Highlights included marathon beach volleyball games, some quite ‘refreshing’ swims, a very civilised game of croquet, and a splendid (if sandy) rendition of the Sonar6 gummi. We also tried a bit of hunter-gathering and netted a fair haul of pipis for the BBQ: classic kiwi beach tucker!

True to style, we couldn’t let the day go without some form of friendly competition – and this time we got our hands on some weaponry. The stars of that show were definitely Kai and Jonny, who managed to blitz the competition in skeet shooting and archery respectively – both on their first ever attempts.

And of course, special congratulations must go to John for winning the Loud Shirt competition; the shorts were just a bonus.

Merry Christmas from all at Sonar6; have a healthy and happy New Year!

To quote Josh Bersin’s excellent blog on the topic: 

The critical problems organizations face in 2009 are very different: rapid market changes, restructuring, downsizing, mergers and acquisitions. These problems not only create a need for better alignment and leadership, but a heavy focus on rapid talent planning, employee mobility, rapid skills development, and business agility. 

Today I hear more and more HR and business leaders telling me “we have our talent management strategy well underway” but what we really need is a “People Strategy.”

Read Josh’s full article here.

In this article Catherine Bircher, Sonar6’s Quality Lead, discusses some of the challenges we face when it comes to designing our UI, and what we’re doing to make Sonar6 v3 easy for everyone to use.

The challenge of designing for older computer users

One of the problems that any software development company faces is designing for people that aren’t 23, and who aren’t geeks (Recent research shows that almost a quarter of computer users can’t run a Google search. Tell that to your head IT person the next time they say “That’s easy” to you.) Moreover, there are a whole set of challenges associated with designing for older users.

Know our users?

We can’t rely on statistics about the average age of HR professionals when we’re making notes about who we design for. In a product like ours, where self-assessment is actively encouraged, the user can be any age. It’s likely that a 57-year old shelf stacker called Vera will have to use it to rate herself before that meeting with her manager, so we’d better make sure that she can, without any problems.

Okay, whether or not Vera’s a geek, (and maybe she codes linux patches at home, we can’t assume), she still faces a set of restrictions in her computer use which are alien to most young designers. These are based purely on her physiology.

Older vision

From about the age of 40, peoples visual systems start to change due to aging, because of changes to the lens of the eye. This is a normal and predictable process, slow at first, but accelerating with age. Vision becomes darker, more blurred close-up, glare becomes a problem, and colours don’t look the same.

• Need for more light
  Brighter is better for older eyes.
• Difficulty distinguishing variations in brightness
  The contrast between an item and its background needs to be much higher for an older person to see it easily.
• Difficulty with close work and glare increase
  Fine details can be lost.
• Difficulty discriminating between colours
  It’s easier for the older eye to see reds, oranges and yellows than it is to see blues, greens and violets.

Add these up. If you want to replicate how a screen looks to an older user, try wearing sunglasses made of scratched yellow cellophane. Still able to see that small bluegrey-on-grey font you were so pleased with in your design?

Older motion

In addition to the visual changes, motor skills deteriorate with age, so, for example, older people tend to have more difficulty than younger adults selecting small targets on a computer screen when using a mouse. So not only do older users have trouble seeing things, they have trouble interacting with them once they’ve managed to spot them.

So…what does this mean for us, and the direction we’re taking Sonar6 in?

We can design with the above in mind, so that the older user has as little trouble as possible seeing what’s on the screen, and with interacting with it.
Practically speaking, we can use:

• Big fonts
• Good contrast, using dark letters on a white background
• Big sizes for things, such as big buttons and icons
• Bold, distinct colours

The real beauty of this is, that by designing for the older user, we’re not handicapping the younger one. They also benefit from having things easy to see, easy to read, easy to hit with the mouse, in fact all of our testing suggests that everyone of these things increases the speed of use and satisfaction for a younger user.

Which brings us back to the original point… you should always design with older users in mind, its a sure fire way of making a product better for everyone.

Well, we finally did it. After playing Sardines for a couple of years, we’ve moved to a bigger office space – we’ve now got room to swing whole families of cats!

Only joking; we love cats.

Sonar6’s Head Office is now at 23a Union Street, Freemans Bay Auckland; an invigorating 5 minute walk from our old offices and right by the Wellington Street on-ramp. We’re still getting everything set up and stored away (and figuring out where to put the Wii), but if you’re in the neighbourhood, drop in and say hi!

Head Office contact details:

23a Union St
Freemans Bay
Auckland 1010
New Zealand

PO Box 911461
Victoria Street West
Auckland 1142

Phone: 0800 SONAR6 / 09 968 2133
Fax: 09 929 3393

When tough times bite the question is always: Who do I keep, who do I manage out?

Be ready to answer that question now. Get all of your people on a grid of performance versus potential.

In a downturn the natural flow of senior people retiring out of the workforce gets disrupted as house prices fall and investment portfolios weaken; unemployment goes up and people mobility goes down. It seems like your retention problems go away…

…but what actually happens is that poor performers dig their heels in and stay put, while stars continue to move freely between companies.  Yet the silver bullet for coming out of the downturn looking good is definitely in the top right of your grid.

You’ve got less money, so hold onto stars by building each one of them a great development plan and telling them every day how important they are.

When I was a kid it took my brother and I 40 minutes to ride our bikes to school. If there was a strong headwind we just had to leave ten minutes earlier. In a downturn we all have to work harder. Make sure that everyone has goals set that realize the short term objectives of the business. If you need to conserve cash, goal people on cash conservation.

It’s that simple.

The schwag cupboard’s not quite bare yet, so if you want to get your hands on some then post a reply with your reason as to why you need schwag… If we like it then we’ll send you some. You never know, you might even be lucky enough to lay hands on the elusive jet black Sonar6 tee, suitable for both mother-of-the-bride and after-five.

What a killer week! An unparalleled opportunity to talk to literally hundreds of clients, prospects, competitors, industry analysts and other luminaries. Here are the three big recurring themes from these conversations:

Continuous versus Discrete

Performance management as a practice is so often centered around the performance review, which often happens only annually. Which means in many organizations performance management is viewed as an annual exercise. However smart businesses know that good performance management is continuous – managers should be having frequent conversations with employees about reaching goals and personal development – and the systems will need to start to support that shift. Jason Corsello gives his views here.

Web 2.0

It’s on everyone’s lips, but what does it mean? Particularly to HR. The commonest definition of web 2.0 is the internet as a platform, made up of engaging interfaces where users create content.  Like Sonar6, and like the emerging space of internal social networking. There are now some cool applications of Facebook-like sites used within corporations as a way of getting people to share knowledge and capabilities with each other.

Sonar6  presented at the Cool New Technologies session where many of these web 2.0 plays were demonstrated. For two great examples of web 2.0 checkout cubeless.com (intranet social networking) and interviewstudio.com (online applicant screening).

Business not HR

Okay, we’ve been banging on about this since the start, but there is a definite shift in the language here. HR applications are now generally talked about as business tools rather than as HR tools, and the expectation is of business ROI (not just HR cost savings) in any HR system implementation. Heidi Spirgi of Knowledge Infusion noticed this too and talks about it at length here.

Read it here. It’s over-the-top but it sure highlights the things wrong with traditional approaches to performance reviews, including a common thread of managers, subordinates and HR working cross purposes.

Our answer to this at Sonar6 has always been engagement. Performance management has to be useful. Useful for the manager wanting to build performance in their team, useful to the employee wanting support to improve and progress, and most importantly useful to help the organization make better people decisions.

The sentiment is mirrored by Jason Corsello of Knowledge Infusion in his equally provocative piece “We Are Doing Performance Management All Wrong” where he advocates performance management should not be about automating the performance review process, but rather about equiping everyone to make better decisions. Also definitely worth a read.

Iconic New Zealand business New Zealand Post has recently signed a Letter of Understanding with Sonar6 to further develop their strategic partnership.

The New Zealand Post Group comprises a family of business with diverse capabilities in the banking, communication, data-management, logistics and distribution sectors.  The group has more than 10,000 employees – a figure which climbs to 17,500 when taking into account contractors and franchisees – operating at 282 sites across the country.   New Zealand Post Group Manager, Capability, Jacqui Cleland says the need to effectively manage talent across the group is a priority.  “And, because our organisation operates a federated model, we wanted to implement Sonar6 in a way that is flexible and relevant to the existing needs of each of our businesses.”

“While there is no compulsion for individual business units to use Sonar6, all of our businesses have been exposed to it.  And, those already using Sonar6 are spreading the word.  They’re keen to share their experiences and demonstrate how helpful it has been in their work. They’re great advocates!  As a result, there has been an organic uptake of Sonar6 from Datamail to Kiwibank to Converga to Group corporate teams,” Jacqui says.

At Group level, Sonar6 has also proven very useful.

“When I was first introduced to Sonar6, what sold me was the fact that it’s simple and intuitive to use.  What’s more, it’s highly visual and we can see at a glance where people are sitting and what their performance trajectory looks like.  This is great from a group capability perspective – it has given us a common performance management framework and consistent language that’s enabled the executive team to have more targeted and robust discussions around performance, talent management and succession planning,” Jacqui says.

The recently-signed Letter of Understanding will foster an even closer relationship between Sonar6 and New Zealand Post in the future.

“While Sonar6 will continue to do stand-alone implementations for New Zealand Post Group businesses as required, we now have greater flexibility to ‘join the dots’.  So, while the individual business units can get a helicopter view of their talent, across the group we will eventually get a space-station view!

“It’s a great tool and they’re great people - we’re looking forward to doing more work with the Sonar6 team,” Jacqui says.

Quick Start Component Jump Starts Process and New Transparent Pricing Model Guarantees “No Surprises”

AUCKLAND, New Zealand and SANTA CLARA, Calif., (October 15, 2008) – Sonar6, the only graphics-based employee performance management system (EPM), today announced details of the next version of its flagship performance management product, Sonar6 Version 3, which will be generally available December 2008. The newest version delivers an unparalleled user experience that is intuitive and engaging and enables organizations of any size to rapidly implement the performance management process and start making more informed decisions regarding their people. Enhancements also include the solution’s Quick Start component that empowers organizations with the ability to self-tailor the application and start doing great staff performance reviews without requiring additional expertise or resources. Through Sonar6’s predictable, straight-forward published pricing model, organizations can predictably forecast budgets and have the flexibility to select a solution that best fits their needs.

Enhanced Usability
Recognizing that the performance management system is accessed intermittently by managers and employees, and user engagement is a key to success, Sonar6 Version 3 includes usability enhancements that not only make the solution more intuitive, but fun to use. Starting with an interactive design perspective combined with the culmination of two years of research and development and observation and feedback from the company’s more than 20,000 users, the most usable employee performance management system in the world is now even more useable.

Touted as a “cool vendor” by industry researchers at Gartner, the revamped solution is a far-cry from tired “online” HR forms resulting in more engaged users. Through its flexible and intuitive interface, employees can easily input to their reviews, see the goals that have been set for them and contribute to their own development plans. Managers can review individuals or make comparisons across teams. To help guide the process, progress bars indicate percentage of completion and next steps, further reducing user frustration and increasing productivity by enabling users to complete reviews faster.

Quick Start
Understanding that speed to implementation –not lack of desire for a performance management solution – is what holds smaller organizations (less than 1,000 employees) back from incorporating a performance management tool into their talent strategy, Sonar6 Version 3 includes Quick Start, which enables organizations to self-tailor the application through wizards and drop-down menus.
Quick Start provides packaged profiles to meet the needs of small to mid-size companies and speeds roll out. Sonar6 Web-based Quick Start features the most common roles, measurements and competencies to jump start implementation while enabling organizations to reap the rewards of industry best practices.

“Typically, what has prevented small and mid-size organizations from implementing a performance management solution has been the project length and requirement of internal resources,” said Michael Carden, co-founder of Sonar6. “Talent management shouldn’t be just the domain of large companies with large HR departments. In this economy with a looming shortage of talent, organizations – regardless of size - need tools to manage performance and make more-informed people decisions. Sonar6 Version 3 Quick Start was designed to help organizations rapidly implement a performance management process and be able to do a good job of measuring and managing employee performance.”

Straight-forward, Predictable Pricing
To democratize talent management, Sonar6 has implemented a published pricing model that helps organizations predictably analyze costs and choose a solution that best fits their needs.

The first level includes $99 (USD) per person per year and includes the first 30 days free. This option offers performance reviews (including self-rating, development plans and 360s) and enables organizations to self-tailor the solution, choose performance measures and competencies from the Sonar6 library, which covers most roles in organizations, and can be tailored to the organization’s culture and values.

The second model is USD 2,999.00 per year for up to 75 employees, and includes complimentary service for the first 30 days. It features all the components of the first level along with a helicopter view of the organization. Sonar6 takes the information captured in individual reviews then combines it onto a map of performance versus potential covering the entire organization, enabling managers to review the whole business at a glance or drill down for details on divisions, teams or individuals. For smaller organizations in a fast-growth business, predictable pricing offers room to expand up to 75 employees without additional investment.

A fully configured solution with access to all the above and succession planning modules and optional integration with HRIS and payroll commences at USD250 per person per year (volume discounts are available).

Sonar6 will be featured in the HR Technology Conference’s “Cool New Technologies Session.” More information can also be accessed at www.sonar6.com.

About Sonar6

Sonar6 is the only graphics-based performance management system that is easy to learn, easy to use and simplifies staff performance management, enabling organizations to enhance employee development, make better people decisions and drive organizational improvement. Through its graphics-based interface, users can create great staff performance reviews online, gain access to helicopter views of the organization and make more-informed staff decisions. Awarded product-of-the-year 2007 from Human Resource Executive Magazine, Sonar6 is offered as a Software-as-a-Service (SAAS) delivery model and is used by small and large companies throughout Australasia, Asia, Europe and the United States. For more information, visit www.sonar6.com.

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