JAC FITZENZ

In 1969, I came upon a group of people who had been told they were an expense to the organization and did not generate any value. I questioned how could it be true that an organization would spend money on people who did not generate a positive return on that investment (ROI)?

The notion that people do not generate value is incredibly short sighted. Machines don’t make things. All nonhuman, physical, organizational assets are inert. People make things happen by designing and operating machines and systems effectively. Without human action all assets would simply deteriorate. How did we change this traditional view?

The answer was within the processes that produce measureable outcomes. In the case of human capital ROI analysis, the basic processes are hiring, paying, training and retaining. Within each process are a number of measureable variables. They are cost, time, quantity, quality and human reaction. Once I identified this combination the problem was solved, but not without the naysayers fighting it.

In 1985, I wrote the first book in this field. It was titled How to Measure Human Resources Management. Thirty-five years later the 3rd edition is still selling, proving the inherent validity of the analysis. Over the following 30 years I wrote and co-authored 11 other books that expanded the premise from basic evaluation of past results to predicting the outcome of future investments.

This website is dedicated to those brave souls who faced the doubters and proved that people are the value generators.