TM - April 2008 - (Page 35) of those reports are intended to justify accounting department activities. The same is true for HR. Rather than trying to prove HR’s value, concentrate on providing insight about human capital decisions made throughout the organization. Most talent decisions, such as hiring and promotions, are made by leaders outside of the HR department. Presenting accurate metrics and analyses provides the organization with feedback on the quality of its decisions. Accurate, timely feedback is a necessary precursor to improving future decision making. 5. Provide competitive insights. Some of the best information HR leaders can provide to the executive team is information on business and talent competitiveness. HR data can show the organization whether or not it is improving its competitive position in the marketplace. Anecdotally, employees may be aware of a visible leader leaving the company to join a competitor. They may perceive this as a sign the company is losing out to competitors. But systematic information is more useful than anecdotal data. Is there an increase in the number of leaders who are leaving to join competitors? Are top candidates turning down job offers to take offers with competitors? On the other hand, is the organization hiring candidates from competitors? These insights can help gauge how well the company is doing hiring and retaining talent relative to the competition and how talent competitiveness may be affecting business competitiveness. 6. Don’t overemphasize financial ROI data. In some cases, more measurement and analyses aren’t what is needed. Most ROI analyses are performed to justify a proposed investment. It may be more important to build compelling logic than compelling ROI. A lot of demands to show ROI come from leaders who don’t understand how the proposed HR investment will create value. Instead of number crunching, HR might take the time to define the business case for making the investment and explain to leaders how the proposed investment will solve a problem. At the end of the day, HR leaders need to leverage the information they gather and produce reports and analytics that improve talent decisions. Donna Neumann is vice president of strategy practice for Personnel Decisions International. She can be reached at editor@TalentMgt.com. transform experience into knowledge, and knowledge into performance At UNC, our distinct approach to learning provides participants with sustainable methods for leveraging all of their experiences, both in the classroom and in the workplace. We call our approach Leveraging the Power of Experience. Open Enrollment Programs • Executive Development Institute • Negotiation Skills for Effective Managers • Leadership Effectiveness Workshop • The Business of Human Resources • Financial Analysis for Non-Financial Managers • Women in Business: Transitioning to Leadership (New!) • Advanced Financial Decision-Making • Driving Profitable Growth with Strategic Innovation (New!) http://www.execdev.unc.edu http://www.execdev.unc.edu
For optimal viewing of this digital publication, please enable JavaScript and then refresh the page. If you would like to try to load the digital publication without using Flash Player detection, please click here.