Persistent market turbulence is driving an increasing number of organisations to prioritise talent management as the basis for future success, according a report.

Leading global companies such as Royal Bank of Canada, Coca-Cola, Ameriprise Financial and Royal Bank of Scotland, are already breaking new ground by using evidence-based change to retain and attract talent, said the new Towers Watson research.

In a new book called Transformative HR:  How Great Companies Use Evidence-Based Change for Sustainable Advantage, the authors show how this trend signals a major step beyond traditional HR decision making, which has often lacked real rigour, instead relying on gut instinct or the copying of competitors’ practices.

In the book the authors, Ravin Jesuthasan of Towers Watson and John Boudreau of the University of Southern California, identify five principles of evidence-based change which they believe will help organisations make better people decisions that ultimately lead to a sustainable competitive advantage. It includes the experiences of nearly a dozen leading global organisations and delivers insights into how they redefined HR leadership by using an evidence-based approach to optimise efficiency and strategic impact. 

Ravin Jesuthasan said: “Our thinking behind evidence-based change was inspired partly by the medicine movement, which encourages doctors to determine which treatment, based on the evidence, is most effective. It hardly seems like a radical notion but human nature is such that people, even doctors, do not always behave with scientific rationality, choosing instead to rely on instinct and what might have worked before. By using evidence-based change, HR is better equipped to make decisions that are supported by well-grounded evidence, rather than gut feel.”

The Transformative HR model is based on collaborative research from Boudreau and Jesuthasan, who define the five principles of evidence-based change as: Logic-driven Analytics; Segmentation; Risk Leverage; Integration and Synergy; and Optimisation

John Boudreau said: “As HR has matured and gained stature within organisations, HR leaders have grown increasingly accustomed to rigorous human-capital decision making based on metrics and analytics. However, next-generation HR means going further to truly embed analytical discipline and sophisticated systems thinking that creates the kind of understanding capable of driving better strategies and better workplace outcomes.  We strongly believe that evidence-based change will take HR leaders to that level.”

Jesuthasan added: “This new approach puts HR where companies need it to be – creating strategic organisational success through synergistic human-capital decisions and investments that span the employment lifecycle and organisational design decisions. A more robust, integrated system will allow companies to multiply the effects and benefits of their HR strategies.” – TradeArabia News Service