Talent Management Taken to the Next Level through Saba Cloud Spring 2014 Release
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Talent Management Taken to the Next Level through Saba Cloud Spring 2014 Release

CIO Review

REDWOOD SHORES, CA: Saba, a cloud-based solutions provider for talent management, has announced the launch of the Saba Cloud Spring 2014 release. The product is expected to power an organization with enhanced employee engagement, accelerated decision-making and improved productivity.

Some of the additions in this release are reinforced predictive capabilities, redefined user experience and workflows, and futuristic connectivity solutions to connect with other enterprise solutions and services.

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“With these important innovations to Saba Cloud, we have delivered a smarter suite of products that give people more ways to work while increasing better decision-making and productivity,” said Shawn Farshchi, president and CEO, Saba. “With the latest updates driven by customer feedback and our commitment to innovation, we plan to continue to evolve our platform to meet the current and future needs of our customers and the marketplace.”

"The talent management industry is moving away from applications that don't get smarter and add more value over time to both users and the business," said Jim Lundy, founder and CEO of Aragon Research. "Saba continues to enhance the machine learning and predictive capabilities in its Saba Cloud suite, extending their value proposition of smarter apps."

“Companies are adopting next-generation technologies such as collaboration and mobile to improve their human capital processes,” said Stephan Millard, VP and Research Director at Ventana Research. “Saba’s Spring 2014 release of Saba Cloud delivers a significant step in helping companies adopt these next-generation technologies with enhancements like peer-to-peer HD conferencing and mobile goal management, both of which can help employees become more productive.”

The Saba Cloud Spring 2014 release includes over 60 enhancements, and showcases the best of talent management in three key areas:

Predictive: Saba’s patent pending machine learning technology is infused throughout its talent management platform and guides managers and administrators to better decisions, while helping employees find the information and expertise they need to succeed. New capabilities include:

The Percent Fit score. New in Saba’s Recruiting@Work product, this feature gives hiring managers more ways of identifying and ranking the best candidates based on a set of quantitative criteria.

SmartHire Assistant (patent pending). Built into the Recruiting@Work product, this capability takes an average of the ranking each member of the hiring team gives a candidate and plots the candidate on an n-box grid. This capability then provides recommendations on which candidates may be good hires for the job.

Intelligent Salary Recommendations. This feature in the Recruiting@Work product recommends the best salary ranges for different candidates, based on their ranking in the n-box grid.

Internal Candidate Suggestions. This capability in the Recruiting@Work product will look at an existing employee pool and make intelligent suggestions for possible internal candidates based on a review of profile data, employee skills and competencies, learning plans, as well as performance data.

Extensible: The platform upon which Saba Cloud is delivered has been designed to meet the needs of organizations from hundreds to thousands of users. Extensibility is a key strength of the platform. New capabilities include:

The Saba MarketPlace. In any organization there is a complex eco-system of human resource (HR) and talent applications and services. Connecting these various systems has to date been a very time consuming and complex proposition. Saba Marketplace radically simplifies the process of connecting third-party applications and services to Saba Cloud.

The services available include: recruiting: Job Boards – LinkedIn, SimplyHired and Monster; Talent Search – TalentBin; nterprise Vendors: HRMS/HRIS – Workday; Virtual Learning – Cisco WebEx; content providers: Kantola and OpenSesame; OpenSocial Standard Support: Twitter and Facebook

Validated Environment Managed Services and Support for FDA 21 CFR Part 11. Saba has extended the reach of Saba Cloud to customers operating in highly regulated environments such as financial, healthcare, pharmaceutical and insurance.

TinCan 1.0 Support. Saba Cloud now supports the TinCan 1.0 content standard.

Irresistible: Greater engagement drives better retention and productivity. Saba Cloud is the talent management solution designed to drive employee engagement. New capabilities include:

Built for Touch: Saba Cloud’s mobile applications (available for iOS and Android) reflect the new consumer grade experiences that end users expect. In addition to an enhanced user experience, this update also delivers mobile recruiting and goal management.

Gamification: The platform has support for a wide and growing set of game dynamics. This update includes custom badges which are given out with the Impressions feature as a form of peer recognition. These badges can now be created and customized to better align with a company’s culture, as well as the needs of specific programs.

Learning Calendar: Learners will have an easier time finding classes that fit their schedule with the new learning calendar. Monthly, weekly and daily views of events and the course catalog enable users to quickly customize their schedule.

HD Peer-to-Peer Video Conferencing: This new browser-based peer-to-peer HD video conferencing adds personalized collaboration to the entire talent management suite. A WebRTC-based and client-based solution, it is compatible with all major browsers and supports use cases such as remote proctoring and video interviewing and recruiting.

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