Proving the value of HR Investments. Finally.

Clarify, value, and prioritize your HR projects

CHROs need to be able to directly connect talent initiatives and outcomes to business value so they can gauge ROI and better prioritize HR efforts. This ensures more value-added contribution and credibility throughout the organization. Our proprietary framework brings this discipline to every project to help leaders clarify, value, and prioritize HR projects by linking them directly to business results.

Our Proprietary Algorithm

By blending deep expertise in finance and talent, decades of practitioner experience inside Fortune 100 firms, and an obsession with using data to make decisions, we embarked on a data-based analysis (The Intellectual Capital Index) that used financial statements and economics to evaluate the return on talent investment and calculate the value of intellectual capital produced in businesses.

Our book, Talent Valuation: Accelerate Market Capitalization through Your Most Important Asset, is the culmination of that work. It proves the ability to measure the market value of intellectual capital and the importance of using it to prioritize talent-related efforts. This lays the foundation for the approach we now bring to every engagement, and it provides a means for consistently making smarter people investments, measuring critical outcomes, and driving continuous, data-based improvements.

For too long, proving the value of HR investments has been an elusive goal. Meaningful connections between talent initiatives and business outcomes have centered around soft measures of questionable relevance outside of HR teams. Our approach breaks this cycle and unleashes truly strategic and business relevant talent investments.

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FAQs

What does “Talent Valuation” mean?

It’s the connection between business value, intellectual capital and critical roles. Talent Valuation represents the methodology for identifying the most critical work that a company must deliver on, the roles that are responsible for delivering that work, and the value of it to the organization. In our knowledge economy, the most critical work relates to intellectual capital - brands, data, apps, strategic customer relationships, IP, etc. - the only source of which is talent. Identifying the roles that are directly responsible for this essential work, and ensuring that the very best talent is attracted, selected and retained in these roles, is the highest value work for HR.

What is intellectual capital and why is it so important?

Intellectual Capital is the dollar-figure contributions talent makes to the market value of companies. It measures the market value of a company above and beyond tangible assets, including internally developed brands, patents, technologies and other intangible assets not recorded on the company’s books as well a those on the books acquired through purchase. Our research shows that almost 90 percent of the value of leading companies is attributable to these intangible assets, the output of which is intellectual capital. The only source of intellectual capital is people - but only those in certain roles. Being able to hire and retain the very best talent in these critical roles allows a company to maximize their intellectual capital output and, in turn, the enterprise value of the business.

What is the TGA Intellectual Capital Index (ICI)?

This index is TGA’s proprietary method for evaluating the strength of a company’s ‘engine’ for generating intellectual capital. Intellectual capital accounts for over 80% of the value of the average public corporation today. The index connects individuals in key roles with the creation of intellectual capital in a way that allows business leaders to evaluate and improve on aspects of hiring, retention, engagement. This becomes the road map for prioritizing and improving efforts to hire and retain the very best talent in the most critical roles.

Which companies have the most intellectual capital?

Every year we analyze the results of the companies in the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) to measure this Intellectual Capital Index (ICI). In our most recent analysis, the majority of the enterprise value – on average over 88 percent – was driven by the company’s people instead of its tangible assets. The analysis also reveals that the overall value of talent-driven intellectual capital across DJIA companies now totals more than $4.3 trillion – a growth of more than $300 billion over 2015. The top five DJIA “intellectual capital” companies – those driving the most financial value from their talent – in our most recent analysis were Pfizer, Boeing, Apple, Visa and Johnson & Johnson.

How can a company increase its intellectual capital?

Since the only source of intellectual capital is the work of people in a company’s most critical roles, the only way that a company can increase its intellectual capital is to consistently attract and retain the highest performing talent in these IC-essential roles. Because talent for these roles is usually in scarce supply and great demand in the marketplace, only the companies with the most proactive, strategic and well-executed talent acquisition and talent management approaches stand a chance of winning and keeping them.

What’s the best way for HR leaders to prioritize talent-related investments?

At the heart of intellectual capital is the particular talent required to generate it. Since HR owns talent lifecycle activities, the best way to prioritize and win investment for HR is to link plans and outcomes specifically to the valuation of the company. The roles designed for this talent are the roles that require a different degree of investment from all others throughout the entire talent life cycle. This is the lynchpin to a talent strategy and a convincing investment plan for Talent Acquisition, Talent Management, and the rest of HR. With the right dose of financial discipline, HR can be uniquely positioned to express talent investmentsin these terms. Although management intuitively understands this dynamic, they have to see it in HR plans and outcomes.

We don’t have a talent strategy or workforce plan. Where do we begin?

Trying to build talent strategies or workforce plans across entire swaths of the business – by level, by geography – is typically too massive and unwieldy to work. Given the importance of critical roles in an organization, we recommend working to identify those roles first and doing this by reviewing the company’s business plans. Investor presentations are a great source of information for understanding a company’s most important talent needs. You can take this information about your company, interview select hiring managers, and formulate your own view of critical talent needs. Your view, once completed, can be reviewed and finalized with key leaders across the business.

Intellectual Capital Index

Since the 1980s, whether in Finance, Marketing, or HR roles, Tom has always thought way beyond the curve—and delivered results. He collects and connects dots from all his experiences habitually. In this pioneering exposition on the value of talent, he connects them all.

Cynthia McCague

Corporate Board Member and former SVP Human Resources The Coca-Cola Company

Tom draws on his unique background spanning senior roles in operations, finance, and human resources to deliver a thoughtful and comprehensive solution to talent valuation. It stands alone in this space, because he truly understands key value drivers.

Jack Stahl

Corporate Board Member, Private Equity Advisor, and former CEO of Revlon and President of The Coca-Cola Company

Building Business Value through Talent: The CEO and CHRO Partnership Guide

Building Business Value through Talent uniquely describes how a CEO and CHRO can accelerate business growth by working together to design and operationalize value-driven talent strategies.

CEOs focus on decisions that will drive the business strategy forward while HR leaders routinely try to satisfy the needs of the largest number of employees. Often, the two align superficially or in administrative ways - and to put out the occasional flash fire. This book changes that dynamic by unlocking the investment potential of HR and empowering an unprecedented, tangible and measurable partnership between CEOs and CHROs. Framed as a product guide, the product is visualized as the HR Operating Model necessary to succeed in our modern economy: a business-based talent planning and investment strategy to sustain talent solutions and intellectual capital growth.

This product guide provides the tools and insights that business leaders are seeking in order to win the ever more challenging battles in their war for talent. Learning and adopting these winning practices will provide a visible testament to the effective leadership of any CEO and CHRO team.

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Talent Valuation: Accelerate Market Capitalization through Your Most Important Asset

It’s time to stop treating “human capital” as a buzzword and start managing it with the same level of rigor and diligence as tangible capital. This can be done. It must be done. Talent Valuation will show you how.

What your company and The Beatles have in common
Is every role critical? Consider Paul McCartney vs. the guitar tuner
Link human capital investments to your critical success factors
Target roles and talent that create the most intellectual capital
Bring rigor to talent strategy, workforce planning, and talent management tactics
Answer the right questions to optimize the value of talent attraction and management
Target your employment branding to your most business-critical talent
Master the laser-beam approach to attracting and retaining the people you need most

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