Human capital initiative will boost workforce skills and productivity
The CIPD has launched the ‘Valuing your Talent’ initiative, in partnership with five other leading bodies, to help business leaders better understand how people drive value in their organisation.
This human capital project aims to give employers tools to measure workforce skills and value, and provide evidence of the impact on productivity and output. With clearly and consistently defined metrics, business leaders, investors and stakeholders will be able to objectively assess the value of an organisation’s people practices.
This cross-disciplinary project brings together the CIPD and the UK Commission for Employment and Skills (UKCES) in partnership with the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants (CIMA), the Chartered Management Institute (CMI), Investors in People (IIP) and the Royal Society for the Arts (RSA).
Ultimately, the group intends to develop an open framework to measure human capital and make good management and HR practices more visible. This will also encourage businesses to invest more strategically in their workforces.
Peter Cheese, CIPD chief executive, highlighted the “critical challenges” for long term business success as: skills shortages; youth unemployment; poor corporate cultures and leadership behaviours; engagement and productivity; and diversity.
He said that the broad impact of people management and development practices on this success had created a shared agenda for HR, business leaders, finance, external stakeholders and even regulators.
“However, despite efforts in the past, we do not have agreed measures and metrics that provide visibility on all these issues or any consistent ways of reporting of them," Cheese said. "We have long talked of the intangible value of businesses, of which human capital is a major part, and now there has never been a better time to agree a common approach and way to start to make the intangible more tangible.”
David Fairhurst, chief people officer, McDonald’s Europe and UKCES commissioner, said: “Collaborating with the RSA will allow us to utilise innovative social media technologies to gain input from a breadth of stakeholder groups. We believe that this approach gives us the greatest possible chance of creating the practical tools and meaningful indicators business leaders, investors, and stakeholders have been looking for.
"Whether these tools and indicators can be applied to every business in every sector, or require a degree of customisation to meet the needs of a specific organisation remains to be seen. However, by making these freely available we are certain that this project will ultimately make a significant contribution to spreading and promoting best practice.”
Dr Anthony Hesketh, senior lecturer at Lancaster University Management School, will lead the research on behalf of the project partners.
For more information visit: 'Valuing your Talent'
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