Directors are placing a greater emphasis on how the Human Capital aspect of the company is going to take shape in order to achieve maximum and sustained growth. Now the downsizing is slowing down, Senior Management are taking a good look at the people they have chosen to keep, for now, and understand whether they have the creativity, ingenuity or risk taking dexterity to drive the company confidently forward.  Like world leading athletes they have trimmed but now need to improve their shape and benchmark.

Changing shape doesn’t have to be like so many of us who give up at the gym after 4 weeks.  With the right focus and management team, investment in re-shaping for the future can be low risk and less painful than the gym fanatics who seem to push themselves too far. Naturally cost control and profit improvement remains important and will always remain the key focus for a company’s future. The shape of the Human Capital is becoming an increasing focus as part of the planned growth. 

HR Director for Jaeger International, the leading Designer Clothes Manufacturer, has recently been one of the many having to make large reductions in staff numbers and is focussing currently on what the organisation should look like in the future “the current challenge in the consumer market is to, not only retain and motivate the creative and talented people, but to look at how organisations can bring in new talent and raise the game further to create greater value in the experience customers have in the Jaeger shops” 

Like many Directors across all disciplines, Jaeger has been focussing heavily on the middle and senior management to ensure they fit the competencies that are required to see the company transform itself in line with customer and market demands.  To keep fit and remain in shape companies have to empower existing managers but also bring in fresh managers who can look at the customers “wants” from a different angle “Consumers now are more promiscuous than before, by this I mean, they have less loyalty to specific makes of product or shop”.

Jaeger’s HR Director continues in stating that “Consumers are shopping around more competitive stores in search for additional value; marketing and branding therefore is becoming more important and talented management are needed to see how this can be reflected in our products and service”

The focus for shaping a company’s Human Capital at management level is weighted  heavily on three points:

Acquiring and growing – bringing in the best new management talent and growing the ideas and development of the people around them.

Linking new talent – ensuring the new management are introduced in a controlled and timely manner without disruption to the existing model.

Bond the new talent – ensuring the new management can prove through success that they are the industry leaders whilst promoting unity and sharing similar views, visions and values.  Culture and soft skill matching is key.

The dilemma, or so it seems, is that not all the talent a company needs is held within the organisation.  Senior HR Partner from the American DIY giant Black & Decker comments “companies today need to bring in new, fresh talent which challenges the existing benchmark, by bringing in new management from the outside it raises the bar on expectations as well as drives new initiatives and strategies which may not have been considered before”. 

They been heavily involved in looking at the shape of the organisation and how is should be moulded in order to ensure the next few years are Black & Decker’s best, they continue by stating “it seems that many companies have managers who possess fantastic technical skills but the coaching, people development and inspirational skills with a similar culture can sometimes only be found outside the company” 

Company’s will continue to succeed and fail, more so in the current market.  The failures are normally always associated to a people element. These human elements of an organisation design the future success of the company, it’s the management team together with the people around them, who contribute to the future of the company. Now is the time for organisations to focus on having the best of the best in their organisations, by developing the talent within as well as bringing in the new the organisation shape can be built to grow stronger than its competitors and set the benchmark in industry.  

If your company is in the right shape with the right people the only outcome can be success.