Authentic leadership has become a buzzword and with good reason. Employees want to be managed and led by authentic leaders who create trust, inspire them, and create an environment where they feel safe and valued. But, as a leader, you cannot be authentic if you don’t know who you are. Being authentic does not mean […]
Authentic Leadership Starts With Knowing Who You Are Read More »
I am huge fan of HR Data & Analytics and I have had the privilege of working with it for many years now. However, it is important to remember one thing; HR Analytics is only a mean to and end; one tool and one mean to better HR. I talked about exactly that at Human
Why evidence-based HR is critical to success and how to get started Read More »
Let’s start with the good news: The conclusion. The companies in Denmark with the most diverse leadership earn on average 12.6 percentage points more than the companies with the least diverse leadership. Not only that, the study also concludes that companies with the most diverse leadership average an operating margin that is 5.7 percentage points
New research: Companies with diverse leadership yield higher profits Read More »
My second prediction – in this series of five predictions for where HR is moving (se #1 here) – I predict that HR will outsource a lot more in the future. A lot more. There are three primary drivers for this: Technology will make new solutions possible by vendors. Technology will be a major driver
Prediction #2: HR will outsource a lot more Read More »
Is HR a science or an art? You might think that with the advent of Workforce Analytics, Performance Management, tests in recruitment, ROI measurement and much more that HR is becoming more of a science than an art. I am afraid not! One of the problems is that HR fundamentally is based on studies done
The number one reason why HR is still an art Read More »
Today is the 200th birthday of Søren Aabye Kierkegaard – the Danish thinker and philosopher. Kierkegaard is probably best known as the first existentialist philosopher and as a religious writer but he was also a critical writer within psychology, moral and ethics. He wrote of many Freudian concepts long before Freud was even born. Kierkegaard
A HR tribute to Kierkegaard Read More »
It’s been a fantastic and fun year writing blog posts on this blog and in honor of the New Year, I’d like to share the most popular posts to my readers over the past year. Here are the top 10 posts in terms of views and re-tweets from this blog for 2012, enjoy: 5: The
The Top 5 Posts of 2012 from the ‘All About Human Capital’-Blog Read More »
This week I have had meetings with two HR executives about their HR KPIs (Key Performance Indicators). They both complained about two things I hear a lot; 1) we have too many and 2) they are not very good. While recognising that they have too many they both found it hard to actually get rid
HR KPIs: The good, the bad and the ugly Read More »
If you Google “definition of Human Capital” you will be surprised and overwhelmed. It is a vast and contradictory amount of definitions you will get. And frankly not very helpful as they don’t explain exactly what it is. For example, if you look at Wikipedia under ‘Human Capital Management’ you will find that it redirects
The ultimate definition of Human Capital Read More »
I went to a very interesting event in London a few weeks ago. It was arranged by Human Potential Accounting and the event was titled “The Future of Investment: Human Capital”. A panel composed of people from different parts of the investment community – private equity, regulators, pension funds, investment banks etc. – discussed how
Human Capital move stock prices Read More »
M&A due diligence is important. Very important. Dependent on which study you read, 60%-85% of all mergers and take-overs do not deliver the financial and/or strategic benefit it was expected. The due diligence process is supposed to assess if the deal makes strategic and financial sense AND if the two companies together can execute the
HR due diligence just got a lot harder Read More »
It is tempting to measure retrospectively – but try to stay away from it. You may have just held a course or completed a successful leadership training program. Or you are finding that your talent management program is being well received. Now you want to show that it added value to the business by measuring
3 reasons why not to measure retrospectively Read More »
You want to increase productivity, lower employee turnover and absenteeism and make your company attractive so you can attract the best talent. Fine. This you can measure with ease. Then you decide that you want to improve on the results and you need to find out what should be improved. How do you decide what
Do you really know how to measure Engagement? Read More »
Looking through financial statements today it is clear that there is a huge gap between what companies say are their most important asset – people – and what they report in their financial statement – tangible assets, products etc. Financial regulators – such as SEC and FSA – as well as stock exchanges are not
Human Capital in Financial Statements Read More »
I was speaking with an executive HR person the other day. He told me that one of the things he measured – and which was a KPI for him – was the response rate for the semi-annual employee satisfaction survey. His target was 90%. At the time when I spoke with him the response rate
Measuring HR is a mean – not an end! Read More »
When an HR executive is making a business proposal and includes a ROI calculation, it is important to highlight which cost savings are true (real) and which are – lets call them – false cost savings. A potential cost saving must be realised and the released resources put to better use before it can be
True vs. false cost savings Read More »
I have just read a research bulletin from Bersin & Associates from 2009. They conclude in a survey that 40% of companies have talent management processes at ‘a novice stage’, 40% at ‘an intermediate stage’ and 5% at ‘an advanced stage’ with 15% not having any talent management processes at all. Bersin & Associates prefers
Talent Management processes are still not good enough Read More »
I have just re-read the classic McKinsey article from 1998 called ‘The War For Talent’ (The McKinsey Quarterly, 1998, number 3). It is a great article and I will recommend you all to read or re-read it. It is great for many reasons. Firstly, it was the article that coined the now famous phrase ‘war
The War For Talent – McKinsey article 13 years on Read More »
Every organization relies on a small cluster of talent in order to be able to execute its strategy and meet its goals. These employees – or talents – account for a disproportionate share of revenue and profits. They are the backbone of the organization and the company should do whatever they can to nurture and
Shareholder value from a great talent management program Read More »
Looking through books, research and blogs about evidence-based HR, it is clear that a few are very keen on the concept and lots of people are very skeptical about it. Let me say straight away that I think it is a great approach to HR. Evidence-based HR is essentially an approach which rely on hard-core
Human Capital Institute (HCI) has produced an interesting report/survey on the issue of contractors in talent management initiatives (see here for report). They conclude that procurement and selection of contract talent (CT) should be centralized in HR and the strategy around CT should be aligned with the general Talent Management Program. The background for the
Should contractors be part of the Talent Management program? Read More »
I was reading a study of group behavior of baboons (which we humans share 99% of our gen-material with). The study was looking into how often the males in the group was looking at the Alpha-Male (the leader) for clues as to how to act. The average was once every 30 seconds. The interesting thing
Leadership in bad times – lessons for HR Read More »
Stress is a big thing: It is a personal tragedy for the individual concerned and it cost a lot for the organizations as well as the society. Companies – and HR – must therefore be more proactive when it comes to combating workplace stress. If you ask people in Denmark if they feel stressed 41%
Stress – do something about it Read More »
When confronted with the question “what is the total cost of your HR?” most CEO’s and HR directors come up short. They will either look at the HR budget and say it represents the total costs or they will tell you that they don’t really know. Why does it matter? Well, by understanding the true
Activity Based Costing in HR Read More »
