Three thoughts on the HR discussion:
1. I always thought that "Personnel" became "Human Resources" out of
syllable inflation: the pursuit of a longer, and therefore more grandiose,
name for the same activity. I remember that my high school library became
an "Instructional Resource Center" for the same reason.
2. In a strict accounting sense, I would be surprised at seeing "human
resources" on the books as depreciable assets because the corporation does
not own them. I have an at-will contract of employment and can be lost to
the organization tomorrow through the action of either party. So, using
the principle of conservatism, the book value of me as an employee is $0
(should there be a debit to Retention Expense?).
3. What if a company gave its employees an estimate of their value as part
of the performance appraisal? How would the value be reliably determined?
How would the biases be filtered out? Would the company distinguish
between industry worth (what the employee could command on the market) and
company worth (the knowledge an employee has of how to work within our
specific culture and navigate our specific hazards)?
sr
--srojak@ix.netcom.com (Stephen Rojak )
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>