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Showing posts from February, 2010

HR: A Strategic Asset

Strategic assets are “the set of difficult to trade and imitate, scarce, appropriable, and specialized resources and capabilities that bestow the firm’s competitive advantage”. It is easy to understand why organizations talk about people as an asset, but tend to manage them largely as a cost to be minimized. Aside from accounting principles that encourage this perspective, HR costs are easy to observe, while HR value creation is not. Largely because of the traditional perspective on HR, organizations have no way to measure HR’s strategic performance. Nevertheless, we know that intangibles in the aggregate are an increasingly important source of firm value, and that human capital ought to be a part of that asset value. HR is a strategic asset as it can play a critical role in both strategy implementation and management systems. Namely, the ability to execute strategy well is a source of competitive advantage, and “people” are the lynchpin of effective strategy execution. We think i

Why we h8 HR!!!!!!!

Hr people are not sharpest stacks in the box. To be blunt about it, if you are an ambitious newly graduated from a top college or university with your eye on rewarding career; your first instinct is never to join HR dance. The best and the brightest never tend to take Human Resource. Then who does? Intelligent people sometimes. Others enter the field by choice and with the best of intentions, but for the wrong reasons. They like working with people,like to be helpful, “noble motives” that thoroughly tick some HR thinkers. It is harsh to say but it is the need of the era that if some person comes and say I want to work with people hence I want to opt for HR please suggests him to be a ‘Social Worker ”. HR isn’t about being a good doer. It is about how do you get the best and brightest people and raise the value of the firm as well as yourself.The really scary picture is the gulf between capabilities and opportunities appears to be widening. There are bright thinkers and doers left with

Does Management Education help to build Commitment?

As Management Students , we believe in the sanctity of learning and know in our hearts that education is a basic tenet for both personal and professional growth. That said, learning programs must be rooted in sound business decisions and financially viable returns on investment. Many times we argue that providing educational opportunities strengthens employee commitment , which decreases turnover. Are we right? Commitment and understanding go hand-in-hand. Only by understanding (and feeling aligned with) the organization's larger Focus and Context, will people thrive and grow. Powerful leaders constantly clarify team or organization Focus and Context and keep people excited about working within it. Management students ( Future Managers ) routinely underestimate the amount and quality of education and communication required to make changes and improvements. They fall victim to our human tendency to judge others by their actions, but to judge ourselves by our intentions. Since most