The value of intangible assets
within organisations, such as
human and intellectual capital, has
increased significantly in recent
years as the global economy has
become more knowledge intensive.
At the same time, a growing
body of evidence highlights
the relationship between highquality
leadership and people
management, more engaged
and resilient staff, and improved
business performance. The pace
of this development, though, has
not been matched by companies’
ability and willingness to report on
their human capital management
(HCM) strategies, nor on how HCM
contributes to their sustainable
performance. This is also evident
in the mainstream investment
community’s lack of interest in HCM
metrics and narrative reporting
as a means of deepening their
understanding of the drivers
of value and risk management
within organisations. Given the
value of such data in illustrating
the potential for future poor
performance, it is surprising that
uptake of improved human capital
reporting standards has been so
slow. Human capital clearly matters
given that it is directly linked to
the creation of value, and there
is increased scrutiny on the way
organisations are managed and
operated: toxic organisational
culture, poor people management
and inadequate training are all
now widely recognised as having
played significant roles in numerous
corporate failures over the last
ten years.
This report explores investor views
on the value and availability of
HCM information, the main barriers
to better HCM practice, and also
considers whether consistent
reporting on agreed core HCM
information would be useful as a
means of improving the quality of
narrative reporting in this area.
While some organisations do
present people-related data
in their annual reports and
elsewhere (for example corporate
social responsibility reports),
recent research (Hesketh 2014)
revealed that very few companies
communicate an integrated
understanding of the capacity of
their business to deliver sustained
value-creation through their
people. Fundamentally, Hesketh
(2014) finds that the data is
there, but the understanding and
meaning of it is not articulated.
This makes it difficult for the
various stakeholders to the
organisation to evaluate how well
companies are managed for the
long term. These findings echo
those of the Labour Government’s
Kingsmill Review (Kingsmill 2001),
which found that even though
good HCM was clearly crucial to
organisational performance, it was
routinely under-reported.
A clear majority of respondents
believe that company reporting
on HCM should be promoted and
improved, and that the materiality
of HCM should be discussed in
annual reports. The majority
also believe that the quality of
HCM reporting is not as good
as it should be and that current
standards of HCM reporting are
generally not fit for purpose.