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.
Cliff Williams is the author of the bestselling maintenance novel People: A Reliability Success Story. He’s a maintenance educator and a keynote speaker at conferences around the world who believes success is achieved through people. Currently, Cliff enjoys sharing his knowledge and experience as a facilitator of PEMAC’s Asset Management Certificate Program and as an advisor on M&R for People and Processes, Inc. Hehas just retired as the corporate maintenance manager with ERCO Worldwide, a Canadian chemical producer.
