What is Human Capital Management

Human Capital Management (HCM) is managing employees of an organization. This enables the increase in the productivity of the employees.

The whole process of Acquiring, Training, Managing, and Retaining employees for any organization is called Human Capital Management.

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The job of a Human Capital Management is not as simple as the explanation we just gave you. The Human Capital Management is also responsible for the HR helpdesks, employee self- service portals, manager self-service portals and intranet portals.

Some of the significant job descriptions comprise of various supports including, but not limited to:

  • Recruitment
  • Onboarding
  • Workforce management
  • Competency management
  • Performance management
  • Compensation strategy
  • Time and expense planning
  • Learning and Development
  • Contingent workforce management
  • Organization visualization
  • Reporting and analytics
  • Workflow

Tips to have a successful Human Capital Management team

Now that we know what falls under the bracket of Human Capital Management let’s learn how to do it well. When handling numerous employees, it could be challenging to ensure employee satisfaction on every level.

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It is constantly seen that employees feel that organizations are only concerned about turn over and not the employees. While this may not be true, it is crucial for the employees to realize this.

Here are some tips that we believe will help you in ensuring that you’re doing it right:

1. Communications from the Leadership team

We, as employees, often think that managers often just sit in their cabin all day and impose suggestions on us. Well, as hard as this might be to take in, it is not the case.

At least for most of the time. However, it is essential that managers discuss with employees before making decisions so that employees do not feel suggestions are imposed on them.

Employees will have immensely valuable feedbacks about the organizations that may turn out to be effective.

This may never reach the management if there is no platform for the employees to express their ideas.

2. Employee engagement

It is important for the employee to have an adequate amount of work on a day to day basis. Too much or too little work will definitely mess up with their workflow.

Human Capital Management also includes ensuring they have an adequate amount of work to enable a seamless workflow.

3. Appreciation

Everyone feels the need to be appreciated for their efforts. This is something the Human Capital Management has to ensure attention is paid to. It is important for the managers to appreciate their employees on their work so that they continue to work hard.

4. Learning

We covered this before. It is important to make sure that employees have all the required information for them to work on their projects. Training is the way to go to ensure this is in place.

There are In-House, and Outsourced training programmes organizations can enrol their employees in. This will let them work as an individual with minimum dependency.

Experienced employees can also be enabled to train the newbies. This also works as an appreciation for the experienced employee. See? There’s more than one way to get things done.

Oh! Don’t design training just for the sake of it. That’s no use to anybody. In turn, that will bite you back in more way than you can think of. Training is conducted to benefit both employee and employees.

5. Growth

This is a no brainer. Any employee, irrespective of them being tenured or not, it is important for them to grow within the organization.

Growth

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Constant growth helps improve knowledge. Upskilling oneself is important; one of the easiest ways of doing so is through constant growth in the field.

This will also ensure that employees do not find the work monotonous.

6. Hiring

You shouldn’t be too quick to tag someone as a bad employee. Believe us; there is no such thing as a good or a bad employee. It’s always the right candidate for the position. It is the job of Human Capital Management to ensure that the right employee is chosen for the right position.

Hiring

You cannot have a substandard hiring process and blame the employee for not performing.

7. Employees leave their managers, not the company

This is a famous one. We are sure that many of you’ll have heard this somewhere through your corporate career. This is most definitely true too.Now, this is crunch time for Human Capital Management. Training a newbie is one thing, training a manager on their skills, that’s a whole other ball game. But well, that has to be done.

Skip level meetings are also a great way to understand how employees feel about their managers.

There’s another way to look at this. If a manager quits, there is a good chance that at least a couple of employees that worked under him will quit. The same logic applies here; only, the Human Capital Management may need to look at the higher management on this.

8. Teamwork

Let’s say you get through hiring and training with flying colours. Ensuring that each team member gels well with the others is as important as these. It is the responsibility of Human Capital Management to ensure that the best of each employee is brought out.

teamwork

Contrary to popular belief, having a diverse workspace will help employees learnabout different cultures and become friends with each other.

Human Capital Management needs to assist managers in ensuring that all employees are happy with the team, and issues do not get in between the productivity of the programme.

9. Transparency

You reap what you sow. Have you ensured that all processes are transparent and easily accessible to employees? That shows that you trust them. They trust you when you trust them.

Human Capital Management has to work in great lengths to ensure that all employees feel trusted. This will make the employees work well for the organization voluntarily. Well, what more can you ask for?

10. Objectives

It is important for all employees to be aware of the Vision (No, we are not taking Marvel here). The Vision of the organization, the individual project they are working in.

It is important for all employees to understand the purpose of their work. Unclear Vision will only produce poor results.

11. Fun times

Employees spend most of their time in the offices. It is important for them to have some fun times in the office. Fun activities, games, movie nights, team dinners, team outings are just some of the ways to improve your employee’s happy quotient.

These fun activities work as great stress busters for the employees. A happy employee makes the company happy.

Human Capital Management must allot production time in such a way that there is time for employees to indulge in these fun activities.

12. Technology

Employees can only be productive if their tools are up-to-date. Trying to cut down on the technology is definitely not the way to go if productiveness is what you have in mind.

Having outdated or substantial technology and tools will only move things along slower and frustrate the employees. Human Capital Management needs to have a policy in place to replace any and all outdated technologies.

13. Employee profiles

Having an employee profile comes with more benefits than you assume. Employee profiles are a great wayto ease the hiring process.

New hires, re-joining, transfers from a different office is all a lot easier if the employee profile is in place. We knew that already. However, it also helps Human Capital Management togather employee performance.

 Information such as employee performance reviews, disciplinary actions, customer feedbacks will all be accessible from one single space.

No data will be lost from an individual since it’s all stored in central storage.

14. Tracking

Having a ton of policies and procedures in place is not the end of the subject for Human Capital Management. It is important to ensure that these procedures are followed.

Human Capital Management needs to invest time to evaluate if all the actions implemented are actually followed by all employees.

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It is important for this evaluation to take place constantly. All the time and effort will wash down the drain should there be a lapse.

Conclusion

Conclusively, it is important for Human Capital Management to realize that their job profile does not merely end at hiring the right candidate for the right profile, allotting vacation days or performance appraisal to employees.

Growth and development of the organization through the employees is their major task. A happy employee makes the company happy is the idea that should always drive Human Capital Management. Only this will bring real success to the organization.

We have witnessed a major recent trends in human resource management industry for the past few years. If you look back, everything from the hiring process, people analytics to software systems has evolved.

Instead of just engaging the employees and giving an upper hand to their satisfaction level, today’s trends are more inclined to enlighten the overall HR culture.

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The HR department has moved far forward than just mere recruitment, benefits management, professional development and time and attendance.

Here let us have a look at some of the most recent trends in human resource management that can change the overall working scenario of a daily office.

1. Employee experience

More than the engagement of employees at workplace, the focus has shifted to employee experience. More than mere engagement, concentration is now given to enhancement of company culture, and performance management.

The main roles of the HR department now covers enhancing employee’s journey map and giving a greater exposure to feedback tools, employee wellness apps, productivity tools and advanced communication tools.

employee productivity

Moreover, they are analyzing the employee data to address the need of staff and enhance productive office atmosphere. They can even use its possibilities to ease the implementation of the HR process and improve the employee’s career.

2. Advanced people analytics

Companies have moved far ahead from just the back office data to utilizing the best of people analytics. Reporting through the dashboards has outdated in most of the companies and focus is more on predictive models.

Companies have moved far ahead from just the back office data to utilizing the best of people analytics. Reporting through the dashboards has outdated in most of the companies and focus is more on predictive models.

SAP Success Factors, ADP, Visier, Cornerstone and Oracle are among the most widely used HR tools to enhance the possibilities of HR sector to improve the overall effectiveness of employees.

Most of these tools come with advanced features like employee retention predictors. They can even help build strategies like making job moves to get higher performance.

3. Learning management systems

Despite the position of the employees or their experience, learning new skills is important to stay updated. That is why constant learning is now a novel trend in the HR sector. Providing learning opportunities to employees is the key for any company that is eyeing for progress.

An improved skill set can help employees to deliver their best at workplace that reflects in the overall productivity of the enterprise. Learning management systems are playing the crucial part in tracking the employees learning process and even to collaborate between various departments effectively.

4. Augmented reality

One can undoubtedly say that VR and AR are the key trends in today’s HR market which offers an upper hand for learning market and performance support for organizational staff.

The simulation process is the highlighted feature that aids employees in preparing themselves to how to respond to real life situations.

It has a huge influence on proper recruitment process as candidates are given exposure to real-life work situation.

Moreover, there are options for candidates to take a virtual tour of the company and get an exposure to the organizational culture personally.

5. Productivity of HR process

Earlier the focus was covering the automation of areas like record keeping, performance appraisal, resume capture, interview and hiring, compensation and assessment.

However, the focus is now shifted to productivity of the overall HR process than just automating sections.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJ5jJabbE2o

So significance is now given on the techniques to enhance productivity like quality people, considering people analytics, team-centric companies, and optimal usage of hired employees as well as agile workforce.

Now the key role will be to sort out employee’s focus, engagement and burnouts and build strategies accordingly.

6. Digitized rewards and recognition

Receiving praise and recognition is the key to help employees to trigger their performance level and these are undoubtedly true motivators for most of them. However, the present trend has taken this a step forward as rewards and recognition is now becoming digitised.

Read Also: Tips To Attract The Perfect Employee

Digital recognition is helping them excel one step higher and peer to peer recognition for their contribution through social media platforms is evidently improving their performance scale.

7. Online skill assessments

The trend of using online skill assessments is now seen in companies as it is proving effective as an optimal talent management tool.

It comes in the form of surveys, quizzes, tests, and exams that offers a platform for companies to learn what their employees actually know and even a chance for self assessment for employees.

8. Biometric time tracking and security

This is another recent trends in human resource management that offers a lot of room for minimizing attendance fraud risk by using biological markers to recognize employees. Companies are now using facial or iris recognition and fingerprint scanning.

Minimizing time theft through these means help companies to save their funds to a great extent. Employees are blocked from doing unwanted fraud actions outside the office hours as system access will be tracked. This additional layer of security also offers an advantage of tracking business property.

9. Enhanced employee engagement

When it comes to employee engagement, it has moved forward a lot from mere basic activities. The scenario is now digitized and employees are offered lots of wellness and fitness apps. The goal is to ensure proper work and life balance.

Building a sustainable workforce by balancing professional and personal lives helps them to be more productive and then end result will be a profitable enterprise. Companies are now taking initiatives to set up seminars and sessions like yoga, dietary counselling, and counselling on improved work-life balance.

10. Transformation of leadership

Unlike in the past, leadership is not always about leading a team or managing them. The digitalised world has put forward possibilities of networked organisations than bring more success than with just delegation of authority.

Individual employees are enabled to initiate leadership on their own and sometimes even without proper formal authority. The shift of leadership goals have changed from simply leading people to overall coordination of the ecosystem of work.

11. Targeted recruitment

One of the mostly discussed trends in HR sector is targeted recruitment which is processed through social media and cognitive assessment.

Companies are utilizing the possibilities of cognitive technologies that come in the form of predictive algorithms, natural language processing and self-learning.

At time of recruitment, they use tools that consider career experiences and skills to provide a fit score to see if the candidate matches the organizational requirements.  

Moreover, reputation checks of organizations and their competitors are now easy with social listening that is possible in the form of public reviews.

12. Wearable Tech

Work place health can be monitored more systematically through this emerging HR trend. These wearable tech possibilities can make a huge impact on employees working on high pressure situations.

These devices are designed to track several features like heart rate, pupil dilation, body temperature, and similar areas. Management can analyze these points to get a deeper insight into stress and pain points of employees. They can reframe the strategies accordingly to improve their workplace experience.

13. Performance management

Unlike in the past when the performance was evaluated through monthly meetings or quarterly reviews, the present trend shows the shift of focus to real time feedback.

Apart from logistic benefits, this instant feedback can help managers to put up conversations about personal and professional development.

The real time open-dialogue conversations in fact help employees to benefit from constructive criticisms that give them a large room for improvement on the go.

VR can work closely with real time feedback for effective performance management and assessments.

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Experts have advised not to react blindly to any of the emerging trends but to learn, understand and analyse it before applying to your particular business scenario.

As AI and technological advancements are emerging every day, we can expect even more dramatic changes in the HR trends in the near future, as well.

However, experts in the field are more or less sure that technology is not going to replace any of the jobs or HR department but it is sure to better the way how jobs are done.