Many people may not understand why an insurance broker is worried about human capital risk, but risk begins and ends with people. It is imperative that a company puts their employees at the forefront of their risk assessment in order to attract and retain top talent, nurture that top talent and prevent employee burnout. If a company opts to not focus on human capital, they themselves are a human capital risk.

Everyone. Companies need to be deliberate about their strategy. This is something that cannot happen on an ad hoc basis, so clearly defined roles need to be identified. It’s important to continually assess how companies manage their human capital risk and look to make improvements with their technology. Can you find better policies and procedures, different benefits and coverage, and so on?

This strategic focus doesn’t happen on its own. It needs to be intentionally prioritized and managed, with all employees on board and contributing. As an article in MIT Sloan Management Review emphasizes, preventing a toxic work culture — which inevitably leads to employees disengaging and quitting — starts with every organizational leader taking the responsibility of managing human capital risk.

Every part of the employee life cycle is important – you don’t want to spend all of this time recruiting and working on your brand externally just to lose people once they are onboarded. Once they’re onboarded, it’s very important to nurture and retain those hires and boost employee morale. At the opposite end of the employee life cycle, you want to ensure a positive experience when employees leave the company. Your company’s reputation could be on the line, so a positive off-boarding experience could lead to future referrals, provide insight on why employees may leave or facilitate a smooth transfer of responsibilities. These are some of the important reasons why you should focus on each individual part of the employee life cycle and not just recruiting.

There are many helpful tools and resources, and some that have worked well for us include:

1. Video interviewing — a timesaver that provides everyone with flexibility.
2. HR dashboards linking directly to HRMS or HRIS systems — a functionality that can deliver valuable real-time data about employees.
3. Performance management software — a way to easily map employee engagement, management training, goal setting and more.
4. Learning management systems — a software to set your managers and employees up for success from day one by helping them track key indicators.
5. Engagement surveys — a tool to gather custom data enabling management to keep a pulse on the organization and make insightful decisions.

At the end of the day, people have a job so they can support themselves, their families and their loved ones. Total rewards packages are a combination of benefits, compensation and rewards that employees receive from their organizations, but these packages need to match the role that the person is performing for your organization. There is so much that goes into rewards beyond compensation, and we have seen this continue to expand over the last few years. Ideally, you want to create a total rewards package that is tailored to the needs of your employees.

Right now, the most common pain point that companies are experiencing is the challenge of attracting and retaining top tier talent. We also think that the Great Resignation has led to some long-term effects, including labor shortages and quiet quitting. Making sure employees are engaged, fulfilled and find meaning in their work is vital to retain top-tier talent and prevent quiet quitting.