In its November edition the British magazine “Human Resources” (www.hrmagazine.co.uk) published the article “Must try harder”, which indicates that appraisals are still considered a waste of time by far too many employees.

At iProCon HCM we have found a very cynical attitude towards appraisal or performance management systems in general. While the article mentioned above names a lack of integration into reward and career management, we believe the problem is of a much broader nature: the appraisee can rarely see the links between their performance and the performance of the core business, and the process is all too often owned by HR rather than line management. It is therefore often considered an HR-admin nuisance, while it should be one of the most important tools for line managers on all levels to manage their people. This topic was addressed during the HR2009 conference in Prague by iProCon Partner Sven Ringling in his session “Proven techniques to optimize your global performance management strategy”. If you would like to learn more, please contact us.

Many organisations we talk to are struggling with similar issues. How can they ensure that the transformation is happening as quickly as possible? What can be done to make sure that those lower down the organisation have the same sense of urgency as those at the top? How can the transformation roadmap be defined so that the vital many have as clear an idea of the journey as those who defined it?

To address these challenges iProCon HCM has, over the past 12 months, developed and deployed the Human Capital Capability Excellence Model (HCCEM™).



The model and its underlying tools and processes deliver several significant benefits:

• It helps the organisation understand what best practice actually looks like (in terms of managing change, people metrics and information systems, amongst other aspects related to human capital performance), encompassing both industry specific and cross-sector dimensions.
• It benchmarks the current state of the organisation against best-practice. Benchmarking allows comparison across regions, business units or individual locations as appropriate.
• Capabilities and Excellence are defined in terms of Levels. For example, Level 1 might be poor, whilst Level 5 is best practice. These definitions allow the organisation to define what level is desired and aim only as high as will deliver a positive return. If a business unit is at Level 5 in a capability where the organisation only requires Level 4, resources can be diverted to upskill other business units, or investment may be reduced.
• The definition of levels (for example Levels 1 through 5) provides a road map for transformation. Managers responsible for business units sitting currently at Level 2 can clearly see what is required in order to reach Levels 3, 4 and 5. This helps them understand the transformation journey, but in steps that are driven by the agenda set by the top team.
• Transformation progress reports become a repeatable activity that is baselined across the organisation as a whole. The nature of the tool allows reporting by exception to the top team: Who moved up a level in the past month? Why? Which business unit is lagging on the achievement of particular capabilities within the desired time frame? These progress reports become a significant leading indicator of future business performance.

The HCCEM™ is already helping numerous organisations to deliver their transformation projects more effectively and efficiently. Each implementation builds upon the significant volume of work that already underpins the model, delivering maximum results for a minimal investment. If you would like to see how the HCCEM™ can help accelerate your transformation effort, please contact us.

The Cranfield Network on International Human Resource Management (CRANET) has launched its 2008/2009 survey to benchmark the UK against the rest of the world and to examine trends in HRM.

To take part and to receive a copy of the final report, follow this link: http://www.cranfieldsom.info/apollo/showarticle.asp?link=264

In his article “The metric behind the slogan”, Michael Schrage explains how innovative metrics have made selling new products a much easier prospect. For example, James Watt is largely hailed as the genius who invented the steam engine. Whilst the steam engine was undoubtedly a triumph of the industrial revolution, Watt’s most enduring innovation was the invention of the “Horsepower” metric. Used to articulate the power of his engines in terms mine owners were familiar with, his measure effectively defined an industry and has outlived every engine he designed or built. Another example is the shift from measuring “miles per gallon” to “gallons per 100 miles”. Researchers have shown that most consumers miscalculate comparisons between vehicle mileage performance; most people ranked an improvement from 34 to 50mpg as using less fuel over 10,000 miles than an improvement from 18 to 28mpg over 10,000 miles, even though the latter saves twice as much fuel. (Going from 34 to 50mpg saves 94 gallons; going from 18 to 28mpg saves 198 gallons).

These examples highlight an interesting challenge associated with common measures of organisational performance. Metrics tend to be either too one-dimensional (measuring performance in the financial dimension whilst ignoring customer and stakeholder value), delayed (for example, financial measures tend to lag what is actually occurring in a business – they are symptoms of a deeper cause), or they do not intuitively show how a situation can be improved (if staff turnover is high, what must be done to improve it?).

The challenge for all organisations is to find a range of metrics that articulate organisational performance in a way that helps key stakeholders (shareholders, customers and employees) understand precisely what must be done to improve or sustain a particular level of performance. Improved methods of measuring the performance of an organisation will ultimately help people focus on the aspects of performance that matter most.