Much HR reporting is still rooted in the inner workings of the HR department. But while it’s important to measure efficiency (such as ‘How fast are you recruiting?’), it's just as important to look at effectiveness (‘Are you recruiting the best quality people?’) and the broader business impact (‘Which vacancies are hitting our business hardest?’) This Briefing Paper explores how People-based Business Intelligence can transform HR reporting and analysis

Hosted services offer a subscription-based alternative to the upfront costs incurred in traditional software rollouts. But now the hosted pricing model is also coming under scrutiny, says Phil Wainewright

Advances in mobile technology make it much easier for companies to connect with remote employees, whether they’re field engineers on the road or part-timers working from home. The people management issues, however, haven’t got any easier

There’s no shortage of theories about leadership – but how do managers draw from the best? The Institute of Leadership & Management has set out to pull the different models together

Are you looking to buy in talent for a specific project – or even hire out your own employees when you can’t find enough work for them? Flexible sourcing, a skills-based form of outsourcing, may be the answer

Should your HR department be taking lessons from sales and marketing to sharpen up its hiring techniques? How are organisations managing the shift to online recruitment? Are HR departments finding new ways to measure recruitment efficiency and effectiveness? Find out what 100 senior HR managers really think!

Discussions about HR self-service have tended to focus on efficiency and cost factors – but the real implications are far broader. This Briefing Paper assesses the impact of self-service on a wide range of people management activities, including training, absence and performance management

Travel and other non-PO expenses represent a significant outlay for most organisations, but many exercise poor control over their expenditure. This Briefing Paper assesses the business case for investment in expense management systems

HR systems haven’t exactly been known for their snazzy user interfaces, but effective people management is all about getting employees and managers involved - and usability really matters. Now it's becoming a big battle ground for vendors

Are you fed up with having to adapt the way you work to suit the software you use? New types of hosted software now let you build your own applications, without all the hassle of maintaining them

Pricing models are an obvious differentiator when it comes to choosing software systems – but what about the way they manage data? Food distributor Chiquita Brands saw that as a major factor when it bought a hosted service, says Phil Wainewright

Kings Lynn and West Norfolk Borough Council has chosen two different systems to run its payroll and HR operations – one an outsourced service, the other an on-premise system. Personnel services manager Becky Box explains the rationale

Standardising HR and payroll in multiple countries presents huge challenges, not least in project management. So how did pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca handle an HR technology rollout across 23 countries and three continents?

Getting new recruits up and running and making them productive has long been a challenge for people managers, not least because it involves so many different departments and IT systems. Virtual worlds might provide one answer

Why do so many HR outsourcing deals go wrong – and what can organisations do to head off problems? In a second interview with Webster Buchanan Research, University of Michigan professor Dave Ulrich argues that effective change management is critical

Named by Business Week as the number one management guru, University of Michigan professor Dave Ulrich is a force to be reckoned with in the people management field. His latest work builds a blueprint for a new-look HR function

How do you manage people who aren’t on your payroll, but play a central role in your success? Traditional ways of dealing with customers, suppliers, partners and contractors don’t always work, and you may need new types of cross-boundary people management practices, says CIPD’s Angela Baron

Everyone’s talking about web-based recruitment, and while take-up is still relatively low, it’s climbing. The trouble is, not everyone realises exactly what’s involved. And more to the point, what’s really in it for you?

Wondering why there’s so much fuss about social networking, wikis, blogs and the rest of the so-called ‘Web 2.0’ paraphernalia? Is it really something that’s going to cross the divide from the consumer world to business and people management? And what exactly does all this stuff do?

‘Hosted services’ are a completely different way to use HR, payroll and other business software. Instead of installing and managing applications yourself, service providers run them for you and charge for what you use. Big question: is there a catch?