If you think human resources (HR) is your highest sunk cost, you’re right. If you think HR is your biggest profit driver, you’re also right. What gives?
You get out of HR what you put into it. And it isn’t just about budgets and staffing and benefits, either (i.e., sunk costs).
In the simplest terms, company performance is directly related to how well HR empowers employees to do their best work every day, week and year. In the absence of schools and colleges teaching essential life skills (career, financial and business management, communication and resilience, for starters) and a government unwilling or unable to fund continuing education, corporations are the provider of last resort, given their inevitable, insatiable talent needs.
