At the 2009 SHRM Annual Conference in New Orleans (my new favorite city) we gave away nearly 500 reviewer’s copies of our book, Human Capital Supply Chains. I was a bit worried that the HR audience would not appreciate the concept of the book, but I was very pleasantly surprised by their overwhelming interest. Here’s what we shared with them:
Human Capital Supply Chains has three main themes. The first theme is about tying together your business planning, strategic workforce planning staffing and recruiting processes into a unified and cohesive business process.
The second theme discusses the methods and benefits of applying common manufacturing and distribution supply chain management principles to this end-to-end, human capital supply chain. The idea is to leverage 30 years of expertise developed by companies like Toyota, Wal-Mart and Dell. Total quality management, lean and strategic supplier relationships, when applied to our industry, can help us hire the right talent at the right time at the right location at the right price.
The third major theme of the book is around managing all types of human capital. While most companies focus on managing the cost of their full-time, permanent workforce we suggest that firms need to manage the cost of their flexible workforce at the same time. The flexible includes temporary workers, contractors, consultants, business services and outsourcing costs. Both flexible and permanent workers make up a corporation’s workforce. Surprisingly, most companies do not manage all worker types consistently; it is more common that worker types are managed out of a different pot of money and even a different organization, mostly likely procurement instead of HR.
Human Capital Supply Chains suggests corporations define their own human capital supply chain and manage their permanent and flexible workers as a single workforce. Managing the process and workforce holistically and tying workforce planning tightly to business planning positions corporations to take cost out of the human capital supply chain while increasing workforce quality and productivity.
Thanks to all of you who shared your interest in reading the finished book later on this year.
