Measuring return on people
Many executives make the statement their people are their most important business asset.
However endearing this proclamation might be, the matrices for substantiating this point of view are few. Some will cite low employee turnover or high marks on morale surveys as a way of proving their point. Others make note of training dollars spent per capita and new hire ramp up time to productivity benchmarks.
While all of these items are important, they seem to lack the deep measurement needed to gain understanding of how people are most productive in today’s economy. What really needs to be measured are your business systems.
People supporting systems vs. systems supporting people
In other words, to have your people doing the same things, the same way, with the same tools, only more quickly may not address the core issue. What is needed is changing your business systems to allow your firm to compete with your peers in a new economy.
When this type of systemic change takes place and people are supported by business systems, people can be reallocated and redeployed to mission critical and revenue producing tasks.