Human Capital Management

Human capital management describes managing the workforce as an asset to be invested in rather than a cost to be minimised, covering recruitment, development, performance, retention and workforce planning as one connected system.

The framing has done real good. It is what allows a case for training or retention spending to be made in terms a board will engage with.

The objection is worth stating too. Capital is something an organisation owns and allocates, and people are neither. Language shapes decisions, and an organisation that thinks in those terms can find itself optimising a workforce in ways it would not defend if stated plainly.

Useful as a planning frame, and rather less useful as a description of the relationship between an organisation and the people who work in it.

Safe Work Australia covers duties owed to workers. This is general information rather than legal advice, and obligations vary by state and territory.

See Sentrient’s human capital management system and HR management system.