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Sutherland (1999) stipulated that the most important of all capital is that invested in human beings. Law (1998), Vermeulen and Crous (2000) and Sloman (2005) took a position very similar to Sutherland (1999) by stating that people are indeed the most valuable asset of any enterprise. Sharma (1997, p.244) rightly stated: “There is no greater organizational asset than the trained motivated personnel.” Buzan and Keene (1996) in their book “ The Age Heresy” argued that humans could appreciate in value whilst machinery depreciate in value fast and become redundant. Simarly, Law (1998) commented that human capital is more valuable than property or fixed assets.

In contrast to many authors' opinion about employees being the most important asset, many companies still consider the development of people as a discretionary cost rather than a necessary investment. For many economists, the worth of something is not determined by its purpose but to its price. Prahalad (1972, p.169) rightly stated: “ To most line-managers, training has been by far an optional extra, to be indulged in when profits are good and to be dispensed with during lean periods.” He further added that traditional accounting practices considers all intangibles such as “ organizational capability and worth of human resources as expenses” but all tangibles such as investment in plant and equipment as investment.

Cunningham (2002, p.90) commented that for many organisations training is “ nice to have”, but not an essential. The training budget is the easier option when a company has to reduce costs. As such, companies tend to cut corners which render the training ineffective (Clements and Josiam, 1995).

This is an oxymoron. On the one hand, we have companies stating that employees are the most important assets but on the other hand, the same companies contradict themselves by viewing training as a cost rather than a worthwhile investment. All companies talk a lot about people development. But the moment things get tough; companies reduce training budgets, which may be a very short-sighted policy. If companies really believed about employees' development, this is the one thing they would ring fence (Clegg 2000).

Managers often complain about giving them a better class of workers and their problems will go away. Brown (1992) argued that employers are already equipped with a pretty good class of workers since after all they chose them. Indeed it is managers' responsibility to help employees improve.

The contributions of employees are often taken for granted though employees contribute a lot. Managers tend to believe in things that are visible to them but those whose contributions they cannot see tend to be neglected by them. Cartwright (2003,p.6) rightly stipulated:

Consider what Mickey Mouse is worth to Disney or what a gifted program writer is worth to Microsoft. The value may be impossible to calculate in absolute terms, but it is likely to be many times the conventional worth of either asset.

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