The Hindu Business Line : The harnessing of human capital

Close and purposeful attention to the development of human capital is long overdue. The concept itself is a latecomer to the lexicon of political economy, sociology and management science. Capital in the early stages of evolution of the definition was understood in its financial and monetary connotation — something that, along with land and labour, constituted the factors of production.

That human beings counted the most in the dynamics of the success of any enterprise is a recent discovery. There is as yet imperfect realisation of the enormous power of the synergy resulting from human beings welded into compatible, congenial teams.

Five imperatives

Just a conglomeration of human beings does not, however, make them human capital.

Transforming them into that status involves enabling them to recognise and realise their potential by honing their existing skills and talents and acquiring new ones, capable of making them resourceful, self-motivated personalities.

The morphing of humdrum human beings into prime movers for the betterment of the organisation and society essentially depends upon deployment of resources, some under State auspices and some at work places, on five imperatives. They are briefly set out below:

Education: This is the basic pre-requisite for human development. The more the scale and magnitude of investment in universal education of the highest quality, the faster the growth of an enterprise or a nation on all fronts.

It can convert a population of a billion or more from burdensome liability into precious assets, and from being viewed as a drain on resources to becoming a reservoir of value-added manpower.

Aptitude identification and skills enrichment: Not all human beings share the same endowments and aptitudes. They give of their best only when their own strengths and dispositions match the goals and tasks. They can flower from human to social capital provided they are given proper vocational guidance taking account of their aptitudes, and they are encouraged periodically to add to their repertoire of skills, including soft and specialised skills such as leadership, communication, salesmanship, marketing, and techniques of negotiations.

Training: Information technology, communications revolution, computer applications and the pressure to function at the speed of thought have made it necessary to rethink the methodologies of training adopted by the organisations.

The corpus of knowledge which was doubling once in 50 years at the beginning of the 20th century, is now doubling once in two years or less. In other words, today’s degree is tomorrow’s garbage.

The digital era demands the training wing of an organisation to be the best part of the real estate and a retreat to foster excellence, with the participants having the freedom to design their own programmes which fit in best with their career paths and aptitudes.

Personality development: No person is good for nothing and every person has tremendous inner reserves waiting to be drawn upon in the realms of creativity and innovation.

Systems of education, methods of training and organisational objectives should be directed at bringing about the holistic development of human personality embodying the attributes of helpfulness, fellow-feeling, accountability, discernment, thirst for knowledge and a scientific temper.

Exchanges of ideas and experiences: It is not by being islands unto themselves but by exchanging ideas and experiences and networking with those engaged in similar pursuits that human beings keep marching towards new horizons of knowledge and augment their capabilities.

Human efflorescence by participation in as many seminars and conference of experts, academics, thinkers and doers in the same or related fields is a sure-fire recipe for burnishing human capital.

No time should be lost in launching strenuous efforts along these directions to lift India from the low position in which it figures year after year as per the UNDP reports.

B. S. RAGHAVAN

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