Nearly a year ago HPA set out to re-create the Government Task Force of 2003. It seemed that a lot of good work had been done, that the sudden abandonment of the OFR had been premature, and that the near meltdown of the banking industry suggested strong measures were needed. It might have been the right idea but it was the wrong time.
The resistance to a new regulatory framework was (rightly or wrongly) too deeply embedded in corporate thinking. The new Government itself had sat up and was taking notice, first with one Consultation (Narrative Reporting) then another (Long Term Future for Britain).
The remit of the new AfP 2.0 Taskforce was to carry out and present research which said that internal and external reporting on people needed to be lifted to another level. Meantime auditing Human Capital Management (HCM) was already the core of HPA’s business, along with research to underpin the development of an HCM Maturity Index.
Accounting for People 2.0 is thus the beneficiary of the realignments of the last twelve months, and continues to do what it set out to do, with Human Capital Management Maturity rather than regulation as its focus. Some form of new regulation will undoubtedly follow but regulation that evolves is usually safer than regulation that is imposed and it is true that there is much work to be done before that happens.
So, a renewed Welcome to the “new” AfP 2.0 as it continues on its original track as the research arm of our Accounting for People initiative.
