If you work in HR or recruitment, you’ve likely heard the phrase “human capital management” but you might not have a clear picture of what it means for your organization and your people. After all, buzzwords get tossed around all the time but they don’t always translate into a meaningful difference for anyone. Human capital management, however, is something to pay attention to because it can benefit everyone from recruiters to employees to candidates.
Human capital management (HCM) requires you to change the way you view your employees. Instead of seeing them as talent that is used to achieve a single company goal, HCM views employees as assets whose current value can be measured and whose future value can be enhanced through investment.
It looks at what an employee can be groomed to achieve throughout their lifecycle at your company, not just the open role they can fill now. HCM also takes into account every aspect of managing an employee and looks to streamline those processes to make your organization as efficient and productive as possible.
Here are four key considerations to remember about HCM when introducing the concept and the technology at your company:
1. It Streamlines Your Workflow.
You can integrate the fundamentals of HCM into your business, but you’ll get the most benefit from technology that addresses your needs. HCM software —which is often cloud based—increases automation for many tasks spanning recruiting, onboarding, benefits administration and enrollment and wellness program management. Instead of viewing talent development as a separate entity, human capital management includes it as part of the total employee experience along with payroll, workforce management, leave management and benefits.
In order to achieve this goal, human resources must maintain an open line of communication with operations and finance. No department acts alone. The more departments can easily communicate with one another, the less confusion there is.
2. Productivity and Efficiency Increase.
Choosing the right HCM software should streamline and automate many of the day-to-day recordkeeping processes and allow you to stay in compliance with industry and government regulations. For example, linking time and attendance to benefits administration makes it simpler for your organization to comply with current Affordable Care Act requirements, including the mandate to offer health insurance to all full-time and full-time equivalent employees. This saves time, money and confusion. When you reduce the risk of errors, teams spend more time doing their jobs and less time tracking down information or fixing errors.
Furthermore, tracking an employee’s total productivity in this way allows you to set short- and long-term goals and measure their progress.
3. You Get a Bird’s Eye View of Your Processes.
By linking all facets of employee management on one platform, you’re able to oversee the entire recruitment, hiring and management processes at once. This big-picture perspective—paired with the fact that all the information is stored in one place—will help you make strategic business decisions going forward. It’s easier to consider how decisions affect each department rather than viewing them as silos.
4. Employees and Candidates Get a Consistent Experience.
As an employer, you’re always trying to increase engagement—both with potential candidates and current employees. Curating the right experience is key to achieving both of these goals. HCM software, at its best, allows users to stay on the same platform during the entire employee lifecycle—from recruitment through onboarding and benefits administration. This improves their ease of use, which ultimately increases their likelihood to continue using the technology.
Learn the benefits of leveraging technology as your HCM solutions.
