or in the engineering world R&D, product development... On the other hand, when you ask HR professionals for the reasons of their career path, you often hear them mention the human aspect of the work and the interaction with colleagues, which indeed sounds cool. Yet we all know that a significant part of HR work concerns administrative tasks, which seems to be extremely boring. This is even truer in some countries where labour laws are very complex, such as France or Germany for example. As we analysed in this survey on talent management within French companies (in French), local HRDs complain that they do not spend enough time in managing talents, compared to legal and administrative work. So the question is: how can HR focus more on cool tasks, and advertise for their true value added for the company? Indeed, in some ways you can compare HR and IT: usually, nobody talks about IT support when everything goes well. But if you have the slightest trouble with your laptop, you'll complain loudly and bother your IT colleagues until they fix the problem. It's exactly the same with HR administrative tasks: you expect your salary to be paid on time, and the information on your salary slip to be accurate. Yet if you find the slightest discrepancy, you'll run to HR until you know what happened. This is indeed completely normal, but you'll agree that this is by far not the most strategic HR task you could imagine, nor the most fascinating from an HR point of view... "Cool" doesn't mean "entertaining" either! Of course, it's nice to organise the Christmas party, or any other internal event at a company or office level. It's even an important part of socialising within the company, and shouldn't be underestimated as such activities are a way to communicate around the company culture. Yet HR role should not be reduced to internal communication, as it's only a part, albeit important, of their responsibilities. So what's the interesting part of the HR work? Basically, it could be any activity for which HR will be in contact with other departments, and where HR will contribute directly and visibly to the success of the team. For example: finding and recruiting a candidate for a position, and seeing him/her performing really well suggesting an internal candidate for a position, and boosting his/her motivation and performance in this new role organising a well-planned new hire onboarding and measuring a decrease in turnover organising a training plan and observing a real difference in the employees' skills, and hence results planning for succession and being able to bring an efficient solution when a high performer leaves the company organising a really useful performance review where employees can get positive feedback, and seeing a much higher completion rate managing a performance-based compensation plan, and getting higher employee satisfaction as they feel they are fairly rewarded In all those cases, I believe an HR professional will truly enjoy his/her job and be recognised as being a strong asset for the company. Isn't that cool? BLOG POST Announcing the 2020 Cornerstone RAVE Award Winners On behalf of the Cornerstone team, I’m excited to share details about this year’s Cornerstone RAVE Award winners. RAVE stands for Remarkable Achievements and Visionary Elites, a designation to recognise and honour organisations that have developed and implemented innovative approaches to using our solutions. Since our first-ever virtual, global conference, Cornerstone Convergence, brought together our expanded community of both Cornerstone and Saba customers, our awards programme too honours the achievements of our global combined customer base of more than 6,300 organisations. We were humbled by the number of customers that submitted their organisation’s stories for recognition. Selecting the winners across so many nominations was no small task. Please join us in congratulating these organisations across North America and EMEA, whose recruiting, learning, performance and career programmes stood out – and embodied our shared mission of engaging and developing extraordinary people to deliver extraordinary results. Learning Strategy Innovation Winners: BNP Paribas; Sunbelt Rentals; Teleperformance; VMWare About the award: This category recognises organisations that have implemented new learning strategies, techniques and methods to drive tangible talent and business outcomes. BNP Paribas BNP Paribas used Cornerstone Learning to support a knowledge-sharing culture that empowers employees to drive their own development. As a result, employees are more aware of the diverse development opportunities available to them and can obtain the right learning intervention when and where they need it. Sunbelt Rentals Sunbelt used Cornerstone Learning to develop an innovative approach to track and report on a multi-month, adaptive learning programme during the COVID-19 pandemic. This new process and approach provides managers with real-time data when and where they need it, to drive organisational performance. Teleperformance Teleperformance deployed a broad set of learning to engage their global workforce and create a change-ready culture. They used Saba Cloud to enhance executive communication during remote work, implement online mentoring, personalise learning to support upskilling, and shift the mix of learning content delivery and adoption from compliance to locally developed regional content. VMWare Using Saba Cloud, VMWare created a new skills and competency framework allowing them to deliver more personalised and targeting training experiences for their people faster. The new skills framework also ensured even closer alignment to the strategic needs of the business. “We are pleased to be recognised for our learning strategy innovation at this year’s RAVE Awards,” said Sanjeev Kumar, Senior Business Process Architect, VMWare. “Through this partnership, we have been able to develop a skills competency framework used to influence learning paths and simplify course selection and offerings with an 80% reduction in time.” Transformational HR & Talent Strategy Winners: Broadway Bank; Sobi About the award: This category recognises organisations that have applied new technology and approaches spanning multiple HR processes to drive tangible talent impact and business outcomes. Broadway Bank With Cornerstone Learning, Performance & Recruiting suites, Broadway Bank created a continuous performance and development culture to engage employees with coaching, feedback, development and recognition, in support of employee career growth and, ultimately, client satisfaction. Broadway Bank’s retention initiatives also use Cornerstone to support its progressive internal mobility and leadership development programmes. Sobi Sobi has undergone a significant undertaking in migrating from multiple local HR systems and decentralised processes to one global HCM solution using Cornerstone HR. With Cornerstone its new process empowers employees, managers and local HR to own their data and create a “digital employment life cycle.” This change has allowed Sobi to utilise its data to add value, not only to the HR processes, but also to contribute with clarity, agility and efficiency to other important business functions and processes. Cornerstone has enabled Sobi to take a big step forward in its digital transformation journey. Impact on User Adoption Winners: Nestlé; TravelCenters of America; Veritas Technologies; About the award: This award recognises organisations who have successfully driven adoption of new product capabilities, expanded usage of solutions across departments, geographies or business units, and expanded employee utilisation through innovative programmes. Nestlé Having deployed Cornerstone eight years ago, Nestlé faced the challenge of continuously increasing user adoption in such a mature product. By focusing on improving access to the right learning content and enabling learners to experience a journey of development through playlists, Nestlé was able to significantly increase average time spent on learning and hit a milestone number of visits per month on the learning platform. “We’re thrilled to be recognised at this year’s Cornerstone RAVE Awards for our success in driving user adoption.” said Jo-Anne Rossouw, Head of Digital Learning, Nestlé. “Cornerstone, together with our IT Learning Product Team, have helped us achieve our two key adoption focuses for 2020 of improving access to the right learning content, and enabling learners to experience a journey of development through Playlists”. TravelCenters of America TravelCenters of America launched Cornerstone Learning as the foundation to establishing a learning culture in the organisation. Branding the solution “MyTA” the team quickly pivoted with the onset of the global COVID-19 pandemic to weave a consistent message through communications, videos and job aids to reinforce how using MyTA would provide new opportunities to develop and grow in employees’ current roles, and help them prepare for the next step in their career. One major result of this strategy: 72% of employees logged into MyTA within the first 30 days, completing 8,000 courses! Veritas Technologies With Saba Cloud, Veritas Technologies launched a highly powerful, revenue-generating consolidated single learning system used by three different type of learner groups: employees, customers and partners. As a result, Veritas’ learning team can easily publish, track and maintain learning activities, empowering 18,000 users with diverse training requirements to quickly find and take the training they need. The organisation has seen system utilisation grow by 60%, enrolments go up by 45%, and reduced cases from learners by more than 200 per month. Advancement in Reinventing Work Winner: Public Storage About the award: This year recognises change makers who have implemented new ways to attract and retain the best talent and capitalised on the collective knowledge, skills, and performance of their people. Public Storage Public Storage rolled out a highly adopted digital badge recognition programme within Cornerstone Learning in support of its goal to foster a culture of recognition at all levels of the organisation. As a result of this initiative, employees are empowered to reinforce high performance through meaningful, personal feedback aligned to organisational values and priorities. Reinventing Recruiting Winners: Henkel; myjobscotland About this award: This category recognises organisations that have progressively evolved their talent acquisition processes to improve their candidate experience, recruiting metrics and attract and hire the best people to prepare their organisations for the future. Henkel Thanks to the focus, agile mindset, ownership, empowerment and the exceptional collaboration of its global project team, Henkel managed to implement a unified global talent acquisition system within 12 months and without interruption so recruiters could continue to work seamlessly. Thoughtful planning drove a blueprint for success, which led to increases in applicants and improved conversion rates, and a streamlined experience for candidates. myjobscotland myjobscotland used the TalentLink solution and implemented asynchronous video interviewing to help its member councils across Scotland discover and attract the best candidates into key roles. This virtual recruiting approach has been particularly important to continuously fill open positions during the pandemic and allows applicants to share the best version of themselves in the process. In doing so myjobscotland has been able to significantly decrease time-to-offer and time-to–hire, with rave reviews from candidates and hiring managers on the experience. "In line with our continual improvement strategy of our offering Councils (and other third parties) more functions whilst keeping the costs down, the COVID-19 pandemic further accelerated our need to implement a video recruitment strategy in TalentLink, and within myjobscotland.” says Douglas Shirlaw, Chief Digital Officer at COSLA. “We are very proud to have been able to design, engage and deliver this in less than a week for each of the 10 councils. The outcome reflects the professionalism, enthusiasm, commitment and togetherness of the myjobscotland team, as well as Council HR teams doing everything they could to make this a success in their regions under some particularly challenging circumstances." Visionary in Performance Management Winners: GB Group Plc; Horace Mann; HM Electronics About this award: This award recognises organisations that have engaged their employees through meaningful performance processes to improve organisational effectiveness and business outcomes. GB Group Plc GB Group Plc created a culture that supports ongoing performance conversations using Cornerstone Performance and built-in Check-Ins. By offering a simple, interactive way for its people and managers to stay aligned, engaged and focused on achieving their potential, GB Group Plc met all three of its key objectives in implementing Cornerstone: improve the quality and frequency of performance conversations, raise the bar of performance, and ensure clear alignment between what each employee does and the business mission. Horace Mann Horace Mann successfully implemented a quarterly performance management process with a focus on coaching, feedback and employee development versus performance ratings. This new ongoing performance management process has evolved Horace Mann to a culture in which performance conversations are a way of life, with employees leading the conversation and proactively driving their own development and performance. “Our need to be able to quickly adapt and change course makes the concept of an annual performance review an outdated one that no longer meets the needs of our business,” said Susan Dudley, Talent Management System Analyst, Horace Mann. “With Cornerstone as well as the support of executive leadership, our change management plan and the desire for a change from the current process, we have successfully adapted our performance management strategy to meet the needs of today.” HM Electronics In 2019, HM Electronics adopted Saba Cloud to support the performance and development needs of its rapidly growing workforce. Using both performance and learning within Saba, HM Electronics has created a tight connection between both coaching, development and training, with deep insight on programme metrics. Building on its success using peer-to-peer “impressions” within the system, HM Electronics continues to foster a strong company-wide feedback culture. Congratulations to the 2020 RAVE Award Winners! Congratulations to all this year’s winners and sincere thanks to the thousands of customers around the world who continue to partner with Cornerstone to drive your talent strategies forward! To learn more about how Cornerstone customers are delivering innovative talent strategies using Cornerstone solutions, check out the many customer success stories shared at Cornerstone Convergence in September. While the conference has come and gone, all sessions are available on demand until October 31, 2020. Access the on-demand sessions here. BLOG POST Cornerstone Originals — It's our first birthday! Just about a year ago, we launched our first-ever Cornerstone Originals learning series — Digital Native Advancement (DNA) — and watched with excitement as our customers took it and ran! DNA embodied everything we wanted in our flagship Cornerstone Original. It was innovative and strategic, but it also captured our goal of amplifying a trending topic in a new way. And that type of innovation doesn’t come easy. This team — Cornerstone Studios — represents the best of the content business. We’re storytellers, videographers, writers, curators, dreamers, strategists, artists, but most of all, we’re a team of learners. And over the past year, this team has accomplished incredible things. We’ve stretched ourselves to create and innovate through constraints — and boy did we have a lot of constraints in 2020. The biggest of which was when our workplace shifted overnight from in-person to work-from-home. We closed both our New York and Los Angeles Studios back in March. And since then — for most of the first year of Cornerstone Originals — we’ve had to find a new way to produce content. Enter the Cornerstone Boom Box — our remote production kits. Our team valiantly took on the task of shooting all new footage using iPhone 11s and remote set-directing through WebEx without missing a beat! All in all, we produced 10(!) Cornerstone Originals using the Cornerstone Boom Box. It’s been an honor to lead such a talented, hardworking team and to see everything they’ve accomplished in the face of adversity during the first year of Cornerstone Originals. For those of you who have been with us along this journey, thank you. We’re just getting started. You’ll love what we have planned for this next year. Stay tuned to find out. If you’re not as familiar with all of the great Cornerstone Originals content, you can explore it here. This blog was originally posted in ReWork. Previous page Page 1 Page 2 Page 3 Page 4 Page 5 … Page 42 Next page Talent solutions that power the future ready workforce with a system of work that works for everyone. Book a Demo GET IN TOUCH Contact Us Community & Support Facebook Github LinkedIn Twitter SOLUTIONS Cornerstone Xplor Learning & Development (LMS) Extended Enterprise Training Skills Graph/Skills Ontology Content Performance Management Engagement Surveys Recruiting & Onboarding Core HR Platform Workforce Planning Analytics & Reporting Integrations & APIs Security & Privacy Architecture & Platform USE CASES Modern Learning Experience Skills Development Virtual Training (VILT) Compliance Management DEI At Work Back to Work Planning Content & Skills AI Customer & Partner Training Content Curation COMPANY About Us Leadership Team News Room Careers Partners Diversity Awards & Recognition LEARN Resource Corner Events & Webinars Blog & Articles Cornerstone Convergence CORPORATE RESPONSIBILITY Foundation Cornerstone Cares WHY CORNERSTONE Power the Future Ready Workforce Committed to customer success Customer Stories © Cornerstone 2021 Privacy Terms & Conditions Modern Slavery Statement