A Call to Action for HR: Building Your Workforce of One Capability

By: Susan Cantrell and David Y. Smith

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Synopsis: Companies have excelled by treating customers as "markets of one," offering them personalized buying experiences. But in managing their own workers, most firms still use one-size-fits-all HR practices. A better approach, according to talent management experts Susan Cantrell and David Smith, is the "workforce of one"-a revolutionary new way to manage people. When HR practices are no longer generic but are instead highly nuanced and customized to every employee, an altogether new relationship emerges between an organization and its people. The reward? Lower employee turnover, greater productivity, and improved profit margins. This chapter is a call to action for HR professionals to develop their own workforce-of-one organizations. It provides a roadmap for those who want to get started on developing an altogether new mandate and set of skills to support a more individualized-but ultimately more effective-approach to managing people. The chapter concludes with a detailed quiz to help you determine if your organization has the capability to manage a workforce of one. This chapter was originally published as Chapter 8 of "Workforce of One: Revolutionizing Talent Management Through Customization."