The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) will work with the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants (CIMA) to develop human capital metrics, the HR body’s chief has said.

CIPD chief executive officer Peter Cheese was speaking last night at a London HR Connection event, ‘The Future of HR: Challenges and Opportunities’, attended by Recruiter.

Cheese says that using human capital metrics to understand the impact of people and corporate culture on a business’s bottom line is increasingly crucial. “In total, intangible values typically represent 60% and 75% of the market value of your company,” he said.

When HR brings an issue to the table that cannot be quantified and finance offers quantifiable information, Cheese asked: “Who’s the CEO going to believe?”

While admitting that such a project would be very challenging, he also said that measuring the value of HR “is something that I’m very passionate about”.

The proposed CIPD-CIMA project would be the latest effort to wrestle with the challenge of human capital metrics. As Recruiter reported earlier this year, representatives from 38 countries met in London that month under the auspices of the International Standards Organisation (ISO) to continue work in progress on the establishment of international standards within HR and recruitment.

In the US, an ISO working group last year created an American National Standards Institute (ANSI) standard for cost-to-hire. In the UK, a British Standards Institute (BSI) working group has been exploring potential standards work.