Guardian Outcomes:The Importance of Human Capitol

This article discusses how to connect your current talent to technology changes within the organization, how intentional changes can help in talent attraction, and what to look for when seeking a consultant.<.p>

Connecting Current Talent to Technology

Human capital isn’t a warm or fuzzy word when referencing your employees. Still, when thinking about their impact, they are truly the heart of the business. The skills, knowledge, and experience possessed by individuals in your organization make your business thrive and help bring value to your clients. That’s why it is especially important to take a step back and reflect on giving your employees the tools to be efficient and make their work easier.

We can’t stress enough that implementing an ERP solution for your organization is not just a technology project. You have to consider it is also a people and process project. Change is scary, though, right? When implementing a new system, you’re changing how current employees work daily and requiring them to get used to something new. Ultimately, if your employees aren’t on board or are frustrated by the implementation, there is little to no chance for the system to succeed. Ways you can encourage acceptance within your organization of the new system include:

Listening to the needs of employees. Begin by asking questions to identify potential gaps in their daily work and uncover how processes can be improved.

Creating champions for the implementation. You can get your employees involved from day 1, including proper training on the system and surrounding your team with support.

Communicating transparency throughout the process so there aren’t any surprises for your employees and be explicit about the benefits to come.

It’s important to note that you don’t want to compromise your culture for technology’s sake. When wanting to improve your business, the discussion needs to start from a holistic perspective of your environment and then bring in the experts to help facilitate the process.

Attracting Talent with Technology

Hiring can be challenging for the manufacturing industry as the workforce continually evolves. By making intentional changes within your organization, you not only help retain talent but also attract talent! It’s essential to adapt or risk settling for talent that may not be the right cultural fit. Some ways manufacturing industries can adapt include:

Creating a flexible work environment. Are employees able to work outside of traditional work hours? Does their schedule fit into their perception of work-life balance? Can they work from home for part of the week? These are all questions to reflect on when defining your culture’s flexibility.

Providing the tools and technology needed to encourage productivity. Just because everyone is under one roof does not mean you have a collaborative environment. By expanding your organization’s reach through technology, you can attract talent beyond the limitations of your home network.

Promoting collaboration between peers, even if they are in different departments! Eliminate the physical structures between coworkers, like different floors or offices, and therefore help decrease siloed work and lack of transparency.

The market for amazing talent is becoming increasingly competitive, and the cost of losing A+ talent is too great. Easy-to-learn programs that encourage visibility throughout the organization and enhance your culture can help make attracting talent more successful.

Who is going to help me?

Now that we’ve discussed the best way to approach an ERP implementation with current employees and how intentional changes can help attract talent, the question remains: Who will help me through this process? When you seek to implement an ERP solution, you are looking for the right technology and people to trust and execute it. This begs this question, what should you be looking for in a GREAT consultant?

Attention to Detail: Laying out the recommendations and the steps to get there is the key. Little things like proofreading the plan, proactive communication, and planning task lists are good first impressions.

Solutions Oriented: A project is not just making a list of tasks, though. A good consultant won’t take the project at face value or assume all the areas impacted have been defined. They will dig into your organization and think critically about the full scope and impact of the project.

Put The Customer First: Consultants should be actively trying to build trust by being the support person on the team. They help organize the project, keep the notes accurate, and continue to make touchpoints regarding the timeline and budget.

Lifelong Learner: They attack the problem with creativity and leverage their experience. They should embody the mindset that the challenge of the task is only as difficult as their ability to use past experiences along with their ability to problem solve and research information or learn skills they haven’t yet learned.

Guardian Business Solutions consultants embody these characteristics. We are committed to taking a holistic approach and looking at your company’s unique needs.

Read more about how the Guardian team restored employee confidence and eased the fear of change during a reimplementation of Infor CloudSuite Industrial powered by Syteline for RCS Innovations:

See Case Study