Predictions for 2019: The productivity imperative

Learned a lot lending an editorial hand here:

Deloitte Capital H Blog, November 27, 2018

by David Mallon

If there is one line that sums up the outlook for HR in 2019, it might be that backhanded blessing, “May you live in interesting times.” These are interesting times, indeed. The increasingly influential role of social capital in organizational success is compelling companies to reimagine their purpose and redefine what it means to be a good citizen, internally and externally. In this new social enterprise, more collaborative and productive relationships with employees, customers, and communities go hand in hand with the quest for revenue and profit.

The need to support the emerging social enterprise and address the lack of enthusiasm with HR’s core services should give us all pause. When the demands on HR are greater than ever and the complexity and range of solutions are multiplying exponentially, HR professionals need to home in on the signal. We all need to tune into the core mission of HR and then make sure that every effort and investment serves it.

Addressing HR’s true value
The rise of the social enterprise is a global trend that positions HR at the center and gives greater weight and urgency to Net Promoter Scores (NPS) for core HR services. My colleagues have calculated these scores in the course of our High-Impact research and discovered that the NPS for performance management is negative-60 and the NPS for rewards is negative-15. If these were customer scores, many company leaders would declare a state of emergency. The scores for L&D and talent acquisition are positive (19 and 15, respectively), but neither would be cause for celebration in the C-suite if they were in customer realm.

What’s your Net Productivity Score?
We at BersinTM, Deloitte Consulting LLP are convinced that HR’s core mission is productivity. When you strip away the noise, HR’s job is to enable and enhance the productivity of people. This goal serves all of HR’s stakeholders—the enterprise, the individual employee, and the community at large. Thus, the most important metric on the HR dashboard isn’t the net promoter score (even though it is a useful indicator), it’s the net productivity score. The question that determines the real value of HR is simply this:

“Has what we’ve done today, this week, this month, and this year—the programs, the processes, the initiatives—resulted in a net addition or subtraction from individual and team productivity?”

In the days to come, look out for seven new articles from Bersin in which our analysts will share their viewpoints on the most relevant and interesting developments to watch in 2019, including their outlook on HR’s role around the productivity imperative. Read the rest here