Anthony Hesketh, author of Understanding the Performance of HR and the director of the Centre for Performance-Led HR at Lancaster University, told conference members they should "worry less about whether they are on the board or not, but instead focus on whether they are part of the conversation".
He said: "You need to put talent conversations into the same space as FD territory."
At his talk, he revealed a simple formula for calculating Return On Investment in Talent (ROIT). It is: operating profit + employee costs + depreciation + amortisation divided by employee costs and depreciation.
"The good news," he said, "is that all of this data is publicly available, so you can not only calculate your own ROIT but that of your competitors too."
He added: "The average ROIT for a FTSE 100 company is £1.78 per employee. Anything less than £1.00 is not a sustainable business."
