Firms still fail to recognise 'people power'

Many companies are failing to understand and quantify their 'human capital' - the value of staff and personnel issues to their business.

That is the finding of a survey by Deloitte and Personnel Today which revealed that more than 40 per cent of business don't see measuring 'human capital' as a priority to their business.

Furthermore the story revealed that more than a quarter f companies use no measurement while almost 20 per cent say they have no intention to ever report on such matters.

While it can be difficult to quantify, many companies boast savings of millions of pounds from staff retention and low churn rate, and many concentrate a great deal of resources on such issues.

Others however still seem unable to connect with the idea that their people are their business.

Rob Chapman, founder of IT skills specialist Training Camp, said it is important that employers start to respect and value their staff more and treat them as an important business asset - and training is just one aspect of that.

However, in the IT industry in particular, Chapman said companies would be foolish not to fight to keep skills sets in-house and make a virtue of doing so with their shareholders.

"Security training for example is something which has a clear quantifiable value," said Chapman addressing the issue of creating measurable 'human capital'. "You can certainly put a value on the cost of a security breach. Disaster recovery is another area where the return on investment in training and retaining key staff can be very clear," he added.