HR Society President’s Forum, London, UK, 15 September 2009

Strategic HR Review

ISSN: 1475-4398

Article publication date: 23 February 2010

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Citation

Mayo, A. (2010), "HR Society President’s Forum, London, UK, 15 September 2009", Strategic HR Review, Vol. 9 No. 2. https://doi.org/10.1108/shr.2010.37209bab.010

Publisher

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Emerald Group Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2010, Emerald Group Publishing Limited


HR Society President’s Forum, London, UK, 15 September 2009

Article Type: Resources From: Strategic HR Review, Volume 9, Issue 2

Andrew MayoAndrew Mayo is President of the HR Society.

A group of senior HR professionals was urged to think more laterally about measuring intangibles at the President’s Forum of the HR Society in London. Presenting his often outspoken views was dean of London Business School, Sir Andrew Likierman, who has been exploring this issue for some time. He believes that while there are lots of measures around, many are primitive and can encourage ultimately unhelpful behavior. He gave the example of law firms that concentrated on billable hours as a measure – only to have their reputation damaged when clients complain of the lawyers padding their bills.

Although many organizations are seeking an established, quantitative framework to measure intangibles, in practice it does not exist in any standardized form. Sir Andrew argued that simple numerical data can be deeply misleading, particularly in HR; it is not about getting better numbers.

He thinks that problems about measurements persist because they are not recognized as problems and the lack of measures is just accepted, and because there is no central ownership of the issue. Some of these problems are generic, based in generic causes and for which there are generic solutions, possibly offered by other organizations. Common generic problems included poorly defined objectives, poor data, focusing targets on what can be measured rather than what is important and the lack of linkage between actions and results.

A new approach

Solutions can be found by concentrating on cause and effect links to objectives and better internal and external comparisons. A measurement program should involve changes to incentives, consultation before its introduction, piloting and the extensive use of commentary and interpretation. This would have greater use of indications rather than definitive proof – so that the numbers themselves do not provide a false illusion of truth. He was scathing about ROI, which he described as “a really bad measure in HR, only useful if the numbers are sound, which they often are not.”

Sir Andrew suggested his approach could be applied in many areas – for example, programs aimed at talent development. He recommended taking broader measurements before such programs begin to identify business activity differences pre and post program. Interviews should be held with those on the program, as well as the control group of those who were not, about the ease of making appointments and perceptions of opportunity. When the program is complete, the focus should be on outputs – such as the choices available for vacant posts.

Sir Andrew believes that whereas HR understands how to calculate the financial cost of people, it has much more difficulty in calculating its worth in the same terms. His approach suggests using different kinds of measures to do this. Senior management teams need to be able to cope with less solidity in performance measures and more sophistication and complexity – and HR needs to learn how to communicate these without getting bogged down in the detail.

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