HR-XML Europe to Stage Seminar in Brussels on 16th November 2005

Building on the success of the seminar in Frankfurt in June of this year, HR-XML Europe is organizing a further event in Brussels on November 16th. This event will focus on the localization of the SIDES and SEP standards by the European Workgroups launched in Frankfurt and on a new initiative to develop a standardised Competency framework.

The Frankfurt seminar attracted HR professionals from 13 countries. The event focused on standardization activities in two fields: online recruitment and data exchange between staffing organizations and their customers. Participants at the seminar established European working groups to further develop these standards and to support and promote their adoption in Europe.

The autumn seminar in Brussels is intended to build on the interest in the work of these European Workgroups covering SIDES and SEP. In addition, the seminar will present a new European initiative to develop standard Competency frameworks.

The seminar will be held at Le Meridien Hotel in Brussels and is limited to 80 places. The seminar is open to both members of HR-XML Europe and to HR professionals and technology professionals working in the HR field. Full details of the event and an online registration form are available at www.hr-xml.org/europe.

The European SIDES Workgroup
The Staffing Industry Data Exchange Standard, SIDES, was developed to streamline data interchange between software applications in order to automate the procurement of human capital by enterprise customers from staffing companies.

The standard is made up of schemas that offer a significant head start to integrators connecting staffing companies, third-party services (such as vendor management systems, payroll providers), and end customers. The underlying principle is to enable participants to automate data exchange with multiple vendors and customers through the highly reusable SIDES interface. The SIDES standard is comprehensive, spanning the core front- and back-office business processes, thereby providing enormous opportunities to automate data exchange and save businesses money and time.

At the November seminar, the European SIDES workgroup will present three case studies of applications of SIDES and of the business benefits achieved. Attendees will develop a better understanding of the practical advantages that can be achieved through the use of the standard.

The first case study covers SENS (Soap Enterprise Nerve System) which is an initiative to support data exchange across extranet, intranet, internet and legacy applications using web services, XML, HR-XML and SIDES.

The second case study describes PIXID, a French project built to enable the exchange of all necessary documents for staffing:: contracts, timesheets and invoices. PIXID uses standards that were developed by SIDES France building on the base HR-XML guidelines..

The third project is under development in The Netherlands and is focused on exchanging data relating to temporary labour between all participants. The project is being conducted in conjunction with the local industry organization.

The focus of the European SIDES workgroup is to address issues of particular importance to European HR professionals, including:

Establish the state of adoption of SIDES in Europe and the experience of users

Define how and where SIDES can be effectively exploited
Identify (possible) localization needs

Investigate standardization of clusters of job titles. This will be a pilot project to establish whether HR-XML Europe should take on the role of adding local taxonomies to standards.

Define the business case for software vendors to support these standards in their products.

Organizations, companies or individuals who wish to join this workgroup should contact the chairperson:

Bernard Ypersiel
Bernard.Ypersiel@Solvus.BE

The European SEP Workgroup
The Staffing Exchange Protocol (SEP) is a set of XML specifications that supports many types of recruiting and staffing transactions. These include the posting of jobs to job boards and company career sites, and the exchange of a candidate details.

The most recent version of SEP was designed with multi-national input from a variety of stakeholder groups including end-user organizations, state employment services, recruitment companies, job boards/career portal sites, applicant tracking systems and service providers, assessment providers and HRIS vendors.

Over the last few months, the HR-XML Consortium has been conducting a critical review of the current SEP 2.3 standard. This has created the opportunity to put forward and incorporate many of the comments raised by participants at the last HR-XML Europe meeting held in Frankfurt in June 2005.

The next release of the SEP standard, including the feedback from HR-XML Europe, has been finalized at the HR-XML international meeting in Nashville in early October and is now awaiting formal approval. This consolidated release of SEP will provide the platform for the European SEP workgroup to develop it requirements and proposals to address specific European needs.

Organizations, companies or individuals who wish to join this workgroup should contact the chairperson:

Ingolf Teetz
I.Teetz@Milchundzucker.DE

The Competencies Workgroup
There is increasing acceptance that the notion of ìlifelong learningî will also require a lifelong competency framework, able to span education, industry and employment services domains. HR-XML Europeís Competency Workgroup has therefore decided to establish a two-year CEN/ISSS Workshop which will lead to a CWA (CEN Workshop Agreement). This project will lead to an alignment recommendation for the existing standards initiatives within which they can advance and further synchronize their current Competency specifications to address lifelong learning issues.

The workshop, which is currently being prepared, already has committed support from many communities of practice and standards bodies concerned with sharing and standardising competencies, including IMS, IEEE, and all chapters of HR-XML, as well as the top three Integrated Projects (IPs) of the 5th Technology-enhanced Learning call of the IST FP6 program.

Organizations, companies or individuals who wish to join this workgroup should contact the chairperson

Luk Vervenne
luk@synergetics.be

Seminar Details and Registration
The seminar will take place on 16th November 2005 at Le Meridien Hotel in the centre of Brussels, Belgium.

The seminar is designed for HR professionals and technologists working in the HR and recruitment fields across Europe whether in end-user organizations, suppliers or technology providers.

The seminar fee is 150 EUR (including lunch) per participant and 50 EUR for members of the HR-XML Consortium Europe. The seminar will be held in English. There are many hotels at a range of prices in the vicinity; further details can be supplied on request.

Register now: