Organizations need to ask how they are creating value for people in the same way that their people are creating value for the organization
Prioritizing human capital has shown to benefit both employees and an organization’s bottom line, yet business executives are not living up to their claims that they already value human sustainability.
Eighty-nine percent of executives say they value human sustainability and that their organizations are advancing human sustainability in some capacity. However, only 41 percent of workers say the same, says research from Deloitte’s annual Global Human Capital Trends report.
Human sustainability is prioritizing the value of human capital and ensuring individuals have greater well-being, employability, and equity. Research shows this can drive better outcomes for both the people and the business. The interaction of these outcomes leads to human performance, a measure that reflects the expectations of today’s workers and the rapidly shifting marketplace, says the report.
Businesses agree that it is important that systems allow people to flourish, but only some of them are doing something about it, says Tara Van Zuiden, a national workforce development leader, human capital, with Deloitte Canada. In fact, Deloitte’s research shows that while 76 percent of organizations say human sustainability is important, only 46 percent have implemented strategies to support the claim.
What is driving value?
“Increasingly, in a world where the pace of change and technology has the ability to influence the world of work, it comes down to a question of what's driving value in an organization,” says Van Zuiden. “Through the research, we found that human connections drive huge degrees of value in organizations, whether that's revenue, innovation, or productivity.”
With human connections such a vital part of success, organizations need to ask how they are creating value for people in the same way that their people are creating value for the organization.
“For a long time, organizations have talked about people being their most important asset. The research shows that this is more critical than ever, with people as the key to successful differentiation and competitive advantage in the future.”
The report says that instead of prioritizing business issues at the expense of human outcomes, organizations should take a human sustainability approach to improve outcomes for workers, customers, and society more broadly.
Most leaders understand that focusing on human performance is key to building thriving organizations, but they need to close the gap between knowing that issues should be addressed and doing enough to make meaningful progress. Deloitte’s research reveals that organizations making meaningful progress are nearly twice as likely to achieve desired business and human outcomes.
Unfortunately, less than half (43 percent) of workers say their organizations have left them better off than when they started. Workers identify increasing work stress and the threat of technology taking over jobs as the top challenges to organizations embracing human sustainability.
Defining new metrics for human performance
Given work’s current dynamic, cross-functional, and less quantifiable nature, traditional productivity metrics like hours worked and time on tasks may be inadequate to capture human performance. Technology and data collection advancements are leading to more meaningful metrics for organizations. As data increases, organizations may have to consider what information should be transparent to their workers.
Half (53 percent) of respondents agree that their organization is in the early phases of identifying better ways to measure worker performance and value, but only eight percent say their organizations are leading in this area.
Organizations that build workers’ trust in transparent data practices stand to benefit: When workers are confident that their organization is using their data responsibly, they are 35 percent more likely to trust the business, but only 37 percent say they are very confident their organization is using data in a highly responsible way.
Workers say in order to thrive, they want the opportunity and tools to experiment and the freedom to build microcultures tailored to their teams’ needs, while still staying true to broad organizational values. Seventy-one percent of respondents say that focusing on individual teams and workgroups are the best places to cultivate culture, fluidity, agility, and diversity and is very or critically important to their success.
“Organizations should not only ask what their workers deliver for their organization, but also what does the organization deliver for the workers?” says Van Zuiden. “Businesses use employee engagement like a measure of employee health and to measure how much more an individual might be willing to give in the service of the organization. Yet, the idea of how much the organization is willing to give in the service of the person doesn’t feature at all. So, is that really a good measure of human performance?”
For true sustainability, organizations need to create value for all people connected to them. Deloitte’s research says organizations should focus less on how much people benefit their organization and more on how much their organization benefits people. The people connected to an organization have the power to affect it in important ways. And the organization has the power to affect each of them. By understanding and creating value for each other, the organization and its people can improve business, work, and life for everyone.
