Human Resource Measurement: The Present and the Way Forward

Abstract

Significance of human resource management in business performance has been widely recognized by academicians, researchers and practitioners for many years. HR’s role transition from administrative expert to business/strategic partner is an indication to this. Yet, HR managers find difficulty in evincing human value and contribution in financial terms. By and large, both conceptual and practical complexity of the function contributed to the quandary. There have been myriad attempts made by accountants, economists and organization experts to capture and reflect HR’s value to organization. Human resource accounting, workforce scorecard, HR metrics etc are to name a few. However, still human capital valuation remains as a “black box.” This paper attempts to review the present HR measurement models to understand the predicament and propose a new HR measurement framework. While the proposed HR measurement framework is proposed based on the gaps identified in the reviewed literature, much more effort will clearly be required to develop a more comprehensive and practical HR measurement tool.