Aligning IT Human Capital with Organizational Goals

What do we mean by Aligning Human Capital with Organizational Goals and how does it fit into Human Capital Management?

As the picture above suggests, the Aliging IT Human Capital with Organizational Goals includes:

• Career Management
• Capability Management
• Performance Management
• Reward Management

Career Management

The decision around how we spend our working life is critically important – for each one of us as well as for the organization for which we work. To help employees manage their work/life effectively, managers need to help them to understand who they are, what options they have, and how they can get to where they want to go.
Neither the employee nor the manager will be able to control all the circumstances that impact upon their work life, but together they can influence the direction in which their life is going; and managers can help their staff to make decisions that are right for THEM. If employees are engaged – the company wins!

Career Management is not a one-time event, it is a continuous cycle of personal development. As goals are reached, new goals are established and development continues in a new direction. There are several steps in this process, as illustrated below.

A core role of management is to ensure that employees have well-defined career paths and that they follow these
career paths – growing and contributing to the success of the organization.
The tools, products, and services provided by TalentAlign will equip managers to effectively drive growth and
performance improvement in the organization through well-defined career paths for all employees.

Capability Management

Organizational Capability is defined as “The sum total of all knowledge, experience, and performance capability an organisation possesses that can be applied to create wealth.”
It’s not good enough to win the “talent wars”. It’s also not enough to try solutions (like Business Process Reengineering, Employee Stock Options, Assessment Centers, 360-degree appraisals, and Engagement Surveys) in a
piece-meal manner.
The “need of the hour” is to take a holistic view of the organization’s business, culture, technology and talent needs and develop comprehensive capability development programs to attract, retain and grow the talent. The imperative is to adapt solutions based on an integrated and proactive approach towards developing and engaging talent, growing the business and delighting the customers.
TalentAlign information, tools and services can help you to build a strong integrative approach Capability Management AND measure the results – so you know that you are being successful!

Performance Management

Performance Management is a process which contributes to the effective management of individuals and teams in order to achieve high levels of organisational performance. As such, it establishes shared understanding about what is to be achieved and an approach to leading and developing people which will ensure that it is achieved” “Managing Performance: Performance Management in Action” by M Armstrong
and A. Baron (2004.)

Performance Management includes:

• Performance improvement – throughout the organisation, for individual, team and organisational effectiveness
• Development– unless there is continuous development of individuals and teams, performance will not improve
• Managing behaviour – ensuring that individuals are encouraged to behave in a way that allows and fosters better working relationships.

Armstrong and Baron stress that at its best performance management is a tool to ensure that managers manage effectively; that they ensure the people or teams they manage:

• know and understand what is expected of them
• have the skills and ability to deliver on these expectations
• are supported by the organisation to develop the capacity to meet these expectations are given feedback on their performance
• have the opportunity to discuss and contribute to individual and team aims and objectives.

Because Performance Management is (or should be) so all-pervasive, it needs structures to support it. These should provide a framework to help people operate, and to help them to help others to operate. But it should not be a rigid system; there needs to be a reasonable degree of flexibility to allow people freedom to operate.
Performance Management is a process, not an event. It operates as a continuous cycle. Corporate strategic goals provide the starting point for business and departmental goals, followed by agreement on performance and development, leading to the drawing up of plans between individuals and managers, with continuous monitoring and feedback supported by formal reviews.
Using the information, tools and services available from TalentAlign, managers can clarify what they expect individual and teams to do; likewise individuals and teams can communicate their expectations of how they should be managed and what they need to do their jobs.

Reward Management

Reward Management is the establishment, maintenance, and development of a system that rewards the work done by employees. It is part of the whole system involved in aligning people behaviour and performance with the goals and objectives of the organization.
Regardless of the structure of the organisation, every day employees make choices about how they work and how they integrate. These choices are influenced by unique combinations of experience, personality, skills and internal motivation that each individual person brings to the workplace. The choices are also influenced by the measures and rewards that the organization uses to communicate to employees what behaviours and results are most important.
In order to perform at their best, people need a clear view of what success means in their organization – in terms of business results as well as individual performance expectations.
According to Galbraith et. al. in the book “Designing Dynamic Organisations reward systems have four components:

• Metrics – systems that identify measures and targets for enterprise, business unit, team and individual performance.
• Desired Values and Behaviours – actions that are most likely to both produce desired business results and reflect the organizational values.
• Compensation – monetary means intended to recognise a person’s past contribution as well as motivate continued or improved performance.
• Reward and Reconition – nonmonetary components that complement compensation systems to let people know that they are valued.

The trend in Reward Management is to value people for the skills and knowledge that they bring to the organization and how they use them, rather than for the particular position they are currently filling.
(“Rewarding Excellence” by Edward E. Lawler)
Performance measurement, competnsation and reward and recognitions programs should be designed to encourage and motivate
people to demonstrate the desired behaviours and to flexibly adapt to change when new organizational goals and outcomes
need to be achieved.

Below are relevant books and summaries of articles.  To read the article in full, click on the relevant link.  To return, click “back” on your Internet Browser.

    

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IT Performance Improvement
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