Hula Partners Announces Kahuna, the First and Only Cloud-Based Solution to Address the Competency Management Gap

SAN DIEGO, CA–(Marketwired – Mar 11, 2015) – Hula Partners, a provider of HR software, strategic consultation and implementation services, today announced the launch of Kahuna, the first and only cloud-based solution to directly address the competency management gap for workforces in highly regulated industries like oil & gas and transportation. Hula customers include major Fortune 500 companies such as Adidas, Cameron and Marathon Oil.

The ability to map competencies to the skills required for each job is an unmet need — one that Human Capital Management (HCM) and Talent Management (TM) suites have not adequately addressed. This leaves a big gap in the ability for both HR and operations to ensure that the right employees are placed in the right job at the right time. And that can have devastating consequences for employees, their companies and the environment.

“Today we’re excited to introduce Kahuna — a direct result of our collaboration with a cross section of customers who have embraced best-in-class competency management processes,” said Jai Shah, a Hula Managing Partner. “It’s a cloud-based solution created in the real world to solve real problems.”

According to a new survey commissioned by Hula Partners, 94 percent of US executives and HR professionals say that competency management would prevent safety and compliance issues, but less than half are actually using a Competency Management System at all. Companies that do perform competency management are able to reduce their safety and compliance incidents by more than 50 percent, from 108 to 51 per year. Of the companies that conduct some form of competency management, 70 percent or more are not using it for operations, recruiting or audits.

In addition, the survey found that while 70 percent of firms are performing some competency management, they are hampered by insufficient tools, inconsistent usage or low staff buy-in.

“No one has been able to dynamically capture competency and skills management across both the HR function and day-to-day operations,” commented Holger Mueller, VP and Principal Analyst at Constellation Research. The art will be to make it easy to use in regulated industries.”

Kahuna is the only cloud-based Competency Management Solution designed specifically for the people in charge of day-to-day operations within heavily regulated industries. Kahuna helps them to reduce risk, stay compliant, build highly qualified teams, gain visibility into day-to-day operations, and make faster decisions to improve productivity and safety.

Key benefits of the Kahuna Competency Management Solution include:

• Visibility – Provides decision makers with a way to see and compare competency levels among individuals, teams, and entire organizations. It allows them to search worker skill sets, measure performance levels, identify skills gaps, and facilitate collaboration across divisions.
• Control – Empowers operations managers to catalog and manage workforce competencies in a way that reflects how they’re actually scheduling and assessing work in their industries. With Kahuna, they can assess performance, forecast needs, determine training goals, and measure progress. Kahuna is also the only solution that makes it easy to influence recruiting activities through real-time competency inventories.
• Operational excellence – By making it easier to manage worker competencies and drive recruiting priorities, Kahuna promotes excellence at a compliance level as well as at an operational one. The solution promotes the smooth and efficient running of day-to-day workflow and helps the people in charge of daily operations to ensure that the right worker is placed in the right job at the right time.
• Easy integration – An open architecture integrates with most HR software, including HCM and Talent Management suites.

Kahuna is already being implemented by a number of companies, and is available now as a cloud-based solution or as on-premise software. For more information, please visit www.hulapartners.com/kahuna.

“As the survey results show, competency management is a process that can have tremendous benefits when successfully implemented across an entire organization,” commented Shad Adair, a Hula Managing Partner. “Kahuna will make this much easier to do with an agnostic solution to close the competency management gap.”

Reputation Leaders, an independent research firm, conducted the survey of 100 US executives and HR professionals, working for firms employing more than 2,500 people. The study was executed online between Tuesday, January 27^th and Tuesday, February 3^rd and the companies surveyed collectively employ an estimated 3.5 million people.

For a copy of the complete survey report, visit www.hulapartners.com/case-studiesclients.

About Hula Partners
Hula Partners is the creator of Kahuna, the first and only solution to directly address the competency management gap for workforces in highly regulated industries. The cloud-based platform is designed for day-to-day operators and ties directly into HR systems to ensure that the right worker is placed in the right job at the right time. Hula Partners also provides strategic consultation and implementation services, drawing on more than 80 years’ collective experience in Human Capital Management (HCM) and Talent Management (TM) software implementations for major Fortune 500 companies such as Adidas, Cameron and Marathon Oil. For more information, visit www.hulapartners.com.