Aligning HR, corporate strategy with the 3 Ps
Have you ever considered what a washing machine and remuneration have in common? Surprisingly, quite a lot.
If you look inside a washing machine, what do you see? Well, there are the clothes, of course. Plus, there is the detergent, the water, and the dirt all mixed together.
When the washing machine is going, all you can see is a dripping mess.
Well, remuneration works in much the same way. It is hard to distinguish what the ingredients in remuneration are or how they are determined. If we look at someone's pay, do we know what amount is paid for performance, what portion is paid for the job, and how much is paid for experience or competence?
3-P (person, position and performance) management is meant to "clean out the washing machine". 3-P is designed to bring clarity to pay by creating a clear and defined link between each element of pay and the underlying reason for that level of pay.
Position evaluation
Organizational change or fine-tuning may occur as a consequence of organization-wide personal evaluation or as a new strategic initiative. It will happen through reorganizing or restructuring all or part of the entire organization.
What type of organization do we need, with what leverage and elasticity?
How should individual roles interrelate?
How should team and group synergies operate?
What is the value of our entire organization compared to any other competitive organization?
What is the value of a unit or department within our organization?
What is the value of each position, its impact and its contribution, locally and globally?
How much is a particular position worth relative to other positions?
A continuous position evaluation is required in order to build the most effective organization.
Personal evaluation
Many companies make a strategic point of being the "employer of choice". Other companies view hiring as a success, and firing or leaving as a failure.
If these are to be governing statements of our HR policies, we must then view each person as an asset. The first priority is to consider our human capital and to evaluate how it can meet our future needs.
Looking at it strategically, we should crisscross our HR top-down forecast and analysis with a full HR bottom-up review and feedback, in order to integrate "what we want" with "what we have". Knowledge management should align with our personal evaluation to ensure our people can utilize their knowledge and that our knowledge management fully utilizes our people's capabilities.
Performance evaluation
Meeting our objectives and achieving best results can only happen through competent people, provided that they operate in an effective organization.
Is this statement really true? Luck and chaos might contradict this statement. But one thing is sure in any strategic process: each of the 3 Ps should be viewed uniquely and separately, and then integrated and consolidated into the whole.
Richard Payne is a director of mercerHR.com, a human resources consulting firm.
(China Daily 01/10/2007 page15)
