Companies achieve differentiation through engaged employees

Human capital benchmarking data is enabling companies to establish how happy their work force is with their job and their employer. The data can also be used to increase employee engagement and boost performance according to PricewaterhouseCoopers report 'Managing people in a changing world: key trends in human capital – a global perspective 2008'.

Human capital metrics are increasingly being used by business leaders globally, to enhance employee engagement levels and by investors as a guide on how financially healthy and sustainable a business is.

'Managing people in a changing world: key trends in human capital – a global perspective 2008' showed that the following data can be used to plot workforce engagement levels: resignation, absence rates, employee attitudes, training hours per full time employee (FTE), performance related pay and incidences of grievance. The report also looks in detail at financial performance, productivity, outsourcing, leadership, innovation, talent management, diversity, work/life balance and the growing concept of work place wellness, using PricewaterhouseCoopers human capital database, Saratoga. Interestingly, the focus for talent managers is now shifting from high flyers to include 'pivotal employees'. Pivotal employees could be receptionists through to sales directors, but whatever their role, it is key to business success.

Richard Phelps, partner, PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP, said:

"As the value of choosing the right human capital policies is increasingly recognised by business leaders, we are seeing a greater demand for evidence based human capital metrics. Using these, companies are now able to ascertain how they are performing in previously uncharted areas such as succession planning, innovation and talent management as well as using the 'harder' metrics such as return on investment per worker to determine overall business performance."

'Managing people in a changing world: key trends in human capital – a global perspective 2008' can be viewed and downloaded at www.pwc.co.uk