What many discussions of Human Capital Management do not address is the fact that whatever Human Capital is, it is owned by people and not organizations. Organizations secure access to human capital through relationships. Employment relationships are still the main mechanism by means of which organizations secure access to human capital. It would follow that organizations would want to be on top of these relationships and manage them well. And yet this is often not the case. One of the reasons is that organizations have struggled with the appropriate way to think about employment relationships. Indeed, we are referring here to more than just the employment contract but the psychological contract between employer and employee.
The construct of ´employee engagement´ has certainly become ubiquitous over the last few years. But should we be measuring other aspects as well?
And what about the evidence? It is often taken for granted that better employment relationships are good, but the hard data has often shown results that are not so strong. Why is this? As we may be entering a time when labor markets are likely to be tighter than they have been in the recent past, it is likely that organizations will, once again, become interested in managing their employment relationships