By Alex K.B. Yong                                                                                                                                     
                                                                                                                                                      
SO much has been said lately regarding the importance of                                                                                              
people in organisations and of what they can do. There are                                                                                            
also leaders outside of business who have emphasised why                                                                                              
people form the backbone of national development.                                                                                                     
                                                                                                                                                      
The best organisations are made up of the best people. An                                                                                             
organisation's goals and successes are conceived by its                                                                                               
people, and the very culture and continuity of the                                                                                                    
organisation are designed for people to enjoy their work and                                                                                          
produce their best. All these are true.                                                                                                               
                                                                                                                                                      
Have we not been told that money is the most important                                                                                                
resource of the organisation, or that statesi of the art                                                                                              
technology will deliver excellent products which should then                                                                                          
take care of things for the organisation?                                                                                                             
                                                                                                                                                      
So why is it that management perts proclaim that employees                                                                                            
form the vital resource which ganisations must attract,                                                                                               
nurture and retain (this is not to be con fused with the                                                                                              
problems associated with a.tight labour market)?                                                                                                      
                                                                                                                                                      
Are not people an appendage of the production process the                                                                                             
extension of mechanical levers and optical scanners on the                                                                                            
factory floor?  Were we not once using people like extensions                                                                                         
of machines when our economy was less developed in the 70s?                                                                                           
                                                                                                                                                      
Now that the economy has become more sophisticated, the                                                                                               
manufacturing sector, principally, still employs people as                                                                                            
mindless workers (often the service sector is guilty of the                                                                                           
same). To a great extent, this seems to be the way in                                                                                                 
manufacturing, even though it may not. be a preferred choice,                                                                                         
and it will continue to be so as long as the industry remains                                                                                         
duplicative in nature.                                                                                                                                
                                                                                                                                                      
In crossing over to innovative manufacturing, employees will                                                                                          
have to be hired for their brains. The product improvement and                                                                                        
control over quality will have to originate from the assembly                                                                                         
line itself.                                                                                                                                          
                                                                                                                                                      
The company that makes mousetraps can no longer continue to                                                                                           
use the same method. It will now have to make "smart                                                                                             
mousetraps" through clever ideas.                                                                                                                
                                                                                                                                                      
Value will have to be added to the product. It has to be                                                                                              
versatile, more user friendly, more powerful has good service                                                                                         
back-up, and a lot cheaper.                                                                                                                           
                                                                                                                                                      
Entrepreneurs will be forced to rethink whether escalating                                                                                            
costs are the result of inefficiency or true value addition to                                                                                        
product.                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                      
Consider the video cassette recorder or the personal computer.                                                                                        
These are essentially hardware produced by the company's                                                                                              
software quality and knowledgeable employees.                                                                                                         
                                                                                                                                                      
We are at a stage where we have to employ people who are going                                                                                        
to contribute their brain power.                                                                                                                      
                                                                                                                                                      
In the past, organisations wanted to hire people with brains                                                                                          
but might not necessarily want them to use their brains. The                                                                                          
preferred culture of many organisations was "compliance with                                                                                     
rules over innovative work solutions." Employees were simply                                                                                     
required to follow procedures.                                                                                                                        
                                                                                                                                                      
When the authorities wanted to implement the use of the third                                                                                         
like light on vehicles, the government department that was                                                                                            
entrusted to implement this policy could only come out with a                                                                                         
set of rules requiring the light to be of a certain dimension                                                                                         
and placed a number of centimetres here and there.                                                                                                    
                                                                                                                                                      
All that was very neat on paper but nonsensical in practice.                                                                                          
Ministerial intervention finally resolved the issue. Needless                                                                                         
to say, a number of bureaucratic organisations today, be they                                                                                         
in the public or pri faithfulness of their employees to follow                                                                                        
archaic rules, no matter what.                                                                                                                        
                                                                                                                                                      
Perhaps this came about because of the unquestioned acceptance                                                                                        
of Fayol's concept of what the management process should be.                                                                                          
Control is essential and is the finality, and that used to be                                                                                         
conventional management wisdom (or still is?).                                                                                                        
                                                                                                                                                      
But excessive control in many organisations the kind that we                                                                                          
often encounter is counter productive and in substance                                                                                                
acknowledges the organisation's failure in hiring capable                                                                                             
people. When this happens, you want to trust your rules better                                                                                        
than your people.                                                                                                                                     
                                                                                                                                                      
Centralised authority constricts the organisation's ability to                                                                                        
respond effectively to change. But decentralised authority is                                                                                         
not equated with evaporating authority as many feared. Still,                                                                                         
the better you are able to follow rules in a bureaucratic                                                                                             
environment, the better you are thought to be and hence will                                                                                          
be appraised according to that anachronistic perception by                                                                                            
your superiors.                                                                                                                                       
                                                                                                                                                      
An organisation has to get its recruitment and selection                                                                                              
process right in order to hire the right sort of people.                                                                                              
Getting the right people first is certainly better than                                                                                               
getting your people right.                                                                                                                            
                                                                                                                                                      
Where there is overcentralisation of employee hiring for all                                                                                          
departments, decentralised hiring which would be more                                                                                                 
appropriate at addressing human resource specifics in large                                                                                           
organisations would be a better choice in lifting quality.                                                                                            
                                                                                                                                                      
The criteria for recruitment and selection will have to be                                                                                            
refocused, and departure from overused ideas years of                                                                                                 
experience, reward orientation and past performance is                                                                                                
inevitable.                                                                                                                                           
                                                                                                                                                      
This is because the old criteria focuses on the person's past                                                                                         
and short term needs. Organisations will have to adopt a new                                                                                          
set of criteria centred on employee learning, potential and                                                                                           
performance motivation. When that is done, employees will now                                                                                         
be considered soft assets that will manage and optimise the                                                                                           
use of hard assets of the company to good effect.                                                                                                     
                                                                                                                                                      
Down the road, the traditional accounting system will have to                                                                                         
be rewritten to show what kind of soft assets the organisation                                                                                        
truly has in its balance sheet.