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Human Assets and Balance Sheet

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Submitted By ireneshow
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Accountants usually categorise employees as a liability due to their wages and superannuation. But in the place where companies offer services instead of goods, we often hear that human resources or people are the most valuable asset. The reasons why businesses don’t usually value human assets are: (1) in practice we just haven't worked out a proper way to value these people and it is difficult; (2) some companies also believe that they do not own people and therefore should not account for them. However, companies do benefits from their employee’s work. In companies such as Apple, human resources are core to the business success due to their knowledge, skills and creativity. They represent a valuable resource and should be placed on the left side of the balance sheet. The benefit of treating employee as valuable assets is that companies which invest in their employees create a positive environment so that they can work and perform better financially.
One example of an organization that has done this is Infosys (The Commerce Pedia, 2012), the giant Info Technology services firm in India. The entire workforce within the firm was assigned a value using an accounting model that calculates all of its employees’ collective worth. By doing this, Infosys has a significant commitment to investing in employees across all functions and levels of experience and the firm can take managerial decisions based on the availability and the necessity of human resources.
After considering the influence of the human capital investment, the accounting equation should be revised as “assets = liabilities + owners' equity”, where the assets include human assets and material assets.
With the recognition of the importance of human resource, it will be incorporated into the company's external financial reports to provide more reliable information.

Reference:
The Commerce Pedia, 2012,

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