by Jack Feldhaus, President and CEO of Sigma Data Systems, Inc.
(Reprinted from the SIGMA Newsletter, Spring 2003)
We used to call it “Personnel Management,” then later it became “Human Resources” — a term I’ve always thought rather degrading to employees. These terms are now being replaced by new buzzwords, such as “Human Assets” and “Human Capital.” When I encountered that last term while reading an article in a recent business journal, the image of 18th century slave ships immediately came to mind.
Whatever you call it, the work of hiring people and managing their productivity remains an essential function of most organizations, both private and public. In public organizations, the recruitment and selection of new employees, as well as the transfer and promotion of existing workers, has for decades embodied the concepts of job-related qualifications and fair competition. Our elected officials adopted those two principles as public policy in order to replace systems based on political spoils, nepotism and cronyism. The central idea was to promote effective government by maximizing employee productivity. read more…
12 Jul 2006 |