Human Resources: New vistas & challenges

human capital is not about describing people as economic units; rather it is a way of viewing people as critical contributors to an organization's success. It can be measured and managed more effectively in coming times as and when the human resource functions evolve with emerging trends in HR. If we trace back the history of business environment, in the early years, trading patterns and markets were stable, technology was static, customers were passive, speed in getting to market was secondary, competition was limited to sectors and regions, and hierarchies were generally accepted in all walks of life. The twentieth century saw nations around the world become part of the global village, with trade barriers between them reduced or removed completely. Globalization of trade and economy had started taking deep roots in India. Events of the previous century have focused our attention on knowledge industries and quality of human resources. The rise of Brazil, Russia, India & China (BRIC countries) as economic power houses has attracted many nations of the world to establish businesses here. In the 21st century, world economy will be increasingly shaped by the emergence of China and India as major powers. There will be the emergence of the global labor market. As a result HR executives will need more sophisticated strategies to deal this workforce in coming times. India as a nation has become the hub of off shoring, introducing with it new challenges for human resource functions in India. There has been a continuing shift to services in the economy and a greater focus is on people performance rather than asset performance. For major service sector industries human resource is the major capital and resource pool. This concept has changed the workplace in India. Attracting, managing, nurturing talent and retaining people have emerged to be the most critical issues of this century. The new Indian professional is innovative, business savvy, has great ability to network, and possesses unbridled ambition. He is driven by an urge to experiment, scan new avenues, and work with creativity. Thus the concepts of leadership and managing people have undergone a radical change. Cubicles, hierarchies and rigid organization structures of the past have now given way to open work environment and flat structure being a general rule. The closed office rooms have been replaced by open work stations spread out in one floor, where the Assistant Sales Manager can pop in to the cubicle of the General Manager Sales to discuss mundane topics like the usual stress load or a Friday night movie.