Date: TBC

Time: 3:00pm (GMT +8)

Venue: Anywhere with an internet connection, a laptop/pc and earphones. No installations required. Conference link will be sent upon registration.

Do contact us at info@comaea.sg to check for the next available session!

Date: TBC

Time: 3:00pm (GMT +8)

Venue: Anywhere with an internet connection, a laptop/pc and earphones. No installations required. Conference link will be sent upon registration.

Do contact us at info@comaea.sg to check for the next available session!

Mattson argues quite rightly that making the wrong decisions about employee layoffs can put a company in a serious state of disadvantage especially as the economy starts to rebound. After all, employees that remain following an organisational restructuring effort will determine its future success. The bottom line is that in times where layoffs are necessary, it is imperative to retain the best, most motivated and high potential employees.

That said, it is of common sense and knowledge that in order to do well, an organisation must retain its best employees. The problem many managers face is the lack of data to make informed decisions. This is exactly what Mattson means by seeing a need to "democratise" human capital management. Human capital management these days is purely a HR process where the rest of the organisation contributes information once or twice a year. A transformation in this process is required to help managers identify their best performers with vital information and statistics and do their best to retain these top performers.

To "democratise" this process would mean to empower every employee to make performance and competence measurement part of their daily routine. This will help managers identify employees who have both potential and motivation. After all, people perform differently under different conditions; differentiating the 'once a year' top performers from the all year round top performers would provide excellent intelligence to managers.

With the right tools, human capital management can be transformed into a democratic process where vital information is passed on the the strategic decision makers. In the weeks to come, I will discuss more about Mattson's views on the democratising process itself. I hope that with today's article, some seeds of doubt have been raised with regards to your organisation's human capital management processes.

Edit: In my article I had neglected to add in the "Asian context" of Mattson's views. What I meant was that, these views are especially applicable to Asian companies, where many HR processes are driven from top down, there to fulfill administrative functions. Companies go through the motions once a year to fulfill their HR departments' performance management requirements. By democratising these processes, these would cease to be an annual pointless exercise and present top management with very good data to help with decision making.

Instead, in these times, we find it important that firms re-think their HR management strategies. Turbulent times require active performance management initiatives, creative methods, innovation and out of the box solutions.

For example, instead of totally stopping all non-core training sessions (ie. leadership programmes), firms can switch the method of training to a webinar style training course where the value of the course is hardly compromised while costs can be kept to a minimum.

The basic principles of performance and competency management remains the same:

1. What we have - in terms of employee competencies and skills
2. Where we want to be in the future - overall organisation goals and targets
3. How do we bridge this gap and get to the future point successfully - training, development, recruitment etc.

This core methodology can still be adhered to in these times with limited budgets and resources. We believe that a measured approach is needed here.

First, a review of the organisation's goal and target setting process is required. New targets have to be set which take into account the current business climate.

Second, a tool is required to understand the firm's current standing and the gaps it is facing to reach the revised target.

Upon which, a strategy to align all resources, current and future, towards this revised goal via creative and innovative methods is needed.

Try this out at a department or unit level and you may be surprised at the results!

Strategic competence management thus describes the alignment of human capital management initiatives with desired business outcomes. Competence management plays a strategic role in achieving corporate goals through a set of applications and processes that enable companies to better measure, manage, and optimise employee performance.

With these facts and analysis data, business intelligence is generated which can be used for improved decision making at the enterprise level. These days, HR is no longer just an administrative arm of the effective organisation; instead HR initiatives are being tied to the strategic decisions and goals of an organisation.

Contact us to find out more about how strategic management can help your organisation!