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| Overview |
Organisations of all sizes have been banging on for more than three decades about how people are their ‘greatest asset’. So why has so little been achieved in the creation of truly talent-centric workplaces? There’s certainly plenty of will in the HR community to bring them about by aligning the people agenda with the hard edge of commercial business strategy under the umbrella of strategic planning. But apart from a few honourable exceptions, such as Telefónica O2 and ArcelorMittal, successful case studies are decidedly few and far between.
The problem, of course, lies in convincing corporate boards that making the necessary investment of time, effort and cash, particularly after so many false starts in the past, is worthwhile. And here the answer may lie in a subtle combination of painting a ‘big picture’ with a succession of small and detailed steps to implement it.
This means going back to the basics and defining what advantage a business derives from its people in its chosen marketplace and, more specifically, how this sets it apart from its competitors. But understanding how this works now is just the start. What really counts is understanding how it is likely to work in the foreseeable future.
At first reading, of course, this might sound like arrant nonsense. Human beings have proven themselves spectacularly bad at predicting what’s going to happen next week, let alone five years down the track. But the pace of change in the modern world means that having some form of educated guess about what is to come isn’t just a game, it’s a commercial imperative. Few companies can rely on their traditional markets remaining static over the next few years. Change and adaptability are the order of the day. Just look at how Telefónica O2, for example, has responded to the crowding of the mobile telecoms space with plans to diversify into areas such as financial services, how TNT has moved from mail and parcel delivery into logistics and facilities management or how GE Healthcare has developed process improvement consultancy as an adjunct to the provision of medical machinery. And all this means that the skill sets that make a business successful now may be of little or no use in just a few years time.
Identifying these ‘future skills’ is therefore vital - and so is understanding exactly where the people with these skills are and how to access them. But this must be done in an atmosphere of stark realism rather than groundless optimism. Wish lists of people who don’t exist or whose availability is in doubt will be worse than useless. Scoping out the ground in this way is the essential precursor to putting the machinery in place that will actually deliver the necessary talent as it’s needed – the establishment and communication of a strong employer brand, advertising, marketing, the use of social media and the creation of dedicated talent pipelines.
Of course, the acid test of any people strategy is whether it remains valid as circumstances change. That’s why any strategy worth employing will need a regular, objective assessment on a regular basis. And everyone involved must accept the lessons of such an analysis and make the necessary adjustments, otherwise HR becomes a latter-day Captain Smith, blissfully steering the Titanic at top speed towards a looming iceberg.
In the ‘new normal’ HR faces perhaps its greatest challenge – to combine big picture strategy with real and effective discipline. But if it can meet this challenge successfully it may finally find its true value realised in the boardroom or around the partnership table.
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