MANAGING HUMAN CAPITAL

Managing Human Capital

Table of Content

Introduction3

Chosen CompanyError! Bookmark not defined.

Identifying the Methods Of Staff Recruitment, Training, Motivation and Reward Systems To The Chosen Organization8

Human-Resource Capitalism11

Managing Human Capital13

Human Capital and Performance16

Human Capital as a Source of Competitive Advantage18

Developing and Managing Human Capital21

Ethical Considerations in Managing Human Capital25

Conclusion27

References28

Appendices30

Managing Human Capital

Introduction

Human capital describes the intangible collective resources possessed by individuals and groups within a given population. These resources include all the knowledge, talents, skills, abilities, experience, intelligence, training, judgment, and wisdom possessed individually and collectively, the cumulative total of which represent a form of wealth available to nations and organizations to accomplish their purpose. Coff (2002) mentions that human capital is available to generate material wealth for an economy or a private firm. In a public organization, human capital is available as a resource to provide for the public welfare (Coff, 2002). How human capital is developed and managed may be one of the most important determinants of economic and organizational performance.

Chosen Company

This paper will utilize the example of IBM throughout the paper. We know that IBM has set the pace for strategic development in the IT sector in the last few years. The move into outsourcing and other services, in particular, was a masterstroke which has maintained IBM's dominance of the IT consulting sector. Since then the company has pursued a focused and generally fearless strategy, showing no qualms about ditching heritage sectors, such as PCs and disk-drives, in favour of higher margin non-manufacturing operations. There seems little doubt that IT outsourcing and consulting will continue to be a growth industry in the near and medium term, and IBM is also taking steps to transfer operations to low-cost regions such as India to maintain its margins. The main threat to the company is further erosion of its remaining hardware and software operations.

IBM has described its mission as "helping customers become more efficient and competitive through the use of information technology (IT) solutions". However increasingly this has become a case of forming partnerships with customers rather than simply providing them with the tools with which to do the job. IBM's biggest business now is its IBM Global Services division, which among other initiatives takes over client companies' outsourced IT departments, and completely remodels all business processes from payroll to through to procurement. The company has coined the terms Business Transformation Outsourcing (BTO) and Business Performance Transformation Services (BPTS) for different versions of this process, and it is continuing to transform IBM as well as IBM's clients. Innovation is a key selling point for the company's range of services.

IBM Background, Its HRM Policies and Procedures

IBM was first incorporated in 1911 in New York with the ungainly name of The Computing Tabulating Recording Company. It was created by the merger of three separate companies involved in different forms of automated processes. In its early days, CTR made everything from card-punch counting and time recording machines to industrial weighing scales and cheese slicers. In 1914, salesman Thomas Watson joined CTR from The National Cash Register ...