Human Resources are pretty different in many aspects from the other resources of organizations. Organizations’ other resources can be hired, retained and probably discarded at any time but human resources cannot be dealt in similar manner.
Human Resources needs to be carefully hired, deserve tremendous effort to retain and requires continuous training & development to upgrade and improve their capabilities.
It is very important to note that other resources depreciate with the passage of time but when the human resource gains more and more experience, they become more and more beneficial to the organization. These characteristics have brought human resource to be the pivotal element for the success and growth of an organization.
Modern organizations seem to be always in a dilemma whether to invest on its human capital since retention has always been a big challenge. Organizations can spend huge amount to train and develop its newly hired employees; but the departure of these employees mean the organizations suffer a double loss – financial loss and the employees’ loss as well.
The mission for any Human Resource Development Team of mettle is to churn out competent employees those who are capable to optimally perform assigned job, keep up the zest for continuous self-development and contribute to the achievement of the organizations’ growth and goals – efficiently and effectively. The quality of Human Resources working in an organization determines how well or poorly the organizational goals are achieved.
It is a known fact that more experienced and better qualified Human Resources look for more lucrative opportunities. This scenario has been the Achilles-Heel for many budding organizations, particularly in this highly competitive environment can affect the organizational performance to great extent.
Organizations probably can simply invest on physical capital like machines & infra without much concern for their pay-offs (for there is no direct attrition involved here). But investment on human capital requires meticulous strategy for retaining the human resources after investing on them. Of late, many organizations associate their human resource investment decisions with productivity & growth.
Effectiveness of Human Resource investment can be measured as –
Investment on HR = (Productivity + Growth) × Tenure of a Human Resource
To conclude, human resource quality is the competitive edge of an organization. Investing in HR with long term vision becomes utmost important for an organization to remain competitive. Postponing this activity is akin to posting problems to a future date where in the time and effort needed to solve these problems would be pretty steep.
– Words –
Ravishankar S Aiyar
Vice President
Aavishkaar Consulting
