Interested in what your company’s grade might be?  Try our fun, interactive new self-assessment and find out instantly.

While the increased use of analytics has implications across all aspects of an organization’s work, perhaps nowhere is its potential impact greater than on the people side of the business.  For example, simply identifying those aspects of employees’ work environment that are most important in driving customer service success (or other key business outcomes) can have major bottom line consequences.

Although some companies are already quite advanced in this realm, we’re still in the early days of this new world, so there’s still time for forward-thinking corporate leaders to catch the analytics train.

In December a draft Investor Metrics Standard was passed by the Workgroup.  This month, the draft Standard will move on to the next step of the process, which is a vote by the larger SHRM Metrics & Measurement Taskforce.  After that the Standard will go through a public comment period, and if necessary, revisions.  Then, finally it will be an official ANSI standard (and it may then go on to be considered by ISO as an international standard).

(Turns out the standards-setting process has many steps!)

As the next steps of this process unfold, we will be looking for firms that are interested in beta-testing the standard.  So if you think this might be of interest to your organization, please contact me directly, and I can provide you with more detail on the draft standard and the process for beta-testing it.

Each company’s score reflects its most recent performance on three measurements (these represent a subset of the full range of metrics we used to calculate Good Company scores in the book, and includes updated scores on each of the three):

• Glassdoor.com rankings (employees’ assessments of their companies as employers)
• wRatings scores (customers’ opinions of companies on quality, fair price, and trust)
• 2011 Newsweek Green Rankings (assess companies’ environmental footprint, management of that footprint, and transparency)

The big winner?  Apple, whose top ranking reflects not only an excellent track record on customer satisfaction, but positive employee feedback at Glassdoor and a top 10 percent score on the Green Rankings.

The full top 10 list is as follows:

1.  Apple
2.  Ace Hardware
3 (tie).  Dell
3 (tie).  Office Depot
3 (tie).  Staples
6.  Whole Foods Market
7.  Lowe’s
8.  The Home Depot
9.  O’Reilly Automotive
10.  Costco

Bringing up the rear?  Dillard’s, RadioShack, and Big Lots.  Dillard’s scored in the bottom quarter of the Green Rankings, failed to impress customers in wRatings research, and earned a “dissatisfied” rating from employees at Glassdoor.

So enjoy the holiday season – and while you’re at it, consider doing business with those companies that have demonstrated they’re worthy of your business.

Click to go to full 2011 Good Company Retail Index scores.

This post also appeared on the Good Company blog.

If you haven’t seen it yet, I highly recommend it.  It is the story of how a soft-spoken, recent Yale economics grad applies his analytic know-how, with the help and support of the Oakland A’s general manager (played by Brad Pitt) to help achieve remarkable success (as measured by games won), with the smallest budget in the league for buying “talent.”

Some of the lines in the movie (I’m paraphrasing here) could be lifted from my day-to-day work life as an economist applying the principles and insights of behavioral economics to the business world:

• “People are running the business on fundamentally wrong assumptions.”
• “This is going to fundamentally change the game.”
• “The reason people are resisting it is because it is going to change how they make a living.”

In addition to being entertaining, Moneyball is worth watching because it has important lessons for business.

There is competitive advantage to be gained through analytics – no matter what business you are in.  And the laggards will be the losers.

It places “a spotlight on how boards are now addressing their responsibilities for oversight of human capital; how they themselves are changing their own behavior; and what part the senior ‘people professionals’ are now playing in facilitating boards in both of these dimensions.”

It’s an encouraging read – one that I commend to you.

CLO Symposium Luncheon: We have an invitation-only TDR luncheon scheduled at the CLO Symposium on October 12^th from 11:00 am to 12:30 pm.  The event is targeted for senior learning executives to learn more about TDR.  CLO Magazine will be promoting it starting next week.  Tamar [Elkeles], Dave Vance, Carrie Beckstrom and I will be there.   There is no cost to attend.  If you are attending the Symposium and interested in joining us, please let me know.

Major Accounting Firm Support: Deloitte and KPMG have committed to implementing TDR.  Terry Bickham from Deloitte is leading the effort at Deloitte to explore offering an internal audit service.

ASTD and SHRM Support: Dave Vance and I had a great conversation with Tony Bingham who expressed complete support for the initiative.  ASTD is incorporating TDR in some of its certification programs.  Dave and Tony will be working together to expand its support.  Laurie Bassi’s initiative at SHRM to get a FASB for Human Capital investments is moving ahead nicely.  Dave and I are part of that initiative which ties in perfectly with TDR.

Leadership, Onboarding and Sales Training Programs: Several KnowledgeAdvisors clients are incorporating TDR in their strategic programs.  With their help we have developed automated solutions for statements, scorecards, dashboards and executive reports based on TDR but designed specifically for Leadership, Onboarding and Sales Training.  There is growing demand to apply TDR for customer education, IT and customer service.  We will be building out those capabilities in Metrics that Matter as well.

Implementation Expansion: The following leading organizations are participating as a group in the next round of implementing TDR: ExxonMobil, Booz Allen, KPMG, Air Products, Pepsi, Newell Rubbermaid, Caremark, Sprint, Merck and JetBlue.  As Tamar mentioned on the Executive Council call, please continue to promote this initiative and help spread the word!

Next Phase: Dave and I expect to have Phase 2 of TDR finished by the end of the year.  At that point we feel the L&D component will be sustainable and continue to evolve.  We will begin Phase 3 at the beginning of next year where we will be focusing on the broader Human Capital components including talent, performance, leadership, onboarding and engagement.  I will reach out to each of you to see if you would like to remain active in Phase 3.  I know some are only interested in L&D and some of you are interested in all aspects of talent management.

You can watch the interview here.

The grade that a company earned on the Good Company Index™ is a powerful predictor of subsequent stock performance.  We examined this question this summer, one year after we assigned company grades, to see how companies had fared in the market over the 12 month period that had followed.

To ensure that we were comparing only similar companies to one another, we looked at all “industry-matched pairs” (pairs of companies in the same industry) in the Fortune 100.  We found twelve pairs in which the companies’ Good Company grades differed by one or more grade levels (for example, a grade of B versus a grade of C).

Across those twelve pairs, the stock price of the company with the higher grade outperformed that of its competitor with the lower grade by an average of 19.8 percentage points in the subsequent 12-month period.

For example, in June 2010 (when we finalized companies’ grades), Walgreen and CVS Caremark’s Good Company grades were a B- and D, respectively.  In the 12 months following the assignment of those grades (June 2010 to June 2011), Walgreen’s stock price outpaced that of CVS by 30.7 percentage points.

Another example is Chevron and ExxonMobil: in June 2010, the companies’ grades were C+ and F, respectively.  Between June 2010 and June 2011, Chevron’s stock return was 6.0 percentage points higher than that of ExxonMobil.

These are exciting findings for us.  One of the main themes of our book is an exploration of the direction the world will be moving in the future, but this represents evidence that being a good company is already paying off.

This post originally appeared on the Good Company blog earlier this week.