Taleo’s Judy Sweeney explains how technology is helping to boost HR’s status at board level by demonstrating the value investment in people strategies have on the bottom line.
There’s been an evolution in the role of HR leaders and the technology that supports them. For years HR wanted to gain recognition at board level but they lacked the systems to show how comprehensive people strategies improved the performance of the business. Today’s HR technologies provide those at the very top of the business with crucial insight into their organisation’s strengths, weaknesses, and risks. Armed with Talent Intelligence, HR is playing a crucial role and could secure a seat in the boardroom.
In many organisations, HR business partnership is a real challenge. HR directors looking to gain traction at the higher levels of their business consistently come up against the same two barriers: the view that HR lacks a genuine understanding of the business and an inability to make their case using hard data.
While the first charge might never have been fair, the second was certainly justified. For decades HR struggled to show how investments in people strategies impacted the business, because the data simply was not available. HR departments stored only the most basic information on employees: dates of birth, addresses, pay grades, and so on. For HR leaders looking to push their agenda at board level, this was a serious barrier. Boardroom discussions are based around numbers, facts, and figures. Without accurate and reliable data to back up their claims, HR leaders often struggled to persuade those at C-level that their recommendations were worthwhile.
Traditionally, HR technology was considered to be a tool designed, purchased, and implemented solely for the HR department. Software systems helped HR teams carry out processes faster and more efficiently. While they were undoubtedly useful for HR specialists, these systems were not widely recognised as creating value throughout the business.
As talent management practices have developed and gradually become digitised, the quality and quantity of the data stored by HR technology has improved. More valuable information such as employee experience, transferable skills, career ambitions, future leadership potential and critical skill sets at risk began to play a part. However HR was still not able to use this data to make their case at board level because this data was kept in multiple systems and silos. Without a single, unified tool for all users to access and manage this data, it was extremely difficult to compile or analyse the data in any meaningful way.
In today’s knowledge economy, a huge proportion of an organisation’s value is based upon the skills and experiences of employees. Yet for many businesses, there is simply no visibility into how well the company’s biggest asset is being managed.
With a unified talent management system in place and the talent intelligence that can be mined from those systems, HR can finally demonstrate the value the investment in people and people strategies have on the bottom line of the business.
With the ability to quickly and accurately provide insight into the specific people challenges within the organisation, an HR director has a much more convincing case to take to the board than one that relies on sketchy, dated, or purely anecdotal evidence. For instance, HR will have a talent management system to track the number of high-performing individuals within the organisation and those who are considered to be at risk of leaving the business. This gives a clear indication of the strength or weakness of an organisation’s engagement. It can also be the difference between securing and missing out on additional investment for vital initiatives such as succession planning.
Later this information can be used to monitor the impact of specific HR strategies on talent performance factors such as employee engagement or retention. This can quantifiably demonstrate a return on investment to business leaders that the HR department has been able to provide.
In today’s information economy the phrase ‘people are our biggest asset’ is not just a management cliché; it is a fundamental truth. This means that the overall success or failure of a business rests, more than ever, in the hands of HR. Bringing in the best available people and getting the most out of them once they are onboard is crucial to achieving long-term success. Lack of proper talent management and the resulting failure can cripple an organisation. With stakes this high, being able to provide management with clear and accurate insight into the company’s biggest asset is not just a competitive advantage, it is absolutely essential.
Judy Sweeney works with Taleo.
