The term `Human Capital' has been used to realise the worth of the employees and the value of people.`` The idea is to redefine human capital services as a highly interactive process to maximise the return on human capital investments'', says Mohan Monteiro, Senior Manager, Arthur Andersen.

Says Jairaj Purandare, Country Partner, Arthur Andersen: ``We will be create the market and bring about a new awareness in the HR function making it more strategic. The thrust will be to move away from issues like Industrial Relations and fighting emergencies thereby making HR a more strategic function which is compatible with the organisation'sgoals''.

The company is presently focussed on recruiting consultants for their Bombay and Delhi offices. The applicants have to be armed with a degree in personnel managements or an MBA degree from XLRI, TISS, IIM or any other premier institute. Besides an experience of up to five years is required with a multinational or a consulting organisation in areas like HR strategy, re-engineering HR systems, compensation surveys and structuring, human resource policies and climate surveys and organisa-tional assessments. The age limit is 35 years.

Assisting clients with human capital systems is now the main aim of the company.``It is a focus area of growth for us'', adds Purandare who feels the subsidiary role of HR has to be changed.`` The need to beef up HCS was made imperative by the fact that the Indian economy was opening up with more opportunities for setting up HR-related functions for multinationals and joint venture companies. Besides many of the indigenous family owned businesses were realising thatthe biggest assets were their people'', says Purandare.

In fact successful organisations recognise that a coherent HR strategy must be flexible to cope with a myriad of contradictions and challenges such as - reconciling the need to be lean and mean while treating employees as human beings: - Encouraging employees to be innovative while retaining some semblance of control and order - Delivering clear leadership and direction at the same time making employees feel involved and valued.

Arthur Andersen established its HCS practice in India in 1994 operating out of the tax and business advisory division and comprises of 35 dedicated professionals with specialisation in human capital services management. Today HCS deals with - People strategy and HR management - Compensation/Equity incentives - International Compensation/ expatriate tax - International HR/ Mobility Management - Retirement, actuarial and benefits - Human Capital Sourcing/ technology solutions - Performance appraisal systems Other areas ofspecialisation would include retention, career and succession planning, organisational culture assessment and training and development.

With a cross section of skills HCS forms teams of professionals from numerous specialisations including human resource, change management consultants, taxation professionals, compensation analysts, accountants and lawyers, pooling in from their worldwide resources to offer their clients tailored solutions to meet their business needs. The objective is clear - to make a difference to the global and domestic competitiveness of their clients through their best asset, not on balance sheets - but their people.

Their significant domestic clients include SmithKline Beecham Consumer Healthcare Ltd., Telco, Pfizer India, Philips India Ltd and Volvo among others.