Business psychology - the key role of learning and human capital How an organization generates the shared values
shared values between its stakeholders
The challenge for business psychology
As the contributors to this book demonstrate, there are a number of key
challenges facing business psychologists as we seek to add value to
organizations:
the need to understand that consulting is itself changing - not offering
product, but really developing service that reflects what clients want and
need; how to ensure that different models of consulting meet their
requirements, overt and covert;
the need to challenge conventional thinking on measurement and
prediction and look differently at how we view assessment centres and
talent assessment at a senior level;
the need to recognize that releasing talent is about development and
includes a pivotal role for coaching;
the need to understand why so many initiatives fail, by recognizing the key
role of the business environment, its internal workings and culture;
the need to look at the psychological input to areas such as the supply
chain, including the consumer angle;
the need to recognize that organizational change will contain larger scale
interventions but also small-scale narratives that emerge and impact in ever
increasing circles of influence.
Underpinning much of this is the way we use human capital within an
organization and the key role of learning. This concluding chapter is
concerned with that underpinning: how we can use and develop the capital
within organizations through learning and how we as business psychologists
can develop ourselves.
The contributors to the book in different ways raise two central issues:
Effective measurement. An effective measure must relate to the integration
of human with business issues, employee values and stakeholder interest.
Human capital is not embedded in the heads of people; it is lived in the
interactions between people where there is a shared value in collaboration.
and draws upon that entire capital, to sustain value, is the most interesting
measure that can be employed.
The role of learning. We see the critical issue in how learning is embedded,
how it is developed, and then applied to generate value. This requires a
detailed account of how learning is modelled in the organization rather than
an emphasis on the training spend. Effective evaluation of development is
absent in many organizations and limited in others. Some make
considerable efforts and are able to report on the value that returns.
These two themes permeate the rest of the chapter.'
Leveraging the business through human capital development
Does the organization have as a core purpose the enhancement of human
capital of all its stakeholders?
The approach taken to this question provides a framework to create and
nurture intellectual capital in order to enhance the readiness of
organizational leaders to take on the greater challenge of realizing their
strategic options.
A company that can provide a coherent account of how it gives current and
future executives space and resources to develop themselves and be
innovative in growing the business and how that is translated into a
development process for all employees will be more likely to sustain future
value. In measuring human capital, therefore, there is a need to consider
such accounts.
One approach provides for a company to create a narrative on its approach
to human capital and support this narrative with evidence appropriate to
the account. This process parallels that used by professional bodies or
universities when considering how to judge the experience of someone
applying for advanced standing. The narrative then generates questions that
form the basis of a human capital development process capable of
measurement and report