Strategic Human Capital Insights

Is Your Current Leadership Team Up to the Human Asset Management Task?

The topic of human capital is everywhere today, but how do organizations implement a robust human capital structure and culture, one that goes from talk to action? In our previous blogs, I discussed moving the narrative about human capital to the next level – human asset management. If we do that, we think about employees and, more importantly, managing employees like the dynamic and robust assets they can be. We must consider employees relative to peak performance and productivity, value creation, relevant and future-focused skills, and knowledge upskilling. As leaders, we need to view our employees as continually appreciating assets. This is good for both the employee and the organization.

Human asset management cannot exist organizationally without the critical function called leadership. Only leadership can focus on how employees are upskilled and ready to meet tomorrow's workforce challenges and demands.

If people are your most important asset, what's the impact of HR in your organization?   

Integral to the topic of Human Asset Management is an honest organizational evaluation of the ‘keeper of human capital’, the human resources department. If human capital is truly going to be elevated to the level of human asset management, an organization needs a highly-regarded HR department driving the strategic discussion of people. Embedded in HR’s responsibilities are:

• Human Asset Risk Management assessing if:
  • employee costs equal required productivity
  • employees are value creators, value sustainers, or value eroders
  • employee skills are:
    • appreciating and pacing with strategic initiatives
    • stagnant and maintaining current levels but not growth levels
    • depreciating and creating a negative drag on performance, productivity, and profitability
      
      
• Human Asset Complex Consequence Analysis focusing on:
  • near-term, mid-term, and long-term time horizons
  • near-term – long-term human capital bench strength resulting in business resiliency
  • near-term – long-term impact on organizational agility – the ability to deploy relevantly-skilled people, on-demand
    
    
• Human Asset Impact Analysis on:
  • Competitive Advantage
  • Market Sustainability
  • Growth Acceleration

What is Human Asset Management? If we say that people are our most important asset, we need to think about them as any other organizational asset, which is a good thing. We give considerable thought to capital equipment and perform a great deal of due diligence when we both purchase and maintain that capital equipment. Do we put that much effort into hiring and developing our human assets? Let’s compare and contrast a piece of capital equipment diligence relative to human asset management.

Here’s how companies often evaluate the decision to purchase and maintain a valued piece of capital equipment compared to how companies manage and retain human assets:

If you say people are your most important asset, it may be time to rethink what that really means to your organization.  How do your current human assets perform relative to your organization’s requirements for growth, competitive positioning, transformation, and business agility - the ability to deploy human assets on demand?  All these strategic business issues require complex, future-focused approaches that replace outdated, underperforming methods.

If the measure of success for every company is the realization of maximum business value based on value creation, then every human asset should be a value creator.

The Challenge:

Replace short-term, cost-center focused people strategies with a well-considered, long-term human asset management strategy.  If people are assets, they must be treated like any other organizational asset.

Have you asked yourself the basic question, "Does your organization value IT as a good investment?" To help answer this question and others, we have developed an eBook with one of our strategic partners, Quality Service Solutions, Future Proof your It Organization.

THE HOLISTIC IT ALIGNMENT OF STRUCTURE, PROCESS AND PEOPLE

For decades, boards, corporate executives and IT directors have sought evidence that IT investments generate business value. Unfortunately, business executives continue to find the link between investments in IT and specific business benefits something of a mystery. Yet, IT executives often assume the link is obvious.

This eBook sets out a new approach that enables enterprises to:

• Construct a trail of evidence leading from measures of business value to indicators of the contribution made by both the IT function and each professional within IT
• Gauge the readiness of their organizations’ human capital to add value in the future

“The best corporate strategy can fail at implementation without a human capital strategy supporting it.”

The Critical Importance of the Job Benchmark

I recently met with a client, and while we were discussing an employee performance issue, I asked a very simple question: “How is your employee performing against the benchmark?” Since many conversations on the topic of employee performance often center around an employee in isolation or comparing an employee relative to other employees, we are constantly using inherently biased and subjective information when assessing an employee.

With that backdrop, we discussed how the employee was being evaluated relative to:

• the amount the employee was being paid
• an objective assessment of how the employee was actually doing or not doing against the ideal competencies and tasks of the position – THE BENCHMARK.

Employees with Growth Potential and the Looming Talent Crisis

This blog focuses on interview questions that can help you tangibly determine the growth potential of a candidate.  Why are these questions so fundamental? Our organizations, according to Workforce 2020, are in a talent crisis. With the rate of change increasing, employee skills are deteriorating or become obsolete every 2 – 2.5 years. In IT, this ‘skills obsolescence’ is actually accelerating, given:

• all the change stressors IT is experiencing in general
• the increased demands being placed on IT’s human resources

When employees were surveyed, 60% responded that they fear becoming obsolete and irrelevant given the future workplace demands.

This is the third blog in our ‘soft skills hiring practices’ series.  If you missed the first two blogs, you can view them here.

I recently attended a conference focused on the future of the workforce.  The keynote speaker focused on the different work revolutions that have redefined the very nature of the workforce.  The speaker reviewed the issues of the industrial revolution and followed through to the technology and internet revolution. 

Today, the speaker talked about how we are now entering the next workforce revolution – the collaboration revolution.  The nature of organizations is changing and companies are embracing strategic partnerships and alliances, working virtually across geographies with new organizational structures that will perform and behave in vastly different ways.

The word collaboration has its root in Latin meaning to co labor – work together.  Collaboration is defined as:

Hiring managers often say, ”I can teach people skills, but hiring people to work in our culture is more important. I can’t teach that!” These words are so true. So how important is this topic to hiring within IT? It’s critical! Get this right, and employee retention, productivity, and engagement will follow. Get this wrong, and the management nightmare begins. And with that nightmare goes productivity issues, disengagement, and the spread of discontent among your staff and the client users who must interact with your people. Culture clash affects and infects your entire organization.

Did you know that 69% of hiring managers say Adaptability is the most important soft skill they screen for? To stay competitive today, your company needs to be able to adapt to a changing economy and business needs. This means you also need to hire employees who can adapt as well.

So what does this mean for IT hiring? Adaptability is one of the most difficult challenges in the IT hiring process. Why? Because when you consider how positions in IT are evolving today, the role of IT employees increasingly requires the Adaptability soft skill. Adaptability is now required for multiple facets of the evolving IT position benchmark: