Authoria Raises the Bar for Talent Management with Breakthrough ìSingle Solutionî

Authoria, Inc., the leader in integrated talent management solutions, today announced the first solution that gives HR professionals and business managers single-point access to consistent data and core capabilities required by all strategic talent functions ñ including recruiting, performance management, compensation, and employee development.

At its tenth annual Customer Conference, the company demonstrated how Authoria Talent Management makes it easy to access essential information about people, positions, hierarchies, and goals from a centralized ìcore,î regardless of the talent function one is performing. When HR professionals and business managers

draw upon a single database of talent information,
use the same award-winning interface, and leverage workflow and reporting that cut across previously ìsiloídî functions, they are equipped to tackle the toughest talent challenges, such as hiring top-quality talent for essential roles, identifying and developing future leaders, and engaging and retaining top performers.

Trish Barnes, Manager of HRIS, Compensation and Benefits at Black & Decker HHI (Hardware and Home Improvement) Group, said ìWe support multiple world-leading brands and thousands of employees globally, and Authoria Talent Management gives us the flexibility to manage different parts of our company with an approach that will deliver the best results. Weíre particularly excited about the configurable quality of the new releases, which will enable us to more strategically administer performance management and compensation planning on a global basis.î

ìThe business impact of this single, unified approach to talent management ñ based on a single platform and extending across the strategic talent functions ñ is changing how leading organizations think about talent,î said Tod Loofbourrow, Authoria Chairman and CEO. ìAuthoria Talent Management is uniquely designed to engage line-of-business managers in talent processes, to support their day-to-day efforts to align, assess, motivate, and guide their employees, and to transform their ability to achieve business goals through the workforce.î

Authoria today also announced significant new functionality in the Authoria Performance and Authoria Compensation components of its comprehensive solution. Leveraging the recently announced ìcoreî capabilities ñ including talent profiles, job profiles, and embedded competency libraries from Development Dimensions International (DDI) ñ the new performance-management and compensation features will be delivered on-demand, as part of quarterly updates to Authoria Talent Management. They include:

Managerís Journal ñ An online journal that encourages managers and employees to enter quick notes on employee performance and progress, as a way to capture these observations more frequently. The notes can be reviewed on an ad-hoc basis, or during quarterly or annual reviews ñ rather than trying to reconstruct performance long after the fact.

Performance Process Configuration ñ Customers can easily configure key aspects of performance management to match their organizationís approach to this process. Within the ìsandbox,î they can adjust forms, change rating scales, and make other changes to suit their needs. Customers can see what works and easily make adjustments, prior to rolling out an application across the organization.

Customer-Defined Workflows ñ HR professionals and system administrators can create workflows that match the performance-management and compensation-management processes within their organization. Multiple workflows can be configured for different divisions, departments, geographic regions, or other logical groups of employees.

Compensation Decision Support ñ While performing compensation planning, managers can surface and analyze cross-functional information about an employee (such as performance ratings, promotion potential, or flight risk). This leads to better-informed and more strategic allocation of compensation.

Hierarchy Navigator ñ Within a compensation worksheet, a manager can (assuming appropriate permissions) navigate up and down an organizational hierarchy, to see and/or act on selected populations. This enables a business manager or HR professional to perform planning activities across different slices of the organization.

Compensation Process Configuration ñ As with Performance Process Configuration (see above), customers can easily create and modify planning worksheets that reflect the varying needs or business practices of different subsets of their organization.

Authoria's new, unified approach is an excellent example of a next-generation talent management solution. It provides a common technology base, rich Talent Profile data, and an intuitive interface to help managers make better decisions, said Leighanne Levensaler, director of talent management research for Bersin & Associates, a research and advisory firm. The new releases of Authoria Talent Management leverage Authoria's extensive expertise in many application areas of talent management, as well as its considerable customer experience.