FCSA welcomes a report issued by the National Association of Pension Funds assessing the levels of human capital in the workplace. The report entitled ‘Where’s the workforce in corporate reporting?’ highlights the lack of reporting by companies on how they manage their workforces.
Despite the familiar corporate mantra of “our people are our greatest asset”, and the widely accepted view that human capital is one of the four pillars of capital which underpin corporate and economic growth (the others being physical, social and intellectual capital), most companies still fail to report on it in any meaningful way according to the NAPF’s discussion paper.
The report suggests that if a business understands its workforce, it can deploy it properly and goes on to recommend that corporations review the composition and stability of its workforce, its skills and capability as well as the motivation and engagement of the workforce. It also questions the employment model and its sustainability for the future.
Reacting to the initiative to explore workforce trends and get involved with the NAPF’s agenda to discuss tomorrow’s workplace and its people further, Julia Kermode, chief executive of the Freelancer and Contractor Services Association, the UK’s leading independent trade body for umbrella employers and accountancy service providers supporting the flexible workforce said: “We agree with NAPF’s view that “what gets measured get managed” and how important it is for an organisation to understand its workforce. As the representative body for companies that support the flexible workforce, our research tells us that contingent workers – freelancers, contractors, temporary workers, zero hours contract employees – make up around 20% of the UK workforce and in the US 35% of the workforce, however such workers are sometimes overlooked when considering the total human resources within a business. It was concerning to see that only 11% of the FTSE companies sampled measure the number of temporary staff they take on.
“FCSA members play a key role in facilitating the engagement of contingent workers and they see first-hand the value that this flexible resource is adding to UK plc. I am delighted to hear that the NAPF is putting human capital at the centre of its agenda and I am keen to work more closely with Joanne Segars and her team at NAPF to ensure the voice of the flexible worker is heard and its value recognised.”
