In LO15705, Doc Holloway asked:
>Why is the idea of humans as resources significantly different to you
>than the idea of humans being a form of capital?
Doc -
Guess it is based on long term thinking and observation about how
organizations generally treat people and what might be done differently
for long-term improvement. Also semantics.
I said a LO post a long while ago that I'd heard that when Frank Lorenzo
left Continental, the stock price doubled. I think that bears (bares?)
on the question and the issue somewhat - the stock price doubling with no
other significant change. Investors felt there was some human capital
appreciation available.
And it was good to see the Malcolm Baldrige Award criteria swing more and
more over the years to directly evaluate company's human resource
management practices.
Mostly, though, I'd like to see a company's FINANCIAL STATEMENT take into
account the value of the knowledge base and their human capital
investment. People just _ aren't _ valued in the traditional P & L
statement. That's one of the reasons training budgets always get slashed
-- they are a COST without imediately observable and measurable (there we
go again!) impacts.
I think the stock market does put some value on personnel. New President
/ CEO and there is a shift. Stanley Gault at Goodyear, for example.
Sometimes it is misguided, like what is happening at Kodak (based on
newspaper reports and expectations of their new chairman from Motorola).
But bottom line, I think evaluation of Human Capital is a lot closer to
reality that stressing positive "human resource policies" like the "Best
Companies to Work For" books seem to do. Guess I see "human resources"
as a lot "softer" concept than Human Capital."
If organizations REALLY valued people more, they would treat them better.
Nobody sits on the front hood of a Bentley, but that old Chevy, no
problem! And I love to go to the local football games here in the South
and see people standing on the roofs of their pickup trucks,
-- For the FUN of It!Scott Simmerman, author of the Square Wheels toolkits Performance Management Company Taylors, SC (USA) SquareWheels@compuserve.com -- We support consultants and trainers worldwide -- with products like The Search for the Lost Dutchman's Gold Mine http://www.clicknow.com/stagedright/dutchman/
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>