Human Resource Management in a Competitive Environment

The modern world is intensely competitive and the proper management of the human capital plays a pivotal role in the success of an organization. Over time, we have seen drastic changes in all aspects of the human capital and have become the most critical and dominant key success factor in succeeding in the highly competitive environment.

Human capital management (HCM) is a sub-field of the HR function that focuses on the recognition, anticipation and anticipating human needs within an organization. Baron & Armstrong (2007) define HCM as the process of managing employees for them to make significant contributions to the organization's overall productivity. In accordance, this process involves the acquisition, managing, training, and retraining workers to enable them to contribute effectively to the organization's processes. In other words, it is the process of enhancing both the performance of employees and organization alike. This concept takes into consideration a person's competencies, skills, experiences and capabilities which create and improve the organizational value. In addition, HCM is concerned with the organization's investment in its employees to boost the profitability and performance of the organization. This is achieved through offering career management programs, effective internal recruitment practices and focusing on the compensation issues.

The concept of HCM has today evolved to encompass the gathering and assessment of information needed to attract, retain, maintain and develop top talent and top performers with the aim of achieving a competitive advantage. A notable characteristic of the concept of HCM is that it cannot be replaced and it is specific to a particular company (Baron & Armstrong, 2007). This concept has not replaced the practice of HRM; instead, it serves to strengthen and compliment the concept of HRM. The two concepts work hand in hand and are viewed as the most crucial components in the people management process and both form the ground for realizing human capital advantage via a resource-based approach.

The essence of HCM is to upgrade the skills of current employees hence extract the best from them (Baron & Armstrong, 2007). Here, the management ensures a timely development and growth of each individual. The primary goal of the organization is to train its individuals to make them efficient resources. The concept of human capital management encourages organizations to treat their employees as crucial resources in organizational productivity (Baron & Armstrong, 2007). The management and development of employees as per their key responsibility fields does not only make them indispensable resources but also ensures their maximum contribution towards the company.

Therefore, any organization intending to realize great success must closely focus on their human capital management. An organization's employees comprise the greatest, irreplaceable asset; by developing and keeping them strong, a company has the best possible opportunity to gain a competitive advantage thus succeed (Baron & Armstrong, 2007). Companies that fail to pay maximum attention to their employees are likely to end up with teams of individuals who are unproductive and unmotivated. HCM marks the difference between organizations with a winning team of workers all working towards a shared goal and a demoralized team with little value to offer. So, an organization must look at each employee of a team as an individual member, each with his/her own set of weaknesses and strengths to bring to the company. The concept of HCM presumes that any knowledge gap amongst a company's employees purely downs to the absence of teaching or training and not a fault of a team or individual.

References

Baron, A., & Armstrong, M. (2007). Human capital management: Achieving added value through people. London: Kogan Page Ltd.