INVENTORY OF HUMAN RESOURCES: ELEMENTS AND EXAMPLE - DUDAS - 2025

The inventory of human resources is a detailed record of the basic information of the personnel who work in an organization. This offers the company to know the human potential it has, thus allowing it to make decisions that allow the effective use of those resources.

In modern times this inventory has become a very important tool, as it systematically provides data on the knowledge and skills of employees. This would be taken as the basis for training, promotions or possible openings to new jobs.

For these reasons, it is a priority that the inventory of human resources keep the information updated, so that it guarantees that the data contained is relevant and useful. Within a company, the most important capital is its workers, its operation and evolution largely depend on them.

With a good inventory of human resources the company will enhance the capacities and abilities of the workers, successfully heading towards the achievement of its goals.

Elements of the human resources inventory

It is convenient to implement a non-standardized inventory of human resources in the company. The ideal is to design your own instrument, which can provide the information that the company needs. These are some of the items that this inventory contains:

General data

They make it possible to have individual and family information associated with the worker, which will allow a global vision of the worker in these aspects. This element is divided into two sections:

Personal information

The data in this section make up the identification of the worker, such as the identification number, full name of the worker, place and date of birth, age, nationality, sex, marital status, home address, room phone and mobile phone.

Family information

This section includes data on the worker's immediate family members. For example, full names of father and mother, ages of parents, full name of spouse, age of spouse, number of children, full name of children, date of birth of children, ages of children.

Work experience

The worker's employment history is of the utmost importance. With this information you can build a profile on their job development.

All companies where you have worked should be listed, starting with the most recent. For each company you must indicate:

- Company name.

- Telephone and address.

- Date of entry and date of discharge.

- Positions held and functions performed.

- Name and position of the last immediate boss.

- Reason of exit.

Health data

It consists of a detailed report and its collections where the integral health status of the worker is reflected, such as:

- Medical and laboratory examinations carried out in pre-employment.

- Prevacational and post-holiday medical exams.

- Allergies.

- Physical limitations to do some type of work.

Skills and abilities

Here all the skills and abilities that the employee possesses will be reflected, whether or not they are directly related to the position that the worker occupies within the organization. Their strengths and weaknesses are also listed.

Academic training

It refers to all the information concerning the employee's educational level.

- Basic education.

- Higher education.

- Postgraduate studies (specialization, master's, doctorate).

- Courses and workshops held.

- Command of foreign languages.

- Other curricular experiences (publication of works, acknowledgments from public or private entities).

Job performance within the company

This element includes the results of all the performance evaluations of their work exercise applied to the worker in each of the positions they have held within the company.

Evaluation

Understand the information provided by the attitudinal, logic and personality tests that make up these evaluations.

How is it done?

Data can be recorded and stored in two ways: manual or digital. Both offer positive and negative aspects to inventory, and its use will depend on the size and characteristics of the organizational structure.

Ideally, collect and store HR inventory information with a combination of the best of each.

To prepare an inventory of human resources, a series of steps must be followed, which are detailed below.

Meet the staff

Knowing the staff is of the utmost importance. It would be ideal to be able to identify what type of communication (oral or written) is the strength of the worker, since this would help to determine the ideal instrument to collect the information.

If a questionnaire is applied to someone who shows difficulty writing or an interview to an extremely withdrawn person, the results will not be totally reliable.

All the information contained in the inventory of human resources must be accompanied by the corresponding supports and precautions that allow to guarantee said information.

The interview prior to the application of the instrument is key to creating a comfortable environment where the activity can take place and, at the same time, obtaining the information that allows choosing the instrument to collect the required information.

Information gathering

The following instruments can be used to collect the data:

Individual interviews

It consists of gathering information using already structured questions. Here a direct communication with the employee is established, which can be used to observe other aspects of the worker, including non-verbal language.

Questionnaires

They are a set of questions aimed at obtaining the data required to carry out the inventory of human resources.

In this particular case, open-type questionnaires are more accurate than closed-type or multiple-choice questionnaires, since the worker will thus be able to freely answer the questions.

Direct observation

This technique is very useful since it allows us to see the behavior of the worker in daily work situations, being able to identify aspects such as conflict management, type of communication used, leadership and values.

Expert opinion

A faithful example of this type of observation includes the evaluations made to the worker about his performance in the position. In these, the judgment made by the expert constitutes an important basis for possible internal promotions.

Information evaluation

The data found in the inventory is of great value when making an evaluation of the worker.

From the correct interpretation of these, data can be obtained that reflect both the need for employee training and the idea for excellent development strategies of the company.

Example

Here are examples of forms and automated systems that are necessary to compose the inventory of human resources.

References

1. Mbaskool (2018). Human resource inventory. Taken from: mbaskool.com.
2. Wisenepali (2018). Importance of Human Resource Information System, HR Inventory. Taken from: wisenepali.com.
3. Management innovations (2008). HR: Recruitments Basics. Taken from: managementinnovations.wordpress.com.
4. Society of human resource management (2016). Strategic Planning: How can a skills inventory be used for strategic HR planning? Taken from: shrm.org
5. Joseph MacCafferty (2005). A human inventory. Taken from: cfo.com.