The Human Capital Blueprint™

When evaluating the individual human capital performance, it’s often difficult to maintain consistent input data that remains uniform throughout the information gathering process. For example, if you have a group of 20 mountaineers who set out to climb Mount Everest, there are several objectives to meet in order to accomplish that mission. One of the first and most important steps is to ensure that the climbers have supplies before they embark on their climb. The supply objective is critical to meeting other objectives that will lead to the completion of the goal, which is reaching the summit of Mount Everest.

This obviously takes some coordination, and meeting this objective requires significant discussion among all 20 climbers. If that’s the case, then the outcome is that they will have 100 percent of the supplies they need when they reach the base of the mountain. However, there may have been unforeseen circumstances or a communication breakdown, perhaps forgetting some supplies or someone missing the rendezvous point, which will result in a less than perfect outcome.

Climbing Mount Everest is a very expensive endeavor, so let’s assume that the mountaineers are well-funded and purchase the additional necessary supplies at the bottom of the mountain, assuming they are available. The outcome would be that they garnered all necessary supplies, but did so at a greater expense than if they had been able to craft a perfect packing list, communicate it flawlessly to everyone, and have all 20 climbers pack without error. The degree to which the climbers fell short could easily be measured by the additional markup paid to buy their supplies at the base of the mountain.

At this point the climbers have met their objective, albeit at a higher cost than if they had executed flawlessly, and they may now progress to the next objective of climbing to summit. In their mission to climb Mount Everest, they have now accomplished one objective of gathering all necessary supplies and preparing to embark on the climb. No doubt this is only one of a host of objectives necessary to climb the mountain, but the outcome of meeting this objective is the opportunity to climb to the base camp, which moves them one step closer to reaching the summit. The imperfection of their execution meant that they spent more time than they would have otherwise.

Climbing Mount Everest is usually a once-in-a-lifetime experience, but let’s say that this group of 20 mountaineers is commissioned by the Nepalese government to conduct scientific experiments over the course of several expeditions. In this case, the cost of the climb is important, since the climb will be repeated several times. It is critical to measure the level of success of each outcome and the number of objectives met. Since we are now assuming that the climbers need to repeat their ascent several times, it is important to measure the degree to which each objective was satisfied, since each objective is essential to making the mission successful. Let’s consider only one objective: ensuring that they brought all the necessary supplies. To measure the climbers’ effectiveness, we first need to separate the flaws in the objective (did the climbers properly consider all the supplies they would need?) versus the flaws in the communication and execution necessary for the climbers to meet the objectives.

Since we assume the climbers are to undertake this expedition several times, it is important to measure the degree to which they met the objective, where the error occurred, and the magnitude of the error. The metrics the climbers use to evaluate their progress are based on their objectives developed within the context of the mission.

The Human Capital Blueprint™ is based on three dimensions of human capital. It was created to provide comprehensive guidelines based on metrics and expert experience and opinion. Focusing on the factors, staffing, and the cycle of human capital helps to break the blueprinting task into manageable sections, each with its own mission, objectives, and metrics under the larger company mission. The most revealing part of the Blueprint is the “blueprinting” process itself. Just by working through the process, your view of the organization changes and you can start adjustments almost immediately. Though linked, each dimension has distinct human capital management applications.

Factors. First, the factors that drive organizational and individual performance enable you to design or evaluate an organization; create a position description; evaluate a candidate or employee. There are fundamental and operational factors. Fundamental organizational factors include mission and leadership and are the basis of any enterprise. Operational factors relate to executing and delivering and include objectives, strategy, and design and structure.

Staffing. The second dimension, staffing, addresses the different types of human capital. This includes every category of employee as well as contractors, consultants, temps, and even outsourced operations. Today, no matter what type of employee, from a contractor to full-time or outsource, the category of human capital has become incidental. Evaluating and planning enables companies to compare the different categories and classifications of human capital necessary for any level of work. The categories include part-time and full-time employees, and the types of human capital include employees, contractors, and completely outsourced operations.

Cycle. Third, the cycle includes the acquisition, development, and retention of all types and categories of human capital, as well as the ultimate measure of human capital: organizational and individual performance.