“The general who wins the battle makes many calculations in his temple before the battle is fought. The general who loses makes but few calculations beforehand” Sun Tzu Art of War.
The HR function traditionally seen as a largely administrative function has today the potential to deliver numbers and value at least matching if not bettering those shown by IT, marketing and finance functions. Growing workforce engagement leads to greater innovation, less business complexity, lower resource and material misappropriation and although human capital metrics may not be easy to get to grips with – this shouldn’t evaporate the desire for better employee relationship management.
Human capital is the value employees provide through their application of skill, know-how and expertise. Measuring this is difficult because of uncertainties like valuation of patents or work related competencies as contributors of the organisations value chain each of which have unique complex units of measurement. But not being able to quantify value drivers shouldn’t be a show stopper. And, tangible monetary capital (property, machines) show relatively high growth rates in times of prosperity, but in periods of recession monetary capital growth declines rapidly. In contrast, human capital grows cumulatively with time developed with experience.
This infographic explores some metrics that can be used to measure and monitor workforce engagement progress.
