How To Help Leaders Effectively Manage Today’s Human Capital

Managing human capital in today’s landscape presents unique challenges many leaders have not had to plan for previously. As employees and employers alike navigate these new workplace norms, it is essential to reflect on previous human capital management strategies and analyze how they apply to today’s practices. 

In 2017, HR.com and ClearCompany teamed up to seek answers to pressing HR questions. We hoped to find answers to questions such as:

• What are the current human capital management challenges?

• How do HR Leaders solve these issues?

• What can we expect for human capital management in the future?

Today, we want to take some time to look back on our findings and determine whether our forecasting for the future is relevant to our current climate. As we reflect on our results, we will look at 4 key topics:

1. HR Leadership
2. Employee Productivity
3. Employee Retention
4. Workplace Forecasting

HR Leadership

In our survey, we sought answers to many questions that HR departments face. One of the areas explored was leadership. We wanted to know if responding HR experts believed that leaders are effectively managing human capital in their companies. We also asked if they saw a connection between leadership and other critical areas, such as engagement and employee performance.

Everyone knows that strong, clear leadership affects both the quality and quantity of work employees complete. HR Leaders need to find effective ways of coaching their teams, especially in times of crisis. As managers continue navigating the ever-evolving workspace, practicing empathetic leadership will enable teams to adapt more freely and facilitate more effective communication, even while working remotely.

Employee Productivity

Another important area of the investigation was employee productivity. Not only did our research investigate whether productivity is rising or falling in today’s workplace, but we also explored how long it takes for a new hire to reach full productivity.

In today’s climate, efficiently and effectively onboarding new hires ensures that productivity remains high. With digital and paperless onboarding capabilities, HR Departments can limit the clutter of documents and streamline the time-consuming process of onboarding employees. With much of the workforce still working remotely, managers should focus their efforts on finding software and digital solutions to support their recruiting and onboarding efforts.

Employee Retention

As everyone knows, retaining your A Players is much cheaper than hiring and training new employees. In fact, the true cost of turnover has been shown to be upwards of 1.5-2x the cost of an employee’s annual salary. Our survey research covered the issue of employee retention. We were looking to discover which indications arise when an employee is disengaged and looking to leave. Based on responses, we created a list of the top 10 signs that workers show when looking to leave.

If employees do leave, what is the best way of attracting and locating new talent? This has become an issue of growing importance as unemployment rates have declined and labor markets have tightened. We explored whether companies tend to look internally or externally for top talent.

Workplace Forecasting

Finally, the survey asked HR professionals to provide insight into their forecasting strategies. For example, is it possible for them to accurately forecast workforce needs? Also, can they model the workforce in ways that optimize costs, productivity, and profits? After all, these issues are crucial to the long-term survival of most organizations. With assistance from digital tools such as workforce planning, managers can effectively estimate and forecast their workplace needs before they arise.

Here’s a quick look at some of the key findings:

• The Future: Most respondents not only believe it’s possible to forecast workforce needs accurately, they think it’s possible to model the workforce in a way that optimizes costs, productivity, and profits.
• Leadership: Only 37% of participants say their leaders effectively manage human capital, and only about a third report that leadership actions are correlated to engagement, retention, and performance.
• Recruitment: Referrals are the most widely cited source for finding top talent as well as employees who are a good cultural fit.
• Talent: Respondents are split as to whether the best talent comes from internal or external sources.
• Productivity: Just 44% say productivity is on the rise.

Take a look at the survey report here:

With assistance from ClearCompany, leaders can ensure their employees are equipped with the tools they need to be highly engaged and successful in their roles. ClearCompany’s Employee Engagement Surveys offer an easy-to-use and accessible method of surveying the sentiment of your employees. To see how you can utilize these insights to make timely and impactful changes in your organization, reach out to one of our experts or sign up for your free demo now.