Human Capital Insights

 

“Organizations that have used data to gain human capital insights already have a hard-to-replicate competitive advantage.” Thomas H. Davenport  Harvard Business Review October 2010  - Article ‘Competing on Talent Analytics’

Leading edge organisations have realised the value that human capital data provides.  In most organisations it is your people that create your customer experience and your business results.  It is your people that are a major input into your overall return on investment.  Why then would you not track data on your people as rigorously as you track business and customer results?

There have been thousands of articles written on talent management and why this is critical. Although we agree with this, just managing and monitoring the top 10-15% (talent) out of your total workforce will not give you enough information to understand your human capital!

Human capital data continues to be under-utilised in most organisations and is rarely used when assessing the overall performance of a business.  In most cases it is still considered a secondary measure and is viewed in isolation to other business measures.

Human capital data can give invaluable insight into what is happening with one of your most critical components of your business.  As we have highlighted in our article Health vs. Wealth - Building a Sustainable Future http://gordianglobalsolutions.blogspot.com/2011/01/health-vs-wealth-building-sustainable.html it is critical that the organisation understands what is happening with their people, especially when it is your people that tend to make up around 60-70% of your cost base!

There is a large amount of data that can be captured to give business a strong insight into their human capital and the potential to sustain performance, however it appears that this is still not well understood or completed.  Why would this be? Is it that..

·       The data is just too hard to capture? 

·       That human capital data is still considered a secondary measure to business and customer data? 

·       The business is unsure what data to capture?

·       Data is captured but there is no real understanding what to do with it or what it is being captured for?

·       That the annual engagement or cultural survey is considered enough!

In most cases we have seen it appears to be a combination of the above factors. The research we have completed has shown that those industries that are doing well in this area are still continuing to learn the strength of this data and build on their understanding as they progress.  Like any form of data, trend analysis is critical.  Therefore the longer this data can be captured and tracked the stronger insights that can be gained.

It is our belief that the organisations of the future that will create sustainable performance will be those that measure and monitor human capital data as often as they review business and customer results. 

Human capital data has the ability to give the organisation a 360° view of their business and allows valuable insight into any form of deterioration.  This enables the organisation to move from reactive management of problems to proactive management.  To be able to monitor and measure any forms of weakness early and remedy quickly, supports the organisation to create a strong foundation that can create sustainable performance. 

Leading organisations such as Google, Zappos, Wholefoods have seen the value and are generating great value from the insights that people data can deliver.

The leading organisations of the future will be those that understand the value of human capital data, and can utilise this data to create more sustainable solutions for the business.

For more information on this or to understand how you can utilise human capital data more effectively for your organisation please contact us at info@gordianglobalsolutions.com