Author Archives: tomstrand

European Commission. The annual European Innovation Scoreboard (EIS 2021) provides a comparative assessment of the research and innovation performance of EU Member
States and selected third countries (among them Norway), and the relative strengths and
weaknesses of their research and innovation systems. It helps countries
assess areas in which they need to concentrate their efforts in order to
boost their innovation performance.

The seven pillars.

Overall. Belgium, Denmark, Finland and Sweden are Innovation Leaders with
innovation performance well above the EU average. Austria, Estonia,
France, Germany, Ireland, Luxembourg and the Netherlands are Strong
Innovators with performance above the EU average. The performance of
Cyprus, Czech Republic, Greece, Italy, Lithuania, Malta, Portugal, Slovenia, and
Spain is below the EU average. These countries are Moderate Innovators.
Bulgaria, Croatia, Hungary, Latvia, Poland, Romania and Slovakia are
Emerging Innovators with performance well below the EU average. Norway is rated 20, as a moderate innovator.

Norwegian sub-pillars. Norway is rated as number 13 in Human capital and research, a moderate innovator, while Sweden, Finland and Denmark are rated among the leading innovators as number 2, 4 and 6. Norway ranked number 1 in infrastructure, 28 in the use (outcome) of ICT and 25 in creativity. Norway invests a lot of money in infrastructure, but scores low on the effects of the investments, for example in ICT. In terms of creativity, Norway are far behind countries such as Malta, Luxembourg, Cyprus and Estonia, which are far behind Norway in terms of infrastructure. In terms of business sophistication, Sweden is ranked 1, USA 2 and Singapore 3. Finland is ranked 6, while Norway gets a 23rd place. It is gratifying that Norway scores high in institutions with a 3rd place only beaten by Singapore and Finland. Market sophistication – 21 and Canada, USA and Hong Kong (China) on the podium.

Human Capital Norway Index (calculations). The level and standard of education and research activity in a country are prime determinants of the innovation capacity of a nation. This pillar tries to gauge the human capital of countries. The first sub-pillar includes a mix of indicators aimed at capturing achievements at the elementary and secondary education levels. Education expenditure and school life expectancy are good proxies for coverage. Government expenditure per pupil, secondary gives a sense of the level of priority given to secondary education by the state. The quality of education is measured through the results to the OECD Program for International Student Assessment (PISA), which examines 15-year-old students’ performances in reading, mathematics, and science, as well as the pupil-teacher ratio. Higher education is crucial for economies to move up the value chain beyond simple production processes and products. The sub-pillar on tertiary education aims at capturing coverage (tertiary enrollment); priority is given to the sectors traditionally associated with innovation (with a series on the percentage of tertiary graduates in science and engineering, manufacturing, and construction); and the inbound and mobility of tertiary students, which plays a crucial role in the exchange of ideas and skills necessary for innovation. The last sub-pillar, on R&D,measures the level and quality of R&D activities, with indicators on researchers (full-time equivalence), gross expenditure, and the quality of scientific and research institutions as measured by the average score of the top three universities in the QS World University Ranking of 2014. By design, this indicator aims at capturing the availability of at least three higher education institutions of quality within each economy (i.e., included in the global top 700), and is not aimed at assessing the average level of all institutions within a particular economy.

European Commission. The annual European Innovation Scoreboard (EIS 2021) provides a comparative assessment of the research and innovation performance of EU Member
States and selected third countries (among them Norway), and the relative strengths and
weaknesses of their research and innovation systems. It helps countries
assess areas in which they need to concentrate their efforts in order to
boost their innovation performance.

The seven pillars.

Overall. Belgium, Denmark, Finland and Sweden are Innovation Leaders with
innovation performance well above the EU average. Austria, Estonia,
France, Germany, Ireland, Luxembourg and the Netherlands are Strong
Innovators with performance above the EU average. The performance of
Cyprus, Czech Republic, Greece, Italy, Lithuania, Malta, Portugal, Slovenia, and
Spain is below the EU average. These countries are Moderate Innovators.
Bulgaria, Croatia, Hungary, Latvia, Poland, Romania and Slovakia are
Emerging Innovators with performance well below the EU average. Norway is rated 20, as a moderate innovator.

Selected Norwegian indexes. Norway is rated as number 13 in Human capital and research, a moderate innovator, while Sweden, Finland and Denmark are rated among the leading innovators as number 2, 4 and 6. Norway ranked number 1 in infrastructure, 28 in the use (outcome) of ICT and 25 in creativity. Norway invests a lot of money in infrastructure, but scores low on the effects of the investments, for example in ICT. In terms of creativity, Norway are far behind countries such as Malta, Luxembourg, Cyprus and Estonia, which are far behind Norway in terms of infrastructure. In terms of business sophistication, Sweden is ranked 1, USA 2 and Singapore 3. Finland is ranked 6, while Norway gets a 23rd place. gledelig er det at Norge scorer høyt på institusjoner med en 3 plass bare slått av Singapore og Finland. Norge scorer med andre ord bra på institusjoner og infrastruktur, men relativt dårligere på anvendelsen av menneskelig kapital og teknologi, forretningsvirksomhet og kreativitet. Innovasjonen i Norge er stort sett knyttet til eksisterende råvarer enten i form å “hente opp” olje, gass eller fisk, utnytte vind, vann, hydrogen, transportere, lagring, fangst av CO2 eller å bygge infrastruktur og institusjoner (offentlig sektor). Denne “miksen” av virksomhet fører ikke til spesielt høy score på markeds- og forretningsmessig sofistikering, kreativitet eller effektiv bruk av ICT eller HC.

Human Capital Norway Index (calculations). The level and standard of education and research activity in a country are prime determinants of the innovation capacity of a nation. This pillar tries to gauge the human capital of countries. The first sub-pillar includes a mix of indicators aimed at capturing achievements at the elementary and secondary education levels. Education expenditure and school life expectancy are good proxies for coverage. Government expenditure per pupil, secondary gives a sense of the level of priority given to secondary education by the state. The quality of education is measured through the results to the OECD Program for International Student Assessment (PISA), which examines 15-year-old students’ performances in reading, mathematics, and science, as well as the pupil-teacher ratio. Higher education is crucial for economies to move up the value chain beyond simple production processes and products. The sub-pillar on tertiary education aims at capturing coverage (tertiary enrollment); priority is given to the sectors traditionally associated with innovation (with a series on the percentage of tertiary graduates in science and engineering, manufacturing, and construction); and the inbound and mobility of tertiary students, which plays a crucial role in the exchange of ideas and skills necessary for innovation. The last sub-pillar, on R&D,measures the level and quality of R&D activities, with indicators on researchers (full-time equivalence), gross expenditure, and the quality of scientific and research institutions as measured by the average score of the top three universities in the QS World University Ranking of 2014. By design, this indicator aims at capturing the availability of at least three higher education institutions of quality within each economy (i.e., included in the global top 700), and is not aimed at assessing the average level of all institutions within a particular economy.

Talection works to reduce bad hires and at the same time open up for hiring outside own industry to ensure access to skilled talent. The tools we use include:

1. Algorithms that measure candidates’ total competencies, including education, work experience, skills and personality using neuroscience games, self-report tests, IQ tests and Big data. Always uses 2-3 tests to identify one competence requirement.
2. Algorithms that compare mastery, well-being and identity requirements with the competence requirements in a holistic way.
3. Digital twins are used to enable non-experts to analyze the requirements (job needs and competency requirements) without being an expert. Complicated relationships between work and people are simplified without simplification, the quality is not compromised.
4. Collaborates with digital and AI advertising agencies to provide the best talent using SoMe.
5. All candidates receive the same treatment and experience.
6. Data about the candidate is also the start of the employee journey for the selected candidate.

TALECTION EXPERIENCES GREAT PROGRESS AND IS LOOKING FOR MORE PARTNERS TO CARRY OUT ASSIGNMENTS – GLOBALLY. Sales take place in an ecosystem consisting of several partners who work towards our common goal: Flawless and bold hiring !!! Contact Tom Strand for a nice chat. (tom.strand@talection.com).


PS: Today, Talection works in: Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Turkey, South Africa, North Africa, Middle East, UK, Be-Ne-Lux, Singapore, USA, are constantly expanding globally.  Our methods and tests are culture-neutral and promotes diversity. It’s all about individuals.

The Story Behind

The problems that TalEction wants to address are related to dimensioning, hiring, change, restructuring and development of businesses both at the organizational and individual levels. In the future, it will be more important than ever to engage employees by letting them become a driving force of the processes, facilitated by leaders. 

The world is overflooded with standard products and services that are not tailored to individuals nor particularly effective in use. It is essential for companies to focus much more on adding true differentiating value (qualities) to products and services – this will make them more useful to individuals. 

If consumers find the “improved” product or service more valuable and/or at a lower price – they will  “run to buy”. Therefore, it is more important for companies in the future to build capabilities, have a high rate of innovation and have a good grasp on trends and market shifts. 

Consumers are always  interested in getting more for their money (price sensitive) and curious about “news” that affects them personally. 

Purpose

TalEction helps companies build the future needs for capability and ensure employees positive career development and living standard. This is done by utilizing employees’ talent in a systematic way in order to work smarter and support consumerization of  products and services (focus on quality, tailored to individuals and effect of use).  

The solution is based on the following 5 principles,

Principle 1: Learning Organization

To operationalize the concept of learning organization, TalEction uses learning objectives (job profile elements), tests and neuroscience games to measure skills (person profile elements) and AI to connect job profiles and person profiles.  TalEction makes it possible to aggregate data from individual to organizational level and  make a comprehensive overview of companies’ innovation ability and monitor progress and alignment at all levels in the organization. TalEction has developed new KPIs, in addition to existing financial KPIs, to take balanced goal management to the next step.

Principle 2: Leadership and Change

Employees possess knowledge and soft skills that are not utilized through the use of management. Leadership makes sure to unleash employee talent by inspiring and engaging employees, teams and entire organizations. TalEction leadership supports you with a virtual digital leadership assistant (VLA) , strengthening your awareness of culture, strategy and structures and skills and personality traits. The digital mentor helps leaders to unleash employee talent, build team dynamics and network organizations in addition to leading innovation work and learning organizations. Change Leadership focuses on structural changes (large-scale changes according to human KPIs) as opposed to change management which focuses on modifying processes, rules and workflow i.e. keeping everything under control (according to budget and financial KPIs). Technology will continue to disrupt and reinvent the rules of business and social behavior at an ever-increasing pace. To navigate an uncertain future, TalEction uses scenario thinking as a framework, instead of using only historical data to extrapolate the future. To ask the following question is important to scenario thinking: Can our long-term strategy cope with potential scenarios? The result is a flexible strategy to handle the unexpected – supported by TalEction from initiation to scenario implementation to make individuals and teams real drivers of the innovation. Companies need more “change leadership” to solve fundamental problems. 

Principle 3: System Thinking

Hierarchical structures have led managers to look after their own interests, even if this should be at the expense of the company’s interests. This dysfunction is an obstacle to creating efficient value chains and building efficient ecosystems. Companies that do not address these barriers will not be able to meet consumer needs in the future. The complexity of the value chain will simply be unmanageable. TalEction enables businesses to remove dysfunction and adapt the organization to increasingly frequent changes in needs based on a holistic approach (rightsizing). Dysfunctionality is estimated to add  40-60% higher costs than necessary to the accounts, if efficiency is used as a basis for the calculations. The difference can be seen as what mistrust is about to cost companies. If companies invest in trust, costs can be reduced by 40-60% and the cost optimization can help free up resources for innovation and new revenue streams.

Principle 4: AI and Platform

Working knowledge- and evidence-based will become more important in the future. The use of platform and AI makes analysis (as is and to be/readiness) and evaluation work affordable. It will also make implementation of development, training, rightsizing, recruitment and career advice sufficiently targeted and objective. TalEction has everything gathered on one platform including more than 50 tests, games (neuroscientific) and tools (test and games battery) and gives customers full access to all data and the opportunity to reuse data and develop their own AI. The platform is self-service and employees and managers are responsible for personal profiles and job profiles, respectively. Data is shared between the employer and the employee in accordance with the GDPR, embedded into the platform. In this way leaders  and employees become active drivers of development and recruitment processes. Data can be aggregated from individual to organizational level both specific and generic/anonymously for the implementation of individual or strategic initiatives.

Principle 5: Digital Twins

Businesses, including the employees, will be digitized and they will develop digital culture. Digital twins represent humans as virtual objects, teams and organizations and work are connected in order to produce and deliver smart products and services. In the future, all products and services will be “intelligent” to ensure efficient use by consumers either by embedded technologies or associated digital services. This makes it possible to organize and lead virtual networks of human and work digital twins to support a number of different valuechains. TalEction’s digital twins ensure that the right authorized user(s) are in the right place to make the right decisions based on data; it also opens up for adding quality to a greater extent to the decisions (optimizing). Several companies have developed digital twins that focus on physical objects, work processes and tasks, but they do not use human digital twins. If employees do not become part of that network of digital twins, the company will not be able to develop a digital culture, but only build infrastructure and carry out work using digital tools.

Why leadership is the coming star!

For the past 30 years, companies have worked to increase productivity by focusing on work effort. Productivity in Norway was positive until 2008 (SSB, Norway), while in all subsequent years it has had a declining trend. Professor Morten Hansen at the UC Berkeley School of Information, has for a long time pointed out the need to be more concerned with results (outcome of the effort). Talection has developed a SaaS solution that focuses on results and utilizing qualities in the workforce. Talection can document 40-60% better utilization of labor resources, by extracting strategic and operational gains. This means that companies can increase revenues and growth significantly, without making investments.

Talection’s product portfolio consists of:

1. Rightsizing.
2. Organization, team, leader and employee development.
3. Change, performance and monitoring.
4. Skill training.
5. Recruitment and selection.