The 7 Skills of Talent Valuation

FitzenzHere is an excerpt from an article written by Jac Fitz-enz for Talent Management magazine. He recommends seven skills that can give talent managers the intelligence needed to create competitive advantage in the marketplace. To read the complete article, check out all the resources, and sign up for a free subscription to the TM and/or Chief Learning Officer and/or Workforce magazines published by MediaTec, Inc., please click here.

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Finding value in our work requires building skills in measurement and analysis. But there is much more to it than counting things. The objective of measurement programs is to yield actionable data.

This type of data, blended with analytic skills, generates knowledge, insights and, hopefully, intelligence. Intelligence is what management needs to make better investment decisions and create competitive advantage. The following are the seven skills that are useful and necessary for performance evaluation.

[Here are the first three skills.]

1. Widen your view. There is more to human capital analysis than labor demand and supply. Start by considering your organization’s strategic capacity to deal with technology, global competition, economic fluctuations and other market macro forces. Are your vision, brand and culture strong enough to address these seminal issues? These are the basic criteria for investment allocations. You may have to help executive leadership in this area.

2. Link people to results. Identify and describe in detail your organization’s critical positions. These are the jobs that have the greatest positive effect and potentially the greatest drag on performance. Then trace the linkages from employee performance in those jobs to customer reaction and competitive advantage. This is the path to profitability for commercial firms and constituent service for nonprofit organizations. Breaks in that chain diminish your ability to fulfill your firm’s vision and purpose.

3. Plan to win. The acceptance of a “win some, lose some” philosophy is a path to mediocrity. Would you ever enter an important athletic contest with anything other than a total dedication to winning? If you did, you might as well stay home. Likewise, do you plan to be No. 1 in human capital management? If not, you give your competition the advantage in recruiting, managing, engaging and retaining the best talent. No one remembers or admires who finished second.

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I don’t have to remind you that managing people isn’t easy. People are highly variable and independent. Yet this doesn’t mean that we can’t help them improve their performance. If we couldn’t, there would be no reason for the human resources function to exist.

My experience since my first HR job in 1969 has proven to me that sound management principles supported by valid, relevant and reliable data gives us a base on which to make effective investment decisions that help drive our organization’s goals.

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Here is a direct link to the complete article.

Jac Fitz-enz is founder and CEO of the Human Capital Source and Workforce Intelligence Institute. He has published 12 books and over 300 articles, reports and book chapters on measurement and strategic management. Dr. Jac’s books have been translated into Chinese, German, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish and Turkish. He is a two-time winner of the SHRM Book of the Year Award for Human Value Management (1991) and The ROI of Human Capital (2001). His monthly column, “Leading Edge,” appears in Talent Management journal. He can be reached at the Institute.

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