The integration of the seven elements of a Human Capital Strategy and Plan - Part 3

The incredible cost when Human Capital Elements conflict!

Last week we looked at the importance of integrating the Human Capital elements and the result of any conflicts. I concluded my blog with the following example: “The most obvious example of this is a badly conceived “Attract” strategy. It affects every other element in a negative way.”

Fundamentally, if you attract inappropriate candidates - you will spend time and money wading through unqualified candidates with no Return on Investment! If you mistakenly hire any of the in appropriate candidates – the cost of other elements will sharply rise as you try to make them fit. The cost of Investing would increase as you do more training and developing in an attempt to fit them into jobs which they are naturally unsuited. It would be more difficult to get them to Engage as they may never feel like they “fit in”. Clearly all of this would lead to Retain issues as the employees leave when they should have never been recruited or hired in the first place.  

Another example would be under The Plan element. Part of this element includes the cost and management of Employee Benefits.  Companies that do not correctly match their Employee Benefits to their employees and candidate groups will negatively affect the other elements.

If your Employee Benefit plans do not meet the needs of the candidate group then it will be more difficult to attract your target candidates. You might be required to Invest more on less qualified candidates to get them to the level of your target candidates. Deploying and Engaging might be more difficult as the new employees are not happy from the beginning. All of this might add up to Performance and Retention issues.

The amount of money that is wasted on these structural conflicts can be astounding!!

Clark Ingram, MBA, SPHR, CEBS, CPCU is the principal of People Profits which is a financially oriented Human Capital Strategy and Planning firm based in the OKC metro area. www.PeopleProfits.com. ©2012 People Profits, LLC