From R Amy, Investors in People adviser.
IN her recent Our Island comment, Nicola Davies states a lot of truths which are the development of American management guru thinking, beginning in 1943 with Maslow’s ‘hierarchy of needs’.

McGregor’s XY theory and Dr William Ouchi’s advocation of teamwork to eliminate adversarial competition within an organisation were further developments on the theory of motivation.

Far greater attention has been paid to human capital management training and development in the USA, and it is not by chance that the average individual worker productivity in the USA is 40% higher than in the UK.

There is no disagreement with Nicola Davies’s comments, but it does leave the interested reader with the thought: ‘How do we implement these ideas?’

She described the rungs on the ladder to improved performance, but a framework is required. This is provided through the business development programme Investors in People (IiP), which is designed to improve profitability through improved productivity.

In a knowledge-based economy dependent on the finance industry as the principal driver, people are of vital importance. Human capital management has to be of the highest calibre to succeed in the global marketplace, where many competitors enjoy lower labour costs.

Technology has a part to play, but there is only one technology available to most financial organisations, that of information and communications, and they are good at it. Many are at the cutting edge. Only the very expensive resource of people is available to deliver improved productivity.

Achieving successful human capital management lies in the competency of team leaders, regardless of chief executive officer, manager, deputy manager or supervisor titles. However, the IiP framework provides the competency guidance required. It also provides guidance on the problem of a scarcity of skills within the workforce, which all businesses in Jersey face.

The most successful train and develop their people to meet their own specific needs, and, as Nicola Davies points out, staff retention is enhanced.

Research has been conducted into the benefits of working with the IiP framework, and on ten financial benchmarks, IiP organisations outperform their competitors. As a result, those organisations are able to offer improved rewards to their people and other stakeholders.

Through involvement and an opportunity to influence decisions, people gain greater job satisfaction, and, for the ambitious, enhanced career opportunities.

Investors in People is a development tool supported and partly funded by the Economic Development department through its Enterprise and Business Development initiative. It is available to all organisations of any size and in any sector of the economy.

In Jersey 53 different organisations have achieved the UK-assessed IiP standard recognised internationally. Three of these have continuously improved their capability to achieve world-class standards in human capital management.

Ernst and Young, Marks and Spencer and Le Rocquier School all achieved assessment grades equating to world-class performance. Le Rocquier’s achievement supports the view of Dr Ouchi, who in 2003 declared that the best-performing schools were those with effective people management systems.
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