People Risk - How to get started on managing it

As regular readers of this blog you will know that a subject dear to my heart is the topic of People Risk.   To me it is the biggest iceberg in the corporate sea and very few people have any understanding of how to track and manage it let alone fully appreciate the damage it can cause.  Thankfully I have been working with Sandra Quinn on a new Point of View that really gets to grips with the issue.   It has just been published and you can view it and download it from the following link http://ebooks.capgemini-consulting.com/Your_People_POV_04mar_2013.pdf.

However, to give you a flavour of the PoV Sandra has penned this guest blog.  I hope you enjoy it and can sense the passion we have for this subject.

Every other news story these days seems to focus on some aspect of toxic cultures, systemic people failures, market rigging, or plain dodgy conduct. In part why are we surprised? It's axiomatic that people are at the root of everything we see, good and bad. 

Yet as the common denominator in all this, we struggle to deal with the risks and the opportunities that people present, both those they present and those which the organisation creates in them, especially in the way it performance manages, rewards and incentivises them.

Presented with an investment transaction you would analyse your risks and returns from every angle to make sure you were making a wise decision. 

People are among your most significant corporate investments. Not just in costs of package but in potential to influence and take key business decisions, committing the organisation to strategic and financial positions. Yet in most cases no comparable level of rigour is applied between that relating to a transaction and that relating to the choice,  recruitment and management of the people who will deliver and approve that transaction, let alone the way they conduct themselves and run the business.

When it goes wrong, the effects can be severe: banking culture, LIBOR, BP, the SFO, NHS and patient treatment, the relationship between press and police, drugs in sport. Indeed type 'toxic culture' into your search engine at the moment and you can read about the problems of the Australian swimming team.

The problem is that people - volatile, difficult things we all are - are tough to deal with and often present recurring and what can seem like insoluble problems, especially for managers and senior executives who are more technician than leadership, and HR functions focussing on process rather than outcomes. And in worlds driven by targets, risk indicators and metrics, those complex and persisting risks which span the organisation (such as People risk) are particularly difficult to find ownership for.  

But it's not insoluble. Start by bringing together your Risk, HR, Stakeholder or Investor Relations people - have them carry out the appropriate strategic planning and apply many of the principles you'd apply to regular operational risk. This is the first step to grappling with the issue. To support you Quinnity and Capgemini have been doing some cutting edge work together on both minimising the pain of people risk management and maximising the results. If you are interested you can read more at http://ebooks.capgemini-consulting.com/Your_People_POV_04mar_2013.pdf or contact us at Capgemini on 0870 238 8514