By Alden Cuddihey   Attracting the best and brightest employees is a challenge for
any organization. Grappling with tight budgets, slow growth, and layoffs,
today’s organizations have awakened to a new reality.
The workforce is emerging as the most significant component
of corporate competitiveness and financial performance. With this evolution,
comes a new human performance challenge for business.
Downsizing, mass retirements and ineffective retention
programs, represent a financial and knowledge drain for business. For every
employee lost, businesses lose years of collective experience. The workforce
has evolved into arguably the biggest competitive differentiator for
organizations in all industries.
Companies must take critical steps to build and maintain a
successful HR strategy that addresses these business challenges.
In recent years, a growing body of research indicates that
spending in human performance areas—training, knowledge management, performance
management and advanced human resources practices—translates into bottom line
growth.
More than one half (52 percent) of the executives surveyed
in Accenture’s recent study, “The High-Performance Workforce 2002/2003” study
reported that the HR function is ‘very critical’ in executing the company’s
overall business strategy.
Many of the world’s leading businesses have found success in
aligning business goals with human resources, therefore sustaining a
high-performance workforce.
Business leaders have become true believers when it comes to
workforce performance. It was a top issue during the “boom” years, when
attracting and retaining talent was the major concern. But it is no less
important to them now, in this downturn—four of the top five issues in
Accenture’s “Executive Issues 2003” survey are workforce related. The report
offers insights into what sets human performance leaders apart.
Organizations are increasingly focused on creating a
supportive HR capability. HR is becoming more supportive of the business
strategy and less administrative and transactional. Over 40 percent of
participants in the “High-Performance Workforce 2002/2003” study reported
increased HR spending in 2002, and an equal percentage said they boosted their
training budget in the same period.
Getting corporate buy-in is not as hard as it used to be for
HR. In the “High-Performance Workforce 2002/2003” study, CEOs rated recruiting
and retention programs as among the most important initiatives, with 91percent
believing these initiatives are somewhat or very important to achieving their
company’s top strategic priorities.
Human Resources professionals need to have the opportunity
to educate senior executives through strategic training programs, and focus on
the value of their workforce, aligning processes and meeting corporate
objectives.
Retaining the Recruits
In
today's labour market, corporations need to meet a new set of employee
expectations. Money is no longer the sole motivator for choosing an employer.
According to Accenture research, a stimulating and rewarding work environment
and flexible scheduling are also key factors in the equation.
Research also demonstrates that the opportunity for
continuous learning is important to recruits. A survey of graduating students
and alumni conducted by the American National Association of Colleges and
Employers showed that training opportunities were among the top three factors
considered when deciding where to work (the other two are the opportunity for
advancement and a good benefits package).
In most companies, executives believe there is a lack of
critical workforce skills, workforce understanding of business or
organizational strategy, and employee understanding of the connection between
their jobs and overall corporate strategic priorities.
One recurring theme in the Accenture research was the need
for employees to understand and feel part of an organization, and to know how
their individual roles contribute to the organization as a whole. Retention
strategies should focus on demonstrating to each individual employee how their
role fits into the success of the firm.
And finally, recognition is key. Recognition in the form of
positive feedback, formal recognition programs, time-off, changing job titles,
and special assignments should be implemented as a compliment to competitive
salaries.
Throughout the course of the employee lifecycle, all the HR
departments should consistently measuring their progress through feedback from
employees, in order to promote continuous process improvement and
effectiveness.
Building the Capabilities
Organizations today need to have the right set of HR tools in place,
allowing employees to update their skills, access the HR information they need
to do their job and answer personnel-related questions. These tools are bare
minimum in today’s HR world.
Technology including employee and manager self-serve
portals, information management, performance measurement and enterprise
resource planning (ERP) are all useful IT tools to align HR strategy with
business goals.
Measuring Success
So where
should companies begin in measuring the business impact of their human
performance recruitment and retention investments? At a minimum, they must
implement metrics that help them identify how their initiatives affect the way
individuals or groups operate.
Such performance-improvement measures are critical to
determining the return on investment for specific HR and training initiatives.
Companies should continue using and refining them as part of their larger
efforts to improve workforce performance.
The biggest impact of human resources strategy on financial
performance will not be direct and instantaneous. Improvements will more likely
occur incrementally, indirectly and over time, realized through the
investments’ effects on intermediate outcomes like productivity, quality and
customer satisfaction rather than through sudden increases in share price.
Some companies are achieving success in this arena. These
business leaders in human performance are aligning their workforces with
customers; see the HR function, as well as the HR and training activities, as
valuable and strategically important; measure the impact of HR and training
investments against key business results; and use technology to improve
workforce performance.
Organizations whose human resources and human capital
development practices are both valued by employees and aligned with business
strategy will achieve superior results in key business performance drivers such
as productivity, innovation and customer satisfaction.
To Top |