“Art is about learning to see and to observe. And the sciences are about seeing and observing.” – Ed Catmull, Co-founder & President, Pixar Animation (2014)
So much talk about how big data is transforming our lives. Many believe it is the answer to transforming our organizations. In itself, this is wrong. But the right data, metrics, analytics or evidence is absolutely essential in helping our organizations to begin and maintain a journey to greater maturity and value creation.
No corporation can maximize value if it cannot maximize the value of its people. This is where Human capital, People and HR Analytics fit perfectly with Organizational Maturity.
We are helping organizations to understand how the use of evidence can support their positive transformation, and how to develop ways of putting this to practical effect. While this is often the use of more ‘science’ in managing people, it is as much about its art. Our art is in how and what we observe in our organizations, what we see that should be fixed or improved. Our science is how we relate these observations to what we think we need to do and how this will then enhance our value.
One simple example is how we resource an organization. In a highly immature organization, we typically observe a “hire & fire” mentality where people are not valued and seen as easily replaced. There are no human capital management measures in this kind of organization. Beyond this, we see firms consider the legal and regulatory environment as a basis for gathering data or evidence, and then focusing on basic measures that provide very limited insight (and an often badly skewed view) into value (e.g. recruitment costs, time to hire etc.).
We are typically asked to help organizations to get beyond this “basic” phase; and this means developing measures that always link to value, to develop insights in to how they can leverage more value (output, financials [revenue & cost], and quality), and lower operational risk.
This is a journey summarized here:
Our ultimate goal is to help an organization develop measures that are seamlessly integrated into a whole system for maximum value creation but significant value is derived from each incremental improvement in maturity.
So where is your organization? In order to see just how simple our approach to analytics is, here is a very quick test.
Pick a random sample of your existing people metrics and ask yourself what they tell you about this range of organizational value perspectives: –
- compliance
- risk
- operational performance
- continuous improvement
- work quality
- innovation
- transformation
- share price movement
- market capitalization
Next step?
If you would like to discuss your answers in more detail please get in touch as we would love to hear from you and help you navigate this highly complex field.
Contact Stuart Woollard on +44 (0)7940 585661 or stuart.woollard@omratings.com
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