Discussion Forum # 2-Verizon Balanced Scorecard Students are required to: Enter the threaded discussion room and interact with three students in the discussion room. For a quality discussion, you must write 5 sentences in the discussion room with each of the three students you interact with. You may discuss with three students your position on any of the items they discussed in the article. Student 1: Designing and Implementing an HR Scorecard The goal of a Human Resource (HR) scorecard is to help businesses determine the significance of their human resources departments. Per the works of the \"Balanced Scorecard\" David Norton and Robert Kaplan, an HR scorecard attempts to provide a relationship between human resource procedures and a company's business goals. The article, \"Designing and Implementing an HR Scorecard,\" by Garrett Walker and J Randall MacDonald discussed the reasons why the company Verizon created a balanced scorecard. They realized that the employees were a key component in the business role. They surveyed the current skills and abilities that would provide value in the short term and in the long term. They recognized that there were \"imperatives necessary to grow that talent to increase the value delivered by the workforce.\" They recognized the need of new performances, actions and aptitude to drive business results. Create a positive link between the employees, business and the customers. The article discussed four HR Scorecard perspectives. The perspectives were; strategic perspective, operations perspective, customer perspective, and financial perspective. Strategic Perspective measures success in \"achieving the five thrusts; talent, leadership, customer service and support, organizational integration and human resource compatibility.\" Operations Perspective measures the processes of the business. It focuses primarily on staffing, technology, and HR practices. The third perspective is Customer Perspective. Based on the article, it \"measures how HR is viewed by key customer segments. Surveys are used to track customer perceptions of service as well as assessing overall employee engagement, capability and links to productivity.\" The last perspective the article mentioned was the Financial Perspective. This perspective addresses how HR adds measurable financial value to the organization. It deals with the figures, gains and losses of the organization. \"Maximize Human Capital and decrease HR costs.\" The two additional strategies that I would add to the strategy model would be Training and Development. Training is a core strategy that every organization need to focus on. If a company invest in the training and development of their employees, their employees will be equipped to do the job and feel empowered as key decision-makers which could lead to a decrease in employee turnover and an increase in company profits. Companies lose money when they have to continually hire and train employees due to current employees not understanding the job duties because of the lack of training. If managers down to part-time employees are properly trained, you development them/prepare them for the next phase of their careers. You prepare for the future by promoting from within. To implement this balanced scorecard internationally, you would need to first determine a venue. You have to understand your location along with the type of culture that exist in the area. You must be aware of the laws of the land. Second you would need to appoint an external project facilitator. This is the person that understand the vision. Once this is determined, then comes the planning and alignment, assessment, development and implementation. The team must understand what's being measured and then develop an actual process of designing the HR measurement. Lastly, the implementation begins. You may discuss with student 1, your position on any of the items he discussed in the article. Write about 5 - 7 sentences. Student 2: What was the purpose of creating a HR balanced scorecard for Verizon? The purpose of the HR balances scorecard was to measure the value the HR department was adding to the company. Essentially, the company needed a way to evaluate the HR team, and the balanced scorecard was the best way to measure the performance at the time. Describe the four perspectives and the overall cause and effect relationship with each of the four perspectives listed in the scorecard. The four perspectives are strategic, operations, customer, and financial. The strategic perspective measures the success which measures the five strategic thrusts in the scorecard. The operatio0ns perspective measures the operational features including staffing, technology, and HR processes. The customer perspective is a measurement of the HR department. In some cases surveys are used to gauge the performance in addition to employee engagement. Lastly, the financial perspective measures the financial value the HR department adds to an organization. Identify two additional objectives you would add to the strategy map on page 372 and indicate why you selected them? One objective I would add is process improvement. I'm a big believer in the six sigma process and making processes more efficient. I would want my HR team to have that mind set, and improve their processes year over year. This is also a skill that could be added to the leadership, or skills and competencies section of the scorecard. Secondly, I would add would embed business partners in the lines of business that hold training for the managers. I think the more educated the managers are on the HR polices, the better off the company would be. What steps would you begin with in implementing this balanced scorecard in you wish to utilize Internationally? I would begin with ensuring the structure of the company internationally is set up to implement the factors in the score card. When companies are utilizing offshore resources there is always a concern the regarding the culture of the company. The HR department will have to understand the local labor laws, and how they differ from the laws in the U.S. Additionally, the scorecard must be obtainable for the company to implement otherwise the company will be setting themselves up to fail. You may discuss with student 2, your position on any of the items he discussed in the article. Write about 5 - 7 sentences. Student 3: What was the purpose of creating a HR balanced scorecard for Verizon? The four perspectives that apply to the HR balanced scorecard are strategic, operations, customer, and financial perspective. Strategic perspective measures the success of the business and goals. To have a successful strategic perspective the organization must focus five different \"thrusts.\" These are the foundation to the organization; talent, leadership, customer service and support, organizational integration, HR capability. Operations perspective focuses on three main areas: staffing, technology, and HR processes and transactions. A few of the objectives describing operations perspective is to optimize HR services through alternative delivery channels, develop and enhance world class programs, and provide quality consulting advise. Customer perspective is tracked through surveys, employee engagement, competitive capability, and links to productivity. These tools provide feedback to the organization and HR stating their point of view. Last out of the four perspectives is financial. Financial perspective allows HR to implement financial value through training, technology, staffing, risk management, and cost of service delivery. Organizations want to maximize shareholder value, human capital performance, and HR costs. All perspectives interrelate in which if one perspective succeeds then the likelihood of the others succeeding is greater. For example, if you hire talent that has the skillset to adequately perform in the position, then this aligns with the business strategy and so forth leading to the financial perspective. Identify two additional objectives you would add to the strategy and indicate why you selected them. One additional objective that could be added to Verizon's strategy is a prevention plan to avoid current or potential customers from choosing other providers once contract is expired. This could fall under either strategic, operations, or customer perspective. A prevention plan is strategic in the fact that it is focuses on building a long term relationship. It is operational in the aspect that it guarantees another two years with the customer which sustains their long term business strategy. Lastly, it relates to customers because it is focused on the relationship with them. Another objective that can be added to their strategy would be, providing health and wellness incentives for employees. This falls under company culture which is a thrust within strategic perspective. Investing in the health and wellness of employees pays dividends in the long term. Healthier employees are able to perform their jobs at a higher aptitude and are more confident in their skill set. They are more competent in their duties which will resonant to the customer. To implement a balanced scorecard internationally the first objective would be to make sure the companies goals, vision, and mission align with the country they are entering. Knowledge on the country's infrastructure is also important in determining if the company can enter the new market. After determining if the company's infrastructure is suitable within the country then further steps need to be implemented to conclude whether or not the country has enough demand for the company's products and services. You may discuss with student 3, your position on the any of the items he discussed in the article. Write about 5 - 7 sentences