75. Human Resources Management: Mega-Trends Of Competitive Advantage

14 important takeaways from this Lecture:

00:00:20 A resource is something you need to produce something else. A human resource is ‘all planned and controlled activities of an organization to build and maintain the relation between it’s employees and the organization in order to meet both business objectives and employee expectations.’

The problem with resources is that they become exhausted. Therefore a better term for human resources is human capital because capital, used in the right way, grows and develops.

00:02:45 Innovation. The iPhone, or the ‘Smart phone,’ is not the last thing. In 10 years we will have something totally different. If Apple doesn’t invent something that goes beyond the iPhone, Apple will lose. Don’t think that Google is the last search engine. This means that for Apple (and for Google), they must invent new products now.

00:06:10 Demography. In 2020, it is estimated that 75% of work will be knowledge-based, leaving only 25% of work done by hand – moving things, combining and assembling things, etc. By 2020, therefore, 75% of your work will be predominantly thinking and communicating.

00:07:10 You can order, control and pay an employee to assemble 100 things per hour, but can you order a person to ‘come up with an idea in the next hour?’

00:10:24 Talent Shortage. Companies lose experienced employees (through retirement, job changes, etc), and you have to have new people to replace them. Companies need more and more qualified people because the world is changing – where more and more people are knowledge-based. An inability to find replacements is called a talent shortage.

00:12:10 Globalization. Even small- to mid-sized companies in the middle of nowhere have to think, plan and act globally because their customers are beyond their own borders.

00:13:20 You’re in the McDonalds drive through and you are giving your order to a person through the microphone. Give me one good reason why that job taking your food order cannot be outsourced to a person in another country. – Referencing The World Is Flat by Thomas Friedman.

00:14:20 It’s imperative to your career to spend time abroad.

00:14:42 Web 1.0: Institutions produce content, and users read content. Web 2.0: Institutions such as Wikipedia, Facebook and Twitter provide the platform, and users both provide and edit content – user-generated content.

00:17:55 Web 2.0 has thus really changed the way companies hire people.

00:19:48 Value change. What is important to people changes from generation to generation.

00:23:45 Life-long learning.  Obtaining your diploma doesn’t mean you’re finished and that you now have the entire qualification needed for the rest of your life.

00:24:40 Combine innovation and knowledge to shape the right work conditions so that you attract and retain the right people.

00:27:50 The start of a relationship – You want to work for a organization, or a organization wants you to work for them – and you work with the organization by giving your health, time, performance, talents and skills in exchange for priviledges, money, etc. It’s always about the relation. If you are strong, the organization wants to retain you/doesn’t want to lose you.