Numerati. Interesting.

Managing workers is tough. It’s not as mechanical as managing computers, processes and reports. It’s never going to be easy. When you want to manage people, the person who is doing it should rely on fostering good relationship, sound instincts and people skills. Aside from the daily operational deliverables, major stress comes from relating with difficult people, managing their growth and direction.

But according to this interesting article that I’ve read, written by an HR consultant, there’s this mathematical scheme popularly known as “numerati” in managing employees. This method eliminates all other unnecessary, often grueling procedures in people management and focuses on the factual/mathematical solutions that make the whole people management convenient and accurate.

Baker says IBM’s “numerati” scheme is ambitious. This is how it works: “Picture an IBM manager who gets an assignment to send a team of five to set up a call center in Manila.”

“She sits down at the computer and fills out a form. It’s almost like booking a vacation online. She puts in the dates and clicks on menus to describe the job and skills needed. Perhaps she stipulates the ideal budget range.”

“The results come back, recommending a particular team. All the skills are represented. Maybe three of the five people have a history of working together smoothly. They all have passports and live near airports with direct flights to Manila. One of them even speaks Tagalog.”

Interesting, huh? In this way, nothing’s getting bypassed. Every option relies on the person’s capabilities, skills and factual strengths to be maximized and chosen in such a mathematical way that is accurate and well devised. The truth is, the result is just a form of recommendation and not the only proposed solution. The personnel manager still has to be the one to do the weighing if the solution presented is effective or not. The point here is that the most accurate data is presented based on the system’s calculation thus eliminating clutter. It makes us, humans, tower above computers and be more efficient as well. Personnel managers are still essentially managers. They are still the ones who would eventually decide.