Humans...Assets?
BoK Content Type:
Presentation Slides
Video
BoK Content Source:
MainTrain 2022
Original date:
Tuesday, May 3, 2022
Recently there was a lot of discussion on various forums around the term ‘Human Asset’. It was prompted by a paper/presentation made by Dr. Monique Beedles in Australia where she questioned the term and the appropriateness of using it based on the definition of an asset in ISO 55000 – ‘an item, thing, or entity that has value or potential value to the organisation (ISO, 2014)’.There were questions posed on the various forums as to the use of ‘thing’ to describe humans – it’s legal meaning, it’s cultural implications and though most posting felt the term was appropriate, there was definitely a difference of opinion. What wasn’t brought out in most of the discussions was the intent or suitability of the decision to word the definition that way. No-one disagreed with the idea that a human ‘has value or potential value to the organization’ and so rather than argue about the term, I’d like to explore how we could apply the tools and lifecycle approach we use for physical assets, to humans. Let’s walk through the lifecycles and see if we can find how it might apply to humans.Concept Design Acquire Operations and Maintenance Decommission So as I said I won’t address the term ‘human asset’ but hopefully you can see that taking the same approach to ensure that the ‘value or potential value to the organization’ is certainly a good alternative.