Today’s CFO knows that human capital is an organization’s most valuable asset, but in practice most organizations rarely link their investments in people to their overall financial performance. A primary reason for this gap is that business processes and applications for supporting the workforce are disconnected from the company’s financials and often function only within a line of business; as a consequence, it is hard for the CFO and other top management to understand the impacts of investments in human capital on the top and bottom lines. Companies typically have separate applications for managing talent, human resources, compensation, expenses and spending, and they use individual spreadsheets and business intelligence tools to analyze them and monitor performance. CFOs are strategically positioned to enable and lead the necessary collaboration between human resources and finance groups as they develop a unified approach that will make visible the impacts of efforts to improve employee productivity on financial results. What’s required is an integrated approach that tracks not just the financial consequences of workforce planning, hiring, work activity, goals achieved and management results but provides a complete picture of performance across people and business processes. Finance can show HR how to move beyond outdated siloed ERP and HRM systems to implement enterprise systems that support how people are engaged and retained and also reflect and reinforce the financial objectives of the organization. The business case for investment in such unified systems must make financial sense, which means showing the bottom-line contributions of increased productivity and the most efficient ways to align people to the goals and objectives of the organization.

1. Ventana
Research
The Business Value of Human Capital Management for Finance
81%
The secret is a
unified approach:
cited
integration
69%
of compensation
management with
payroll 69% and
accounting 51%
as a top priority.
of organizations indicated
it’s important to align the
workforce to business goals
and financial results.
Source: Next Generation Workforce Management
Benchmark Research
Industry Fact:
Projected compensation
of US employees in 2013
46%
But
said finance
organizations do
not work closely
with HR to improve
processes.
Source: Total Compensation
Management Benchmark Research
Source: Total Compensation
Management
Hard to adjust:
61%
of finance
organizations
that have integrated
headcount and compensation plans are not
able to adjust to meet
business needs.
Source: Integrated Business
Planning Benchmark Research
$8,527.2 trillion
It’s often an organization’s
largest expense.
Source: Bureau of Economic
Analysis
75%
Brittle integrations:
of finance organizations agree
there are better alternatives
to spreadsheets for their crossfunctional business processes.
Source: Spreadsheets in Today’s Enterprise
Benchmark Research
The reason is
cite
lack
of integration
between finance
and HR impedes
progress.
69%
Source: Total Compensation
Management Benchmark Research