Do you know what your ROI of your decisions are?

Turn to almost any organization in the country and a familiar thread is going to be heard - What is the ROI (Return on Investment) for this project? Human Resources is no different. Through the works of Bersin & Associates, who in their 2011 report "The Best Practices for the High Impact HR Organization" determined that the top challenge for HR Management was the ability to measure HR programs in financial terms and the work of Jac Fit-Enz and Wayne Cascio who each showed us how to measure HR management we have an idea on how to quantify the ROI of HR. The problem is that this view is concentrated in the metrics of hiring our human capital assets.
However regardless of how defining the ROI measurements are for the above efforts, we seem to be missing a whole other metric of HR ROI. I refer to it as the return of decisions. We complain that our human capital assets are no longer engaged with our organizations but then either knowingly or unknowingly allow our organizations to make very dump mistakes in treating those assets as valuable parts of the organization. Consider these recent enforcement activities:

1. On May 1, a federal district court handed down a judgement in the case of EEOC vs. Hill County Farms a verdict in the case of abuse against human capital assets with intellectual disabilities in the amount of $240 million.
2. May 10 a federal court handed down a verdict in the case of New Breed Logistics on a charge of Sexual Harassment which resulted in a fine of $1.5 million.
3. May 1, a travel agency in Florida was found guilty of sexually harassing and retaliating against eight former employees.They were fined $20 million.
4. Several years ago FedEx tried to convince the State of Massachusetts that their drivers were independent contractors resulting in a $3 million fine form the state.

So here is my question. It is my understanding that an organization is in existence reportedly for perpetuity and in doing so they answer to their stockholders. We know that the management of these organizations and others constantly review their products and services in order to determine whether these products and services are worth the effort to continue in their portfolio.We get that. As an organization we do the same thing with our portfolio of deliverables. But when do we reach the point where HR becomes the voice in the desert and tells management that the decision process on how we treat our human capital assets is bringing great harm to the future of our organization.
I have had some tell me that organizations plan for these fines in the name of running an organization based on their culture. But at what point does the way we have always  run the organization come into conflict with the return on investment into talent management by treating them less than human beings. At what point does our decisions governing behavior within the organization reach the point where we would not tolerate it if it was happening to us?
The ROI is a critical success factor within your organization as you need a profit to ensure continued operations. The way we normally determine that ROI leaves out the impact of our decisions of management.We can't operate our organizations without the contributions of our human capital assets and we can't ever expect them to be engaged in our organizations when we tolerate the atmosphere which created these large verdicts. Understand if we continue the decision process as it is, the fines will continue and get larger. Where is your tolerance level when you can tell the stakeholders that you are sorry for the increase drain on the corporate pocketbook because you have either allowed these decisions to continue to exist or tell the stakeholders that as the managers of organizational talent you did not know it was going on.
What is the ROI of your employee related decisions? Are you the next one we are going to read about who suffered the consequences of preventable illogical decisions in the name of your organization?

Is it Really What We Think it Was?

Over the past week I have been going through some family issues which began with a medical emergency last Friday. Everyone we talked to from our family practitioner to the ER medical team believed that the signs pointed towards one thing. When the surgeons went in to operate on Saturday morning, they found an entirely different problem was manifested in the same environment. Upon reflection we do the same steps in the HR world we work in.

Every single day we are confronted with important HR issues and we automatically assume we have the answers. But what if we were wrong? Consider these scenarios:

Scenario #1- One of your department managers comes to your office and asks if you have a moment. They open the discussion by telling you they have a problem in the department with Johnny. Johnny just can't seem to get with the program and we have to let him go. Do we know why Johnny can't get with the program? The problem could be that Johnny has not been provided with the right training to do they job at the required KPI level. Or is the problem with the interaction between the manager and Johnny?

Scenario #2 - Mary reports to the HR department that she has been harassed by a fellow employee, is that really the case or is the problem that the way the fellow employee reacts around people may be contrary to the way that Mary was brought up. Consider if the fellow employee was of Italian descent. If you have been around Italians to any great degree you know they like to show signs of indicating you are part of their inner circle by hugging those they come into contact with. Is this harassment or a show of cultural tendencies?

Scenario #3 - Your talent management staff is in the process of interviewing for a high level position in your company, and comes across a candidate who on paper looks like the perfect candidate. The right skills, the right education, the right career progression. But your staff member says that through the entire interview the process the candidate never looked at the recruiter directly. The recruiter rejects the application and the candidate because of it. But what if the reason was that candidate was brought up in a culture where direct eye contact is considered to be a sign of aggressive behavior? If this is the case does this make them a bad candidate?

In each of our scenarios above we have looked at everyday scenarios within our global workplace which indicate one environment when they could mean an entirely different actuality. The same thing occurred in the hospital over this past weekend. Everyone based on the symptoms believed we had one problem when we had something entirely different. A separate condition which can and does simulate the same signs. Do your HR decisions recognize the possibility that the symptoms of your workplace problems are actually something else, that while related to your original conclusion mean something entirely else?

Achieving HR Excellence through Six Sigma seminar comes to Orlando, FL

Achieving HR Excellence through Six Sigma seminar comes to Orlando, FL