HR expert Tim Southey says unconventional wisdom is required in tough times
Tim Southey is an acknowledged expert in human performance improvement and human capital cost reduction and, in this article, he shares his views on maximising your human capital return. He has substantive work experience with blue chip Companies – Shell International, De Beers, Woolworths, Truworths and Norwich Life. In addition he has overseas experience as a Director for a multinational Company in the Manufacturing and FMCG sector. He also has sports management experience at the top level, having worked with Nick Mallett and Jake White for the Springbok team – and he was a manager of the South African national cricket team, The Proteas.
Conventional research tells us that many organizations utilize less than 50% of their human potential. My experience in large blue chip South African Companies and overseas multinationals confirms that is about right. It is certainly off the pace or below par. There is always an opportunity to improve human performance and productivity - and take it to a whole new level. What is your measure of human performance and productivity? How do you compare with the conventional “about 50%?” How do you compare with your competitors?
There are several very practical and effective ways to increase your productivity and reduce human capital costs. The conventional starting point is your Company performance measures. Your Scorecard, which should not have more than 5 or 6 key measures, should reflect daily on your screen saver every morning you log on. Like your airline pilot, you need a dashboard.
The Scorecard/Dashboard is conventional wisdom. Unconventional productivity improvements are created in the process of setting your dashboard measures. The actual process of setting these measures and targets creates the opportunities for productivity improvements. The process highlights the benchmarks the gaps and the ever-present opportunities.
Many companies do have targets and actual measures in place. However, an external fresh and unconventional analysis creates opportunities for improvements. You may need to re-evaluate the performance measures in your core business because conventional scorecards have too many measures. In order to capture the absolute essence for your dashboard, you have to include five or six key outputs of your organisation that reflect the return on your human capital. You’ll need to know what these outputs are and how to compare them to those of your competitors. If you do not define your next-level performance areas, sooner or later your competition will do that for you. Guaranteed!
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10-point checklist
The next step is to leave no stone unturned in terms of finding productivity improvement opportunities. Every company has several opportunities to improve their productivity by focussing on these aforementioned key output areas. Here is a ten-point Checklist to cover all bases with an unconventional eye to ensure all improvement gaps are taken.
(1) Structures – What your company has a flat or pyramid structure, make sure the structure underpins the dashboard/scorecard. Ideally, the structure of the organisation should optimize the strengths of the people and should reflect what is your core business.
(2) Staffing – Make sure you have got the right people in the right jobs.
(3) Reporting lines – Have clean and clear or matrix reporting lines
(4) Coherence – Make sure the work activities in direct line of sight with scorecard measures. That means taking a Critical look at all activities in line with scorecard/dashboard outputs)
(5) Eliminate duplication – Introduce checks that can help to identify where certain processes and activities overlap or under lap
(6) Simple KPIs – Define simple (maximum 1 page) performance measures for each job. Do not use the normal conventional job descriptions that gather dust in the HR filing system.
(7) Appraisals – Similarly, have an easy-to-use performance management system that can measure performance accurately and regularly. Keep it limited to one page as well
(8) Accountability – Make sure that the performance management system ensures ownership and accountability of the individual and the team
(9) Training - The system must also ensure that there is some form of training or development plan for every person, each of whom must take ownership of their own growth and development
(10) Feedback – This is very important. For the team to take collective ownership, there must be a 360-degree performance feedback.
“The most important decision a CEO must take is to ensure that the right people are on the bus – and sitting in the right seats on the bus. Thereafter – most things take care of themselves “ Jim Collins – well known author of best seller of ‘Good to Great’.
