Consultation
documents may come and go, but the latest from the Government’s Accounting for
People Task Force is probably one of the most important you will ever see.
Get
a copy of the consultation paper, take time to study it and make sure you give
a response in the next six weeks. It is asking for opinions on crucial issues,
which directly affect you in your job and could determine the destiny of the HR
profession. Don’t waste this opportunity to get involved.
It’s
surprising that a DTI Task Force called Accounting for People only includes one
HR specialist and no representative from the CIPD. Instead, it is made up of
eight academics, consultants, civil servants and business leaders whose job it
is to create best practice guidance and a framework for organisations on how
they can meaningfully account for their people. Eventually, this group will
make recommendations on how you should reflect human capital assets in annual
reports and accounts.
The
Government is marching ahead with its own agenda encouraging business to
demonstrate good corporate governance. It argues that investors need this
detail to determine the long-term strength and sustainability of business and
that employees should have it to increase motivation and assist with managing
their careers.
But
whatever way you look at it, human capital management is never going to be a
piece of cake. People are unpredictable, and are not passive assets that can be
easily and reliably counted on a uniform and comparative scale across all
industries.
The
current leaders in this such as HR directors at Jaguar, Nationwide, Tesco and
B&Q are doing a grand job in sharing their experiences to improve our
understanding of the human capital challenge. Their message is clear: what is
not measured is not properly valued and cannot be effectively managed.
But
too many employers have not made a systematic leap into this arena and even
fewer are reporting externally. Whatever stage you are at, make sure your
opinions inform the process because HR should be pivotal to the collation of
this information.
If
you have not already got the metrics bug, you need to act swiftly. HR risks
being out manoeuvred if it does not start measuring and others, including the
accountants, marketers and IT specialists, will take over this role. By
engaging with this consultation process, you will be doing yourself and HR a
great service. There is good news for HR jobseekers this week. The popular
Career Coach column has been revived and on personneltoday.com you can send in
your own questions to a panel of experts. Personnel Today has also rebranded
its entire recruitment service. Jobs of the week will be highlighted in the
magazine and by keying in personneltodayjobs.com, you can now go straight to
the recruitment section of our website where there are hundreds of HR vacancies
and a CV database.
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