HRpedia: 'Dog-food'

Dog-food, v.

The idea (often expressed as ‘eating your own dog food’) of using one’s own product or service to demonstrate its capabilities, to identify shortfalls or simply to endorse it.

Frequently, this scenario exists in software environments. Microsoft will use Bing rather than Google, for example, while HP will use its own printers.

There are also expectations that HR departments will ‘dog-food’ their own systems. For example, an HRBP should undergo a 360 degree appraisal if that’s what she expects of her line managers. Similarly, a HRA shouldn’t really be allowed to circumvent his own absence management process.

Used in practice:

‘Will you be dog-fooding the new Assessment Centre for the Resourcing Manager vacancy, Julia?’

‘Not likely, Clive. If we do that, who knows what kind of idiot we’ll end up with. Let’s test it on those Finance vacancies first.’

If we were to discover that Sage used Oracle HRM software or vice versa, that would be the very opposite of dog-fooding.

About the author

Andrew Baird

Andrew is the CEO of HRville. He is also Employer Brand Director of Blackbridge Communications, Editorial Director of Professionals in Law and an associate of The Smarty Train. Previously, he was the MD of TCS Advertising.