Converting fuzzy HR into
Actionable processes
euseden
According to a recent research
findings from Economist
Intelligence Unit USA, intangible
assets account for 60% of the
market value of an average fortune
500 company. Remember, a big
chunk of the intangible capital is
human resources.
Can brands like Mercedes be just a
Among others the research
byproduct of good product? Or, provides following insights
marketing managers create good brand
•49% of senior leaders believe
out of good product? Similarly, can intangible capital such as human
capital is critical for future success,
good human capital be a mere but only 5% say they have taken
byproduct of good business good enough initiatives to manage
them.
performance? Or, can HR managers
•37% of the leaders agreed
really help their organization build
intangible capital as one of the top 3
good human capital? issues for their organization

What prevents organizations from
implementing best in class
•About 55% of them were not
satisfied with the effort they were
HR practices? In our opinion first and foremost
important thing is to develop
making towards managing the metrics, standards and common HR
intangible capital. language for the organization. Lack
(Adopted from published research with clearly defined and agreed of it will cause slippage in solid
report from Accenture Institute of upon measures. execution of HR practices.
Inadequate HR metrics
high performance) .
If you cannot measure you cannot
A closer look at the above findings
manage. So goes the quality saying. Consider the following
reveals the following;
In many organizations, except for
•Does your organization attract talent? How do you know?
•Senior leaders believe that human few very high level measures such Does your organization consistently attract better talent than
as, head count, compensation, your competitors? Again, how do you know?
capital is critical, but they have not
taken adequate initiatives average number of days of training, •Is your organization engaging people better this year?
HR budget etc there are no
•Lot of leaders who have taken some •Does your performance appraisal process add to better
methodical ways of measuring HR
performance? Can improvement in this process add business
initiatives could not reap the initiatives. On the other hand, HR value to the organization?
benefits. managers of leading organizations
•Are your people energized enough? Do you regularly assess
build such measures, processes and overall motivation level of your people? How better energized
•Success rate of good HR initiative is
standards carefully as a priority. For are your people this year as against last year?
very low.
instance, GE has its own
•Is there good teamwork in your organization? Has it
methodology for measuring improved over the last year? By how much?
•Managers’ need - to acquire
leadership development. Similarly
competencies in managing the •How much did you invest in Training? Is your training ROI
intangibles, needs to be significantly HP has a highly institutionalized improving over the years?
improved. leadership development process
•Is your organization developing adequate number of
competent managers for growth? How do you know?

Measures help managers to build the not have the actionable knowledge Real issue is how mature are the
precision and clarity required for when it comes to HR issues. For HR processes, not whether there
effective execution. With regard to instance, many leaders want to retain are HR process
measures, there is a lot to learn from good talent. Yet most of them fail to set
Almost every organization is looking
software development processes. As up high maturity processes or
for talent today. No leader possibly
is the case with HR, software implement practices to retain talent.
wants his HR professionals recruit
development is both intangible and Without actionable knowledge, issues
non-talent. Yet, organizations differ in
complex. However, many remain outside the leaders action
their understanding of talent. HP,
organizations have built good agenda or business plan. Key question
Microsoft or Infosys looks for talent
software metrics and processes to is, how to make HR issues a part of
and so do others. But there is a
build precision, clarity required for business plan.
difference between what HP GE India did 3500
superior execution of software
managers do to attract talent as
projects. In absence of clear metrics, In the past, labor was easily replaceable. man days of
compared to others. This is due to
and precise definitions- especially in In the overall economics, it was not that leadership training
maturity of the recruitment process.
complex issues such as software, critical. At least, not as critical as it is alone in 2003. And
strategy or HR practices people may today. Managers,then, did not have to GE worldwide
Almost every organization has many
apparently understand and agree on worry so much about who they hired,
or all of the processes in one or the invests about $ 1
something and go back and as division of labor made him or her
other form. For instance, performance
implement two different things. Such easily replaceable. Hence it did not
billion on career
appraisal, career management,
gaps in understanding, is precisely matter much to the organizations if its management of its
competency profiling, leadership
what makes them non-executable. managers did not know how to attract
development and so on, exist in one or people.
or engage talent. Or, at the least, these
the other way in almost every
HR knowledge at senior competencies of individual managers
organization. Whether documented or
leadership level is not or such competencies of the
not, many of them exist by default.
actionable organization did not matter. The scene
But, the real difference is in the
is quite different today. Yet many
maturity of the processes. Leading
It is one thing to know and yet senior leaders do not realize that their
organizations exhibit high maturity
another to know enough so that you old habit of action has still remained
and sophistication in execution of
can act on it. Many senior leaders do deep down.
these processes.

GE leaders have built high maturity Unclear value
leadership development process as proposition
against many others. Not that
other organizations do not develop
Another critical factor that prevents
leaders. But GE does that with
touch of perfection. GE – India did
organizations from implementing HR leaders need
3500 man-days of leadership
good HR practices is that HR
better methods
practices are far down the causal
training alone in 2003. And it
invests about $ 1 Billion for career
linkage of organizations topline or and tools to
development of its people. Many
bottomline. This requires special
communicate
effort from HR leaders to show the
of us are well aware of GE being
ruthlessly business oriented. If GE
value linkages to their peers or business value of
managers make such investment, it
senior leadership. their services
is because they have clear way of
As Champions of Human
knowing how all this add to their
Resources, the HR leaders need to
business results. Otherwise, such
advocate the business value of such
sustained investment is not
HR practices or processes. In fact,
possible. To sustain such an
this is a totally new role for many HR managers need processes, for building HR practices. Unless
initiative, GE managers need to
HR leaders. In our opinion, HR as it methods and tools to communicate HR leaders get their peers to see the
have methodical way of measuring
is today and how it was, are totally hard-value of implementing good business value, their initiatives will
the business value. And they have.
different. We strongly believe that HR practices to their peers and not find enough growth, as business
Point we want to make is this.
communicating business value of senior executive leaders. It is one managers will be unwilling to
When it comes to implementing HR
HR practices & new HR processes thing to say that we need good HR deploy their resources or time.
processes, or best practices it is the
is one of the key HR competencies practices and totally another to Hence the HR needs to continuously
maturity level of the process that
for the new age HR champions deploy resources, take pains and learn and internally build these new
matters. HR leaders need to strive
today. learn the new competencies required competencies.
to build high maturity processes.

Achieving superior people performance by
building suite of people processes
People process framework Be a strategic partner
to Business Leaders
Provide strategic Help them
Our people process framework gurus talking about it. People Communicate support in building
Help leaders
building high
in managing
provides a good methodology to Process Framework, essentially, is Business value key workforce performance
people’s career
Competencies culture
make HR intangibles lot more the convergence of two body of
actionable. We have helped knowledge. HR and quality. And
managers at two global software such convergence is not unusual.
companies and a leading global Software Engineering, powerful
retail chain in implementing the and fast growing body of Build high maturity Internal customer Service
HR services
PPF (People Process Framework) so knowledge today, is essentially HR service delivery management
with clear SLAs
support
processes processes
processes
that they could improve their process methodologies customized
human capital development in their for software development. Lot of
respective organizations. Over the tools what software managers use
last two and a half years, we have today, were adopted decades
refined the framework based on earlier by their counterparts in Build strong HR department
HR internal HR technology
our learning’s from these manufacturing. Of course, a lot has HR internal internal climate
competencies deployment
& motivation
experiences. been exclusively developed, yet Capability
fundamentals of software
Process as a perspective is very engineering remain rooted in the
powerful in implementation. And process methodology
has been there even prior to quality

While developing the process methodology, we A case in point
focused on the dimensions of “superior
One of the abovementioned
execution” than conceptual depth of HR issues. companies, due to their exponential
For instance, we never asked questions like growth, was falling short of
competent leaders at junior and
whether leadership development is the right middle level. Requirements were
thing to do for organizations. Instead, we quite huge. Organization had tried
training and recruiting from
focused on how best can an organization go outside etc for tackling this issue,
about implementing such a process. with no significant help. HR
managers wondered how they
could contribute in such a critical
Essential thrust of the PPF is to make
juncture of organization’s growth.
the HR concepts more actionable and
In our opinion, HR leaders played
more visible. Many of the methods and
very key role in the growth of this
tools that we use in the framework
organization, which became a
usually are already there in different
national brand in matter of just
parts of the organizations. People
three years.
process framework, like software
program provides detailed step-by-
First step, as the framework
step, algorithmic way of executing
suggests in developing high
things. We have also developed many
maturity leadership development
useful tools and templates that
process was to communicate the
managers can use during the
value of such process to line leaders
implementation.
and senior leadership

That way the HR could get the internal competencies to build high
necessary co-operation and support as maturity processes. Within just matter
well apart from the necessary resources of two months they implemented a
to revamp. Pilot Process for one of the business
units. The organization has made
The next step was to define the process significant progress since then. And
in concrete terms and so on. The continues to invest in the process.
definition of the process was important
otherwise there was a danger of over
generalization and hence inaction. HR
team could use our methodology and
tools to custom develop their own
process. In the whole process gradually
® All rights reserved by
HR team was acquiring necessary Euseden Consulting.
This paper is written by
Sheshagiri Hegde. You can reach
the author at
Shesh@euseden.com
0 91 80 2671 6803