Moving the Yardstick: the Rise of Standardized Reporting in HROctober 27th, 2009 |
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I saw this post on the Fast Company blogs that at first seemed unrelated to what we talk about here. It was all about the increasing emphasis on companies to measure environmental outputs like carbon, etc:
A few weeks ago, USEPA Administrator Lisa Jackson announced that 10,000 facilities would soon have to measure and register their carbon emissions. Last week, she told a packed house at the Governors’ Global Climate Summit2 in Los Angeles that her agency will introduce rules requiring significant new sources of carbon emissions, like a new or remodeled fossil-fueled power plant, to pay for the right to pollute.
The last paragraph of the post draws a comparison between this increased environmental measurement/reporting and the emergence of food labeling as an industry standard:
Investors and companies should pay attention to the service industry that’s emerging to meet these massive new demands for information. A decade ago, health-conscious consumers forced manufacturers to list nutritional information on food packages. We’ll soon be able to make buying decisions based on carbon content too - - taming our waistlines and “waste lines” at the same time.
These corporate regulatory reporting examples got me thinking about the HR connection. From what I see with many of our customers, within HR a similar shift towards reporting and measurement is taking place. In certain regulation-heavy markets like healthcare (especially nursing) and manufacturing, we are seeing more and more organizations putting a strong emphasis on employee competencies and reporting. These industries are under enhanced scrutiny from bodies such as the Joint Commission and ISO to report on their employee performance metrics in a consistent and comprehensive way. This includes standardized grading, measurement tools and timelines.
I can see this increase in reporting spreading across industries to the broader workforce. As the shift to automated employee talent management is being widely embraced, the next natural step is an increased comfort level with measuring and reporting on an organization’s (or sector’s) workforce as a whole. Just like standardized testing in school boards can give us a good view of broad areas for improvement in education, so too can a 1,000-foot view from HR identify where companies need to invest and focus.
If talent management practices in your industry aren’t subject to regulation, there’s a lot we can all learn from those that are - within manufacturing for example, and ISO 9001 clause 6.2.2. This clause requires organizations to be able to demonstrate that employees have completed training and have all of the required competencies for their role. The end result of driving performance to this level is greater quality, which is what ISO 9001 is all about.
Many organizations struggle with ensuring competency standards are met, and training is completed, so can you imagine having to be able actually prove it. It’s an exercise worth considering - to look at what areas within your talent management processes could possibly be subject to regulation or certification requirements in the future, and start today on improving your processes to build a strategy where competencies and training (and clearly documenting them) are non-negotiable. Even if you never become regulated, there’s nothing to lose and everything to gain when it comes to driving business results.
Tags: competency management, healthcare, manufacturing, talent management |
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