Tuesday, May 31, 2005
Tweet[IWS] Workforce Agility: The New Frontier for Competitive Advantage [December 2004]
IWS Documented News Service
_______________________________
Institute for Workplace Studies Professor Samuel B. Bacharach
School of Industrial & Labor Relations Director, Institute for Workplace Studies
Cornell University
16 East 34th Street, 4th floor Stuart Basefsky
New York, NY 10016 Director, IWS News Bureau
________________________________________________________________________
[PriceWaterhouseCoopers]
Saratoga & Michigan Business School
by Richard W. Beatty
White Paper
Workforce Agility: The New Frontier for Competitive Advantage [December 2004]
http://www.pwc.com/us/eng/tax/hrs/saratoga/Workforce-Agilility.pdf
[full-text, 16 pages]
Executive Summary
Consider the following findings:
Best practice companies now estimate that workforce management problems are causing them to under perform by as much as 10% and overspend by as much as 10%.
84% of large global companies say they are not using their workforce to its full potential.
63% of these companies believe that their HR technology does not provide centralized data for decision making.
Some 50% of HR executives in the U.S. say their HR data is not in a form that is usable for decisionmaking.
Only 16% of top executives believe their companies are flexible enough to reallocate workers based on strategic need.
66% of executives say their companies are not proficient at allowing employees to focus on multiple roles, skills and competencies.
On the surface these data, drawn from a survey commissioned by Convergys Employee Care, would seem to pose a set of difficult, if not unmanageable challenges for some of the worlds largest corporations at a point when global competition has become more heated than ever before.
But then, there are these findings, drawn from the same survey:
Most executives at best practice companies interviewed for the survey indicated a growing commitment to and progress in aligning workforce strategy with business strategy.
More than three-quarters of companies are showing a large interest (if not yet an equal proficiency) in attracting, developing and retaining their most valuable and strategic workersand finding ways to move out those in their workforce who are not performing or whose tasks are deemed nonstrategic to the company.
Most respondents said that while HR may be missing critical tools and resources, they are confident that HR has the skills and business understanding to deliver on corporate strategy.
Best practice companies report that they are increasingly moving their HR professionals into strategic positions and charging them with developing workforce capabilities rather than administrative tasks.
A majority of high-growth companies in the U.S. say they are already outsourcing their administrative HR functionsand executives from best practice companies say thats just the beginning.
Rather than indicating a problem, the data from this survey appear instead to reflect an opportunitya chance for companies to move into a new frontier of competitive advantage.
By aligning their workforce strategies and corporate strategies; by ensuring accountability for this alignment (and the results it will bring); and by creating an agile corporate environment where skills are valued over jobs, where cross-sector collaboration is encouraged, where not all functions and processes need to be owned, and where data becomes business intelligence that can drive decision making, companies can follow best practice organizations and meet the challenges of the new global economy
(see Exhibit 1).
The question, of course, is how to bring this new way of thinking about the workforcean orientation that could be called portfolio managementinto companies that are traditionally rigid, out of alignment and less than accountable. The survey results, detailed below, offer some clear guidelines.
_____________________________
This information is provided to subscribers, friends, faculty, students and alumni of the School of Industrial & Labor Relations (ILR). It is a service of the Institute for Workplace Studies (IWS) in New York City. Stuart Basefsky is responsible for the selection of the contents which is intended to keep researchers, companies, workers, and governments aware of the latest information related to ILR disciplines as it becomes available for the purposes of research, understanding and debate. The content does not reflect the opinions or positions of Cornell University, the School of Industrial & Labor Relations, or that of Mr. Basefsky and should not be construed as such. The service is unique in that it provides the original source documentation, via links, behind the news and research of the day. Use of the information provided is unrestricted. However, it is requested that users acknowledge that the information was found via the IWS Documented News Service.
Stuart Basefsky *
Director, IWS News Bureau *
Institute for Workplace Studies *
Cornell/ILR School *
16 E. 34th Street, 4th Floor *
New York, NY 10016 *
*
Telephone: (607) 255-2703 *
Fax: (607) 255-9641 *
E-mail: smb6@cornell.edu *
****************************************
_______________________________
Institute for Workplace Studies
School of Industrial & Labor Relations
Cornell University
16 East 34th Street, 4th floor
New York, NY 10016
________________________________________________________________________
[PriceWaterhouseCoopers]
Saratoga & Michigan Business School
by Richard W. Beatty
White Paper
Workforce Agility: The New Frontier for Competitive Advantage [December 2004]
http://www.pwc.com/us/eng/tax/hrs/saratoga/Workforce-Agilility.pdf
[full-text, 16 pages]
Executive Summary
Consider the following findings:
Best practice companies now estimate that workforce management problems are causing them to under perform by as much as 10% and overspend by as much as 10%.
84% of large global companies say they are not using their workforce to its full potential.
63% of these companies believe that their HR technology does not provide centralized data for decision making.
Some 50% of HR executives in the U.S. say their HR data is not in a form that is usable for decisionmaking.
Only 16% of top executives believe their companies are flexible enough to reallocate workers based on strategic need.
66% of executives say their companies are not proficient at allowing employees to focus on multiple roles, skills and competencies.
On the surface these data, drawn from a survey commissioned by Convergys Employee Care, would seem to pose a set of difficult, if not unmanageable challenges for some of the worlds largest corporations at a point when global competition has become more heated than ever before.
But then, there are these findings, drawn from the same survey:
Most executives at best practice companies interviewed for the survey indicated a growing commitment to and progress in aligning workforce strategy with business strategy.
More than three-quarters of companies are showing a large interest (if not yet an equal proficiency) in attracting, developing and retaining their most valuable and strategic workersand finding ways to move out those in their workforce who are not performing or whose tasks are deemed nonstrategic to the company.
Most respondents said that while HR may be missing critical tools and resources, they are confident that HR has the skills and business understanding to deliver on corporate strategy.
Best practice companies report that they are increasingly moving their HR professionals into strategic positions and charging them with developing workforce capabilities rather than administrative tasks.
A majority of high-growth companies in the U.S. say they are already outsourcing their administrative HR functionsand executives from best practice companies say thats just the beginning.
Rather than indicating a problem, the data from this survey appear instead to reflect an opportunitya chance for companies to move into a new frontier of competitive advantage.
By aligning their workforce strategies and corporate strategies; by ensuring accountability for this alignment (and the results it will bring); and by creating an agile corporate environment where skills are valued over jobs, where cross-sector collaboration is encouraged, where not all functions and processes need to be owned, and where data becomes business intelligence that can drive decision making, companies can follow best practice organizations and meet the challenges of the new global economy
(see Exhibit 1).
The question, of course, is how to bring this new way of thinking about the workforcean orientation that could be called portfolio managementinto companies that are traditionally rigid, out of alignment and less than accountable. The survey results, detailed below, offer some clear guidelines.
_____________________________
This information is provided to subscribers, friends, faculty, students and alumni of the School of Industrial & Labor Relations (ILR). It is a service of the Institute for Workplace Studies (IWS) in New York City. Stuart Basefsky is responsible for the selection of the contents which is intended to keep researchers, companies, workers, and governments aware of the latest information related to ILR disciplines as it becomes available for the purposes of research, understanding and debate. The content does not reflect the opinions or positions of Cornell University, the School of Industrial & Labor Relations, or that of Mr. Basefsky and should not be construed as such. The service is unique in that it provides the original source documentation, via links, behind the news and research of the day. Use of the information provided is unrestricted. However, it is requested that users acknowledge that the information was found via the IWS Documented News Service.
Stuart Basefsky
Director, IWS News Bureau
Institute for Workplace Studies
Cornell/ILR School
16 E. 34th Street, 4th Floor
New York, NY 10016
Telephone: (607) 255-2703
Fax: (607) 255-9641
E-mail: smb6@cornell.edu
****************************************
# posted by SBasefsky : 11:23 AM
