I need data or facts (examples) about how the Human Resources
Departments are changing their main functions in order to reflect that
companies are now seeing human resources as capital and not anymore as
costs. I need to undesrtand for example how the staffing process
change, how the compensation systems change or how bennefits are used
for retaining human capital. Also some ideas about how companies are
reflecting human capital in their financial statements, if they do
that.

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Request for Question Clarification by czh-ga on 01 Dec 2004 17:44 PST

Hello partyanimal-ga,

This is a complex topic that could be approached from a variety of
angles. There is lots of literature on the subject and large and small
consulting companies provide services to address every element of your
question. It would help if you could simplify your question so that we
could better understand your needs. My preliminary research shows that
geographic location also may have a bearing on how you approach this
problem. The more information you can share, the more likely I will be
able to get you what you need.

http://www.brunel.ac.uk/~bustcfj/bola/personnel/assets.html
Human Resource Accounting
***** This article presents one approach for how to value human assets.

Also, I suggest that you review the Google Answers pricing guidelines
so that you can calibrate your expectations on what type of answers
you're likely to get at your current price.

http://answers.google.com/answers/pricing.html
Google Answers: How to price your question 

I look forward to your clarification.

~ czh ~

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Clarification of Question by partyanimal-ga on 02 Dec 2004 16:39 PST

I am writing a paper for my human resources course, we were asked to
answer the question: how the old HR departments' objectives have
changed in the last 20 years? How the HR departments are acting in
today's knowledge economy? when the scarce resource are peoples
knowledge and social networks. How companies select employees? how
train them? how compesate them? and how are companies reflecting in
their financial statements the value of their investments in human
resources? if you don't have specific answer, I'll be happy with your
opinion on the idea that in today's world more that ever employees are
the businesses' more important competitive advantage.

We are rapidly approching a situation in which many function preformed
by employees can be done by computer programs and robotics. Average
employees are likely to be available cheap in the near future. What
businesses need is employees who are smart enough to out-perform
computers and robotics = can make execitive dedisions that are close
to optimum most of the time. When a business thinks they have such an
employee, retention becomes high priority, as they may have hire
thousands, before they find another such person.   Neil

As an accountant I can say as fact that almost NO major or medium
sized US company looks at human capital seriously.  The only field
that looks at experience and education as assets are firms that do a
lot of R&D and even then they do a half hatred attempt. Most US
companies are top heavy with management and only put out statements
like ?we value the experiences and education of our employees as an
asset? in company propaganda. When in private conversation most top
managers do nothing but plot on how they can eliminate employees below
them.  If an employee can not be eliminated other tactics are employed
such as the following: (not a complete list of the tricks that I have
seen)
1)	Changing the annual pay raise date from day of first employment to
a company wide pay raise date.  The date is always a day that passed
about a month ago. This moves most employees annual pay increase
forward 11 months.
2)	Keeping the workload of a department or business unit the same but
putting a freeze on new hires.  As some employees quit the other
employees pick up the excess slack. With no new people to fill in the
holes old employees do more and more work. If anyone asks HR will just
say that if the workload can?t be completed than the employees don?t
manage their time well enough.