The Service of Feedback

By Blake Stevens, director of people and culture at The Ōnin Group

Engaging Your Part-time and Hourly Employees

Employee engagement is tricky, even for full-time employees immersed in your company culture. For hourly and part-time employees, true engagement is even more difficult to accomplish. In many cases, your hourly or part-time employees are working in lower-paying roles with limited flexibility, no benefits and a clock-in/clock-out mentality.

How Manufacturers Can Win the War for Millennial Workers

Millennials are now the largest group of U.S. workers by generation. But as we all know, attracting them into skilled manufacturing jobs remains a challenge.

5 Things Your Competitors Can Teach You About Attracting Talent 

Keeping an eye on your competitors is always wise, so why do we ignore the talent strategies of our competition?...

To Attract the Best Talent, Focus on Your Employer Brand

The millennial generation is well-known for switching between jobs more frequently than past generations. It seems they’re always looking for a better fit. As a recent Gallup report¹ puts it, “Millennials behave as consumers of workplaces, shopping around for the jobs that best align with their needs and life goals.”

A Guide To Quality (Not Just Quantity) Hires

As unemployment rates decrease to their lowest number in years, employers face a new challenge managing their workforce.<

The Secret to Recruiting: Your Brand

Some companies have short-circuited the system to acquire the best talent while most companies struggle. How? The answer is simple: brand development. ...

AUTHENTICITY does what hierarchy can’t

The business world has had a long-standing love/hate relationship with hierarchy.

CONTINGENT TALENT STRATEGY: TAKING A PAGE FROM FINANCE

In a world where 80% of the average company’s share price is created by that company’s intangible assets (brands, patents, relationships, processes, etc.), human capital and financial capital are connected at the hip. Companies need both to succeed: financial capital to place a business bet and human capital to win it. Given this symbiosis, what can we learn about human capital strategy from the more established practice of managing financial capital? HR needs to take a page from the finance handbook on capital structure. Financial capital is the economic lifeblood of an enterprise, but of course, this capital comes at a cost. Virtually all companies choose to meet their capital needs through a combination of selling equity shares and securing debt—a mix that optimizes the cost of capital but requires a continuous balancing act. Debt has advantages:  Interest cost is normally lower than what equity holders expect from dividends and capital gains.  Debtholders do not dilute equity voting rights.  Transaction and regulatory costs of debt are lower than the costs of equity. And it has disadvantages:  Interest and principal must be paid on an inflexible schedule that stresses cash flow.  Debtholder claims take precedence over equity in the event of a bankruptcy.  The interests of debtholders are not as aligned with the business as are those of equity holders. Well-managed companies often supplement their equity capital with debt to the tune of 25–30% (depending on their risk tolerance), balancing the advantages and disadvantages. Finance managers bring high value to their companies through this well-honed strategy. In human capital terms, the advantages and disadvantages of choosing between regular employees and contingent talent nearly parallel those of choosing between equity and debt. For example, although contingent talent has an immediate cash cost that may exceed that of an equivalent employee, employment is normally more expensive in the longer term (long-term incentives, development, etc.). Also, contingent talent is more flexible in terms of gearing capacity up or down, but regular employees are more engaged because they have a greater stake in the business. The reasons for managing the mix of financial capital center on ensuring resource capacity and flexibility, optimizing the cost of capital, and providing access to the broad capital markets. Companies have the same needs with respect to human capital, and for the most part, these go unmanaged. It is time for HR to take the reins and implement strategies that optimize the resource companies count on them for: human capital.