Diversity hot tips for delivering big 2009 profit sharing/efficiency gains
1. Profit generation/efficiency gains diversity
The need to find means of generating profit, or in the Public Sector finding efficiency gains, is going to be paramount in 2009. Diversity ‘blindspots’ offer a mostly untapped and big opportunity. These are missed business opportunities linked to diverse employees, suppliers, community, marketing, business development, or capital investment. Our experience is that any sizeable organisation can find millions of pounds in profit or savings from identifying and addressing diversity blindspots. We offer a three step profit generating/efficiency gains process:
i. Blindspots Audit
Identification, and prioritisation, of diversity business opportunities and quantification through IDC’s value analysis financial tool.
ii. Blindspots Training
Face-to-Face Middle Management training and online e-learning to enable middle managers and front-line staff to deliver on the opportunities.
iii. Blindspots Profit Generation/ Efficiency Gains Scorecard
Measurement of progress through IDC’s online surveying, reporting and metrics tool.
2. Impact assessing HR processes
This is about managing risk by ensuring that the processes that impact on the selection of individuals for redundancy, job moves or shorter hours, do not affect some diverse groups more than others.
3. Mediation
It is likely that during the recession situations that would benefit from mediation using internal, or external, mediators, e.g. redundancy, job transfer, management re-structuring or reduced hours, will increase rapidly. Moreover, these mediation opportunities will often involve diversity differences, e.g. generational, race or ethnicity, gender, physical ability, faith and sexual orientation. The impartiality of a mediator and the fairness and equality of the mediation structure is well placed to deal with complex and sensitive situations.
4. Flexible working
Smart employers from many sectors both in the UK and beyond, now realise that a strategic approach to flexible working really can deliver business benefits. These can be summarised as:
- Improved work life balance and enhanced well being – delivers a positive impact on performance – plus real savings on reduced levels of absenteeism
- Research clearly shows that flexible workers are more committed and challenges assumptions that part-time working shows reduced commitment – productivity levels are increased
- Raised women returners’ rate delivering a greater return on investment – reduced recruitment, induction and down time costs
- Improved attraction of talent – particularly generation Y who tend to see work / life balance issues as critical in their choice of career and employer
- Potentially increased ‘oxygenation’ as sabbaticals and career breaks may encourage less committed employees to move on
- Customer experience and service levels benefit from flexible working practices
- Flexibility provides gaps to move people and projects, overcome skill shortages and opportunities to retain knowledge workers – perhaps as they near retirement age
- Employers have found that they can gain significant savings on fuel, office costs etc.
IDC has the experience and capability to help you deliver big gains on all of the above.
Related Articles:
|
