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Putting HCRM into Action

We uncover the five key steps to effective Human Capital Relationship Management.

So, how do you put HCRM (Human Capital Relationship Management) into action in your organization? You can start by looking to your production and marketing departments and learning the CRM (Customer Relationship Management) techniques these areas have mastered. In doing so, you will likely uncover what research on CRM best practices has shown us – five key steps to effective Human Capital Relationship Management: (1) determining the aim and scope of your HCRM initiative, (2) improving awareness of your employees, (3) documenting information about your employees, (4) Turning information about employees into understanding of your workforce, and (5) taking action on your newfound workforce knowledge.

Step One: Determine the Aim and Scope of Your HCRM Initiative
There are a number of ways to determine where in your organization HCRM is needed most and can have the greatest impact. First, uncover areas where your employment contract, explicit or implicit, is not living up to expectations – yours, your employees’, or both. For example, is your current employment deal failing to surmount a highly competitive talent environment or providing less than adequate returns on workforce investments? Is it leaving you with skill or labour shortages or failing to keep key employees from joining your competition? Are employees wasting employment dollars because they are not savvy health care consumers? Are they dissatisfied due to misunderstandings about pay for performance? Or are they facing financial stress due to lack of preparation for retirement?

Next, consider how much the value of individual employees varies within your organization. Areas of significant employee value differentiation high-light the importance certain employees have to your organization’s success. They point to individuals your organization will want to single out for strengthening of the employment offer, regardless of whether it is living up to expectations.

Finally, review your organization’s business strategy and ascertain what it requires from employees. Articulate specifically what HCRM efforts aim to achieve for your organization in both the short and the long term then, coordinate all stakeholders needed to implement HCRM. Communicate the stated objective of HCRM and the stakeholders’ roles in achieving the desired employment experience. Highlight how HCRM will benefit them and not just the organization. Track and publicly recognize and reward their efforts.

Step Two: Improve Awareness of Your Employees
Once the aim and scope of your HCRM initiative are determined, you will want to turn your focus toward boosting your organization’s awareness of its employees. Only with ample and accurate employee information will your organization meet the basic objectives of HCRM: to anticipate employee needs, create customized employment offers, target workforce spending, and even predict future employment behavior.

Begin by making it an organization mission to consider every employee interaction as a listening and observation opportunity. Encourage employees to speak up, listen to them without judgement, and show them how sharing information can improve their employee experience. In doing this, leverage both technology and humans as listening tools and make use of traditional listening approaches such as annual or quarterly engagement studies, focus groups, town hall meetings, and quick polls, as well as more innovative approaches such as annual or quarterly engagement studies, focus groups, town hall meetings, and quick polls, as well as more innovative approaches such as corporate ethnography, employee advisory boards, and internal employee Web logs (blogs). One company that has taken an especially innovative approach to gathering information on employees is Capital One in the United Kingdom. When face with low employee morale and high turnover in Nottingham call centre, Capital One asked employees to keep stress diaries. The diaries not only revealed specific causes of stress, but also showed a strong correlation between stress and turnover. As a result, Capital One knew what actions to take to remove stressors and combat turnover.

Continue by assigning frontline managers, the predominant contact point between the organization and individual employees, a key role in your listening efforts. Train them in observation and listening techniques. Make it a requirement for them to have ongoing conversations with individual employees about unfulfilled needs and to identify ways to meet these needs that will also benefit the organization.

As you will see later in this chapter, the uses for this information will be many. For example, it will allow you to more closely match skills and interests with projects, institute development programs to remedy skill gaps, design and redesign customizable total rewards menus, and educate employees on strategies for getting the greatest value from their benefits.

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