Constant demands for managers to collect and present financial data are preventing many of them from collating meaningful details about their people, argues Robert Bolton – partner at “Big Four” accounting and auditing firm KPMG. That diminished focus on employees, he said, is hindering business leaders’ ability to drive growth, speed up decision making and improve employee satisfaction.
According to Bolton – who leads the KPMG global HR Centre of Excellence – the result is an organisational landscape “dominated by more questions than answers”, with HR teams and business leaders “unable to identify the skills needed” for long-term growth.
In Bolton’s view, HR information and financial data should share equal exposure in the boardroom, and the days of viewing “people data” as merely useful, rather than vital, should be “consigned to history”. His comments have emerged in the wake of research revealing that just 15% of C-suite executives think that HR currently excels at providing meaningful analytics.
Bolton said: “Traditional financial data will always be an essential ingredient of transparent reporting – but we have finally reached the point where it is no longer enough to pay lip service to the idea that HR analytics brings value. If organisations are to paint a full picture of their performance, shareholders and stakeholders must have access to information about the people and skills needed for survival today – and success tomorrow.”
He added: “the simple fact is that, if growth is to be stimulated, organisations need to re-skill, up-skill and reinvigorate their staff. Yet only when HR teams capture, and provide the boardroom with, metrics that clearly outline what action must be taken will it be possible to deliver HR programmes that build business results.”
The link between employee engagement and an organisation’s peak performance should never be understated, Bolton said. “However,” he warned, “too often, the temptation is to believe that an employees’ ‘commitment’ or ‘involvement’ is enough to improve productivity levels. Good HR teams recognise this is not the case – but they will only be able to prove this to the rest of the business by taking the time to collect the right data, analyse it and make the link between what staff do, how they do it and the bottom line.”
KPMG has been developing a new model to help HR teams provide managers with insights into people performance. The model focuses on the links between employee capacity and capability, and the need to balance those against cost and compliance issues. Its overall aim is to put employee engagement at the heart of a drive to improve organisational agility.
For details on how to contact the global HR Centre of Excellence, visit its page on the KPMG website.