As the pressures of the global marketplace bear down on business, downsizing, outsourcing and offshore labor strategies are being wielded in every direction as leaders strive to maximize the bottom-line.

As far as they go, these can be effective ways to optimize expense-to-profit ratios. For awhile. In some situations.  In some markets.

But … wherever business processes and profits rely on the creative application of human intelligence or person-to-person customer care ... strategies that rely primarily on workforce reduction to lower expenses quickly reach a point of diminishing returns.

There's only so small an organization can get before its human capital becomes too thin to compete, too automated to innovate, too remote to respond with care … and too busy to connect effectively with customers.

Then what do you do to feed the bottom-line?

If you're looking for a way to grow the value of your people and the value of your business at the same time, the following information is for you.

You really DON'T have to keep robbing your human capital to build the bottom-line. All you need to grow your human assets AND achieve your business goals are some simple metrics and some coaching support for your managers as they practice using them.

Could Your Managers Use a FRESH Approach to Resource Management?

Is your organization stalling out in this rapidly changing global economy? Many organizations have cut all they can and still need to better manage and motivate the people the business can't do without. Fortunately, all that most organizations need is some real data that shows you the natural strengths of the human resources you've invested in and the ways current management strategies are either growing - or depleting - their value.

So, be honest. When was the last time you made a baseline valuation of your human capital? What tools are your managers using to measure the effects of current management strategies on their people's performance? Without data-based answers to these questions, how can you ask your managers to account for the way they're managing your CONSIDERABLE investment in human capital? And, if you're not asking for this kind of accountability, WHY NOT? You wouldn't attempt to manage your financial or material assets without real-world data, would you?

Since 1991, Between the Lines has made rapid, thorough inventories of our clients' human capital and then coached key managers as they learn to apply some simple tools that help them keep their people fully engaged -- and growing. Even as they push them to work harder to meet the business goals.

Our Teams That Work™ process now offers clients easy, instant, web-based access to the best - and fastest -natural strengths inventory and job modeling processes in the world. The tools have a 25-year track record. And - more importantly - our specialty application of them is earning an international track record of success.

Over the last five years, research has shown that until managers inventory and rationally allocate and manage their people resources, they systematically waste from 20% to 80% of available energy, time, and PROFITS trying to meet the business goals in ways that simply can't support sustained success.

Can you afford to keep throwing away from 20-80% of the dollars you're investing month after month in human capital?

How is that impacting your bottom line?

The Facts of Life in a Free Agent Economy

Certainly, human beings are adaptable creatures. We can do almost anything to survive.

But when we're not working from their natural strengths, we can't be successful. And, if people can't be successful with you, they'll disengage and freeload, get sick, and drain your resources. Then they'll go somewhere they CAN be successful.

In a free agent economy, these are just the facts of life.

If you've already reduced your payroll to the people you can't do business without, when they leave, you take A BIG HIT, don't you? Often you lose part of your business. Then, if that isn't bad enough, the costs of hiring someone new take A BIG BITE out of quarterly profits. To add insult to injury, if your hiring processes don't exactly run like clockwork, the costs get even greater. (And, if your hiring processes don't run like clockwork, don't feel like the Lone Ranger. Curiously, many organizations' hiring practices seriously leak profits.)

In fact, early in 2004, the Gartner Group reported that the average American business is now spending over 36% of annual revenues on the people side of the business.

How much are YOU spending?

No enterprise can remain viable for long without annual inventories of its financial and material resources. Without measurements, you can't gauge profits or the growth (or decline) of the value of assets. Right?

What is it costing you NOT to manage your people resources the same way??

Real-World Talent Management

Lots of organizations have some set up some kind of annual performance review process and tied it to merit raises. But unless you're linking your performance reviews to accurate annual measurements of your people's strengths and stressors, your managers have no baseline they can use to judge

1. the growth (or compression) of your people's strengths OR
2. the effectiveness of their management strategies -- i.e., the ways they're using people to achieve the business goals.

Think about it. Unless you tie together recruitment, hiring, performance management and compensation into one simple but integrated system, how can you honestly measure the effectiveness of your managers' "asset management" strategies? If you have no data to show you whether your people are thriving - or just surviving - how can you evaluate the impact of management decisions on your COSTLY investment in your "portfolio of human assets?"

This isn't rocket science! It's simple 21st century management science. The money you spend on talent acquisition and retention - and the rest of the revenues you spend on the people side of the business - is a crucial factor in the long-term success of any enterprise based on processing and exchanging information.

Teams That Work™
Management Science for the 21st Century

Organizations can no longer afford to pay people for simple loyalty. The people on your payroll have to produce value. And lots of it.

Likewise, people can no longer afford to work for your organization if managers aren't optimizing and leveraging their natural strengths. As business has cut the fat from benefits programs, many of the incentives that kept people in situations where they were suffering have been deleted from the employment bargain. Now, if people can't grow their strengths working for you, they have to go somewhere they can.

We developed our Teams That Work™ process to help everyone get the win they expect in this volatile global economy. When organizations link their business strategy to a simple, sensible job modeling process and a systematic talent acquisition and on-boarding strategy, all parties - employers and employees - can leverage their natural strengths to get more of what they want most!

Our proven, transferable tools and processes provide the most cost-effective approach to human resource management on the planet.

In fact, we guarantee if you buy from our competitors, you'll pay more and receive far less!

Are you ready to take a look at a new way to maximize your return on the dollars you're investing month after month in the people side of your business?

If so, we'd like to talk to you this week. The sooner we make an inventory of your human capita, they sooner we equip your managers to rationally leverage the human assets you're expecting them to manage. And the sooner your people will be positioned to apply their talents to achieving the business goals in ways that work for them for the long haul.

No Matter WHAT Happens to the Economy

You CAN grow the value of your people and your business at the same time. You really don't have to keep trading one value for the other. All you need to start are some simple metrics.

To get the ball rolling this week, pick up the phone and call Meri Aaron Walker at (512) 491-0027. Or email us at info@btlines.com. You'll be glad you did!