In the context of team/project management, I would define an asset as someone who brings a certain value and when properly nurtured can bring in more value and returns to the team in line with the team and organization’s objectives. Similarly a resource would be someone who also brings certain value but is usually utilized rather than nurtured and thereby starts losing value over a period of time. From what I have experienced, to get high performing teams you need to treat them as assets rather than as plain resources.

In the software industry, we are in an era where there is a high paced development on one side and technology changes happening at a higher rate on the other side. In such high demand scenarios, it is required to move away from resource management to managing people as assets. So what does this broadly mean ? Personally I would broadly define this as managing the below 5 aspects.

Career Growth

Career growth is extremely important as this sustains the interest and accelerates the momentum of an employee. Career growth also becomes important vis-à-vis peers, an aspect that is usually avoided by most people. Ultimately growth is relative and the relativity is often arrived at via comparisons. As a result it becomes crucial to ensure that growth of peers are also seen to be fair and appreciated. This is only possible in an atmosphere of mutual appreciation and respect, primarily towards those who are managing or deciding on the growth. Often managers avoid discussion on the career growth in the fear that any discussion can lead to a demand for promotion. This usually ends up affecting those people who bring in more value with less demands. In a case that I still remember, there was a good friend of mine who had 3 managers in 5 years and not one had asked him about his growth plans. It was clear that he was being utilized for the skills that he had and no one was interested in either increasing his skills or understanding his aspirations. It was a classic case of treating the person as a resource rather than an asset. When treating a person as an asset, one needs to understand in detail the aspirations of the person, define workable goals in that direction and guide the person in achieving the same.

Talent enhancement

When career growth is given importance, talent enhancement automatically comes into play. When the career growth aspirations of an individual is understood, to guide the person in that direction requires enhancing the talent of an individual. With resources, the intention is usually to utilize his existing talent as long as possible and with no thought put into the future of the team or the individual. In some cases, managers frown upon the training asks of the individual and overly worried that such asks could impact the immediate task on hand. The issue here is that there is always an immediate task in hand and hence all asks are frowned upon. This is a typical case of utilizing a persons skills rather than working towards enhancing the talent. Talent enhancement is not an easy task as this involves planning and aligning the plan with the objectives of the team and person. This usually happens over a couple or more years and both the manager and individual need to have an understanding and appreciation of why this is being done. The moment a person is treated as an asset, talent enhancement automatically comes into focus. This is an important activity to ensure that the value of the individual keeps increasing rather than decreasing.

Communication

To achieve the above aspects of career growth and talent enhancement, the most important aspect is communication – primarily between the manager and the individual. Communication is not the same as talking. There could be a 1:1 meetings every week but it is of no use if the discussion is either one way or a discussion just to fill the calendar. Communication starts with listening and mutual appreciation of both agreements and disagreements. Once the foundation has been laid properly, the communication becomes very effective and it is easier to understand concerns, explain objectives, work together on a plan and guide each other in achieving mutual goals. The last point is important because both the manager and individual are working towards their respective goals and communication is the aspect that binds individuals and brings around an overall success in other aspects. When communication fails, all the other aspects described would automatically fail.

Infrastructure/ Working Environment

An easy way to understand whether an organization / team treats its members as assets or resources is by looking at the working infrastructure vis-à-vis the scale of the organization. Given the fact that most of the people spent more than half of their productive day at office, it is important to have a working environment that enables you in your productivity rather than hindering the same. Very often in the name of empowerment, one finds that all the overheads are actually pushed to the individual. As an example, in one of the instances the IT department of a company lost the records of a hardware and in turn asked the individual to produce the records of the hardware status. Almost 2 days were spent by this person in tracing the hardware out and ultimately it was discovered to be present in one of the data-centers of the IT department! While the above is a case of process, a more visible aspect is the way working desks are designed. In cases where the team members are treated as assets, the design of workspace is more focused towards improving individual productivity. In cases where they are treated as resource, the focus of workspace design is more on monitoring people activities and fitting in more head count in a limited space. Infrastructure is usually an ignored aspect of building asset based team. It is one of the primary enables towards building assets.

Respect for Individual

The last but not the least aspect is the respect for the individual – his family, his personal time, his vacation, his health, etc. Sometimes people forget the fact that the individual also has a personal life and this can greatly impact the working relationship. This usually manifests itself in the form of unscheduled and unnecessary calls late into the day/weekends, stretching the working day late into the night purely out of anxiety rather than need. In one of the projects, the manager had no regards whatsoever for his team members. Meetings were set up at early in the morning and late into the evening to ensure that the people stretched out at work. This happened regularly, purely out of anxiety and not once did he express a regret nor thank the individuals and families involved. This probably is an extreme case, but highlights how people are viewed as resources and not as assets. The first step in considering people of your team as assets is to respect them as an individual. All other aspects would automatically follow.