Managing Human Capital Risks through Data-driven Reskilling

An evolving workforce needs an evolving workplace. The umbrella covering the term human capital risks is too broad. In fact, anything ranging from hiring the wrong people and failing to retain talent to unexpected accidents and inadequate attrition falls under that category of risk. Theodore Schultz in the 1960s believed that human capital was like any other capital: “it could be invested in through education, training, and enhanced benefits that lead to an improvement in the quality and level of production.” Corporate understanding of this matter may well start with questioning their skill assessment tools, beginning with reflecting on what “learning” means for the company and an employee.

Human capital has its greatest value at the level of senior management, but as executives, they can only achieve the enterprise’s mission through others. Most managers understand today the strategic implications of an information-based, knowledge-driven, service-based economy. They know that in a troubled economic environment, employee engagement is at risk with the potential to impose significant losses on brand, reputation, morale, and revenue. But many companies have outmoded strategies for their performance-based training by failing to study contemporary trends in human resources management and failing to adapt to swiftly changing global trends in talent development. An issue is what is to be learned and who does the learning.

Red Flags and Real Costs in Human Capital

When Conference Boards worry, CEOs should worry. According to recent U.S. Conference Board Inc. research, human capital risk ranks fourth out of eleven top risks in terms of potential business impact. The Conference Board of Canada similarly reports how human capital accounts for at least half of operating costs and can have a significant impact on business results. Neglect it at your peril.

Human capital is a company’s wealth. It is also a major emerging risk for many organizations requiring constant assessment by reliable tools. The latest paradigm of managing the risk takes into account a risk culture that includes an understanding of shocks to human capital mobility.

Another report by Mercer outlines how fully 73% of high-level executives count on significant disruptions from one specific direction, the advent of AI and automation that frees up resources on one hand, but makes it imperative to manage contingent workers with specific skills related to intellectual capital. In this context, companies need to bridge human beings with technology platforms, internal gig marketplaces, and contingent talent. This is where Machine Learning and live analytics come into play by delivering personalized learning experiences to each employee at the right time in a quickly changing environment.

Companies face multiple human capital risks that can be tackled with personalized learning. Such risks include but are not limited to: 

·        Excessive time to fill the position

·        Long time-to-productivity

·        Poor employee engagement

·        Thin leadership pipeline

·        Lagging productivity

·        Slow decision making

Data-driven Reskilling and Human Capital Risk Management

A data-driven learning platform today is a talent framework that provides relevant real-time data insights while delivering personalized employee training on a nano level. Without driving specific learning activities for specific people, managing human capital risks for any contemporary organization can be gravely threatened by the inability to upskill and reskill their workforce at the point of need. What is a troubled CEO supposed to do when the textbook theories for reducing human capital risk simply do not work? 

Advanced data analytics and Machine Learning algorithms provide leaders with insights, predictions, and recommendations that result in smarter workforce decisions. Such an approach includes two steps: descriptive and predictive analytics. Descriptive analytics provides insights into what happened in the past and helps to analyze what went right or wrong. Predictive analytics predicts what might happen in the future based on historical data and suggests the smartest ways to move forward. 

But what’s even more important besides the analysis is using the right data with the right algorithms to deliver targeted personalized learning to the right person at the right time to skyrocket talent development in 2020 and beyond. 

A smart strategy for human capital reskilling and retention requires targeted training and personalized engagement to ensure that employees don’t lose their productive time on unnecessary learning, and receive only timely content that’s customized and tailored specifically for each of them. 

The accuracy and relevance of insights from your learning system’s data depend on the power of an analytics engine integrated into a system and the quality of that data. And the level of learning personalization depends on how well your learning delivery algorithms work. 

Rallyware: Driving Digital Transformation

At Rallyware, we provide quality intelligence insights along with a highly personalized learning experience through our Performance Enablement Platform. Based on each company’s unique KPIs we build personalized, engaging, and actionable learning journeys that unlock the full potential of every single individual.

Today`s kinetic business environment and mobile skilled workforce require dynamic and adaptive intelligent learning systems. Make sure you are ready to manage any possible human capital risk by reskilling and upskilling your people in 2020 and beyond. 

If you want to learn how our smart, data-driven learning platform delivers the right training to the right person at the right time schedule a demo with us!