What do you really know about your employees? Of course you know their basic employment information – Name, SSN, Race, Sex, etc…   You may even have some insight into their performance levels, but do you know enough to confidently say that “we do/do not have to correct human resources to execute our strategy?” If the answer is no, then why not?  The irony is that I would bet that somewhere in your organization you have a record of all tangible assets – every desk, laptop, truck, and printer that your company owns.  Beyond simply that, I would also bet that someone could probably tell me when those assets are due for maintenance, lease renewal, or replacement.  How is it possible that an organization likely knows more about their fleet of trucks, than they do their fleet of drivers?  It’s simple really.  You can liquidate, depreciate, and amortize your hard assets.  There is no shortage of regulations on how to do so, when to do so, and (for those that slept through General Accounting class) why we even do so in the first place.   Intangible assets on the other hand aren’t as simple.  You can’t sell or trade them (except in Professional Sports), you can’t depreciate them over time, and other than basic labor laws, they really don’t come with many instructions.   This is fine except for the fact that these intangible assets are generating a highly disproportionate amount of value for your company and shareholders.    Your ability to grow revenues, reduce costs, create shareholder value, and successfully execute your company strategy is directly related to your willingness and ability to truly know your talent.

 So how do you do it?   Here’s a hint, why not simply imitate processes that they engage in during their time outside of the office?   In the very new future your company is going to have to shift to Enterprise 2.0 much like the internet shifted to Web 2.0.    Your employees are very good at sharing ideas, collaborating across functional lines, and engaging in valuable conversations with their peers.  The problem is that they’re doing this in their personal lives much more than their professional ones.   Take Facebook for instance.  In one week this year, and estimated 5 million people posted “25 Things about Me” to their profiles.  That’s literally 125 million facts that people shared in 7 days.  Were all of those items valuable?  Of course not, but what if Companies could harness that type of collaboration?  Do they even know 5 things about their People?  I’m not talking about their dog’s name, but do they know who speaks Mandarin, has a background in Investment Banking, or aspires to be a Chief Strategy Officer?   What would that type of knowledge sharing and collaboration do for team building?  Goal Setting?  Or just the overall ability to Execute?   The potential value is almost limitless, but only if companies start to realize that this level of collaboration only happens in an environment of transparency, one without the traditional barriers of silos and org charts that “compartmentalizes” their workforce.    The companies that understand Enterprise 2.0 are likely to be the “winners” in the coming decade.

Last week I was talking about instant feedback as a means to drive engagement and productivity. I just read this new piece of research from the UK where they YouGov surveyed 2100 employees and found that actually only 24 per cent said that their employer had clearly articulated their 2010 objectives to the workforce, while a third (32 per cent) even doubted there was a plan for their business at all.

According to an adviser David MacLeod to the group behind this research Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (Bis) there’s a huge loss at stake.

“This is just one example of how poor employee engagement can put the brakes on improved business performance. If leaders don’t explain where the business is going and what it’s seeking to achieve, how can people be motivated or know what they’re meant to contribute? Clear goals are a key ingredient for achieving performance and productivity – but worryingly this research suggests many employers haven’t yet grasped this for 2010.”

MacLeod further said that the financial benefit of engaging with staff is very real – if employer actions raise engagement by just 10 per cent, they could typically increase profits by up to £1,500 per employee per year.

Well I don’t know the details behind this particular study but it’s very consistent with tons of other research on the topic of the financial benefit from increasing people’s engagement levels from helping them know what to do. After all who’d argue that not knowing where the company’s heading nor not knowing what to do would make any sense at all.

Full post on the study results can be found here.