» Daylight Saving Time Change & Your LMS:

By now you probably have heard the news that Daylight Saving Time arrives early this year in the United States. That’s right, the Energy Policy Act of 2005 passed by the U.S. Congress amends the Uniform Time Act of 1966 by changing the start and end dates of daylight saving time.

Starting in just a few weeks, clocks in the U.S. will be set ahead one hour on the second Sunday of March — instead of the previous first Sunday of April. This Act also changes when clocks will then be set back one hour on the first Sunday in November, rather than the last Sunday of October.

As a result of these changes, SumTotal has issued updates packaged as hot fixes for impacted products:

» Pathlore LMS Users

Pathlore LMS customers should obtain the new LMS hotfix through the Pathlore LMS Online Support Site at http://support.pathlore.com.

» LMS Hosted by SumTotal

Aspen and TotalLMS customers who are hosted by SumTotal need not take any action. These updates will be automatically applied during the upcoming maintenance window.

Docent customers who are hosted by SumTotal should download the appropriate update and confirm it does not conflict with any potential customizations or updates you have previously applied to your system. Then, you are required to request that the update be applied in your hosted environment by filing a support request via our online form and supplying a merged version of the patch if a merge is necessary.

Products NOT impacted by the time change are:

If you have any questions or concerns, please contact SumTotal Technical Support.

If you’re an HR professional looking to start an Employee Performance Management (EPM) initiative in the next year, most consultants would recommend you consider these six key questions:

• What is your current EPM process?

• What’s driving your EPM needs?

• In your organization, what are the most important features of an EPM?

• Would you expect to integrate with other HR systems?

• What challenges would you expect to face in getting your initiative started?

• How would you deploy your EPM?

SumTotal recently surveyed a global sample of more than 20,000 HR professionals on these six crucial aspects of EPM, and found a common dilemma — tremendous need for online employee performance management tools, thwarted by a lack of resources.

Respondents to our survey, though overwhelmingly enthusiastic about the possibility of implementing Employee Performance Management software, cited internal time, resources, and budget as enormous barriers.

The majority also preferred software installed on their own servers — but this approach is the most taxing to already-stretched internal resources. The solution: Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) may be the most cost-effective way to remove the burden from your IT and HR teams.

Ready to learn more?

• Get the survey details, download the white paper: Getting started on your EPM initiative

• Gain best practices on making a EPM purchasing decision and relative ROI by downloading the white paper: Selecting the right EPM system

» See TotalPerformance in Action:

Attend a live demo and learn how TotalPerformance can automate your organization’s employee evaluation process, creating huge time savings and driving business results with capabilities such as:

• goal management and alignment

• employee performance appraisals

• multi-rater/360-degree feedback

» Check out the upcoming dates and reserve your seat today
 

You may have noticed a new look on our website and materials. While we wanted to provide a fresher look, we also took the opportunity to think about our message - particularly as we have moved into the broader talent management market.

We are still just as focused on the LMS and continue to develop our industry-leading products, however we realized that there is a process of employee identification, assessment, and development that increases contribution to an organization. So, we’ve expanded the information on our site to speak to those experiences and provide our users with information and offerings for your talent management initiatives.

What kind of new information and messaging will you find on our website? Take a look:

• Talent drives your business – whether you're in Learning or HR. Better talent gives better results. Do you know where your talent is and how to correlate it to your business?

• Experience makes you stronger – experience in trying new things, or in perfecting current practices.

• Be ready – for change, attrition, innovation, competitive threats. Use the technology
  to get your employees ready.

• Power in the connection –
  connecting our customers makes all of us better and smarter. We collectively learn from each other, more quickly.

• New White Papers

• New Case Studies & Live Demos

New Images — "Real Life" Teams
at Work

You'll also find the site now sporting updated colors and imagery to reflect our leadership in the industry. Tired of generic office photos, we added new images of actual teams at work — real people, real situations.

Send Us Your Photos, Success Stories & Feedback

We want to put your teams & success stories in the spotlight too! If you have pictures of your workforce, and are willing to share with us for posting, please send them along to news@sumtotalsystems.com.

Have a SumTotal success story? We can help get it published. To share your story, simply complete the online form. Feedback? We welcome that too, send us your thoughts and ideas to news@sumtotalsystems.com.