Evidence-based HR decisions
Two of the world’s leading talent management experts believe many organisations don’t know how best to manage their people. Ravin Jesuthasan, of global professional services company Towers Watson, and John Boudreau, of the University of Southern California, suggest many organisations have made important human resources decisions without the requisite rigour, often relying on instincts or copying competitors.
Jesuthasan and Boudreau are two of the most influential consultants in the world and in their new book, Transformative HR: How Great Companies Use Evidence-Based Change for Sustainable Advantage, they reveal how prominent organisations are redefining HR leadership by using a new approach to optimise efficiency and strategic impact.
”Our thinking behind evidence-based change was inspired partly by the evidence based medicine movement, which encourages doctors to determine which treatment, based on the evidence, is most effective,” Jesuthasan says.
“It hardly seems like a radical notion, but human nature is such that people, even doctors, do not always behave with scientific rationality, choosing instead to rely on instinct and what might have worked once before. By using evidence-based change, HR is better equipped to make decisions that are based on well-grounded evidence, rather than gut feel. The authors’ thesis goes beyond the theoretical as they cite the experiences of nearly a dozen organisations, including the Royal Bank of Canada, Coca-Cola and the Royal Bank of Scotland.
“As HR has matured … leaders have grown increasingly accustomed to rigorous human capital decision-making based on metrics and analytics,” Boudreau says. “However, next-generation HR means going further, to truly embed analytical discipline and sophisticated systems thinking to create the kind of understanding that drives better strategies and better workplace outcomes.”
Taken From: Weekend Australian – Sat October 15th, 2011
