Social capital in the workplace

Miro's 'Personages in the presence of a metamorphosis'

So, following on from my last post, if we accept that social capital is a real form of capital (even if it is hard to measure), then why do we invest so little in creating it?

Joseph Kessels and Rosemary Harrison distinguish between human capital and social capital – describing human capital as “the knowledge, skills, competencies and attributes embodied in individuals that facilitate the creation of personal, social and economic well-being” and social capital as comprising “networks together with shared norms, values and understandings that facilitate cooperation within or among groups” (Harrison, R. & Kessels, J. 2004. Human resource development in a knowledge economy. Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan).

In South Africa we invest significant resources in human capital development – a whole bureaucracy (SETAs, SAQAs, national qualifications frameworks, unit standards and so on) exists to skill and train our people, even beyond the formal schooling and tertiary level education sectors. And yet, by comparison, almost no resources are directly allocated to promoting social capital.

Three years ago the Macro-Social report produced by the Presidency recognised the apparent low levels of social capital in South Africa – reporting that over half of all South Africans claim to have no close friends, with almost another 30% claiming to have only one or two close friends. The Report indicates that membership of voluntary groups (churches, youth groups etc) has fluctuated since 1994, with no clear trends emerging, suggesting that the value of belonging to such groups is not obvious to all. Somehow I found these figures quite disturbing – I had imagined that communities in South Africa contain vibrant networks and that people have strong support networks and friendships, but maybe many relationships are more casual, occasional and temporary than appears on the surface…

Social capital can bring significant advantages to individuals, communities and society at large. So much so that the World Bank supports social capital development projects around the world. The advantages are many and varied – for individuals a strong social capital network can bring support in times of crisis, new business contacts, support in bringing up children etc. Communities benefit from a stronger sense of identity and cohesion, and society at large benefits from the harnessing of new ideas, higher levels of innovation and productivity and a stronger sense of shared values.

And there is an increasing interest on the relationship between social capital and learning in the workplace. My colleagues Tjip de Jong and Joseph Kessels have argued that whereas the returns on investing in human capital development (through more traditional training interventions) can be measured in terms of improved performance within the confines of existing job descriptions and linear performance management systems, investing in social capital in the workplace can contribute to higher levels of productivity, innovation and creativity (see their paper.

Investing in social capital then is different from training and ‘capacity building’, and is more concerned with building lifelong learning and supporting a learning perspective to how we work. This could involve, for example, building communities of practice, action learning sets and ‘brown bag’ events, as mechanisms for connecting professionals both within their own working environment and connecting them with their broader professional community.