The decades of the late 80's and early 90's has witnessed a wave cost-cutting and downsizing. This was primarily the reason why corporate executives would flinch and cringe noticeably while mouthing the words, "our most valuable assets are our people." It is now, in the 21st century, that we believe more strongly when they make such a statement. Why? Simply because if they don't, a potential threat is posed before their very survival.

So, what has brought about this change? The foremost reason is that the bottom started dropping off the work force pool in the middle of the decade of the '90s and the economy was on a roll in terms of creating more jobs. Now, with the exponential growth in job opportunities, the flip side has been labor shortage, which is expected to only get worse once we reach the year 2020. At this time we will probably look back only to recall how easy it used to be to find and retain good people at the turn of the millennium.

Hunting for and keeping good people is now the on the top of concern list of 75 percent of CEOs throughout the country because the shortage of good workers is greatly retarding customer service, driving away business, limiting expansion and resulting in some companies going under. The incessant war for talent hunt is raging as companies are thriving to become the preferred employers by creating the most worker friendly environments, conditions and benefits.

In all big companies such as The Men's Wearhouse, Rosenbluth Travel and Southwest Airlines, the employees, since time immemorial, have come first. A lot of their resources are specially reserved for employee training, constantly inquiring about  things that would make their working lives better and then follow through with appropriate action.

Taking care of and fending for employees in this way has a direct impact on the employees in the form of them handling their customers better, and the business takes care of itself. Companies that experience turnover rates of less than 10% automatically have 10% higher customer retention than companies with turnover rates of 15 percent or more.

Realizing the vitality of human capital, big corporations have led to the creation of new job titles: chief knowledge officer, chief people officer, vice president and more. Corporations view their employees as human assets. Many business executives still have their reservations about these new practices, thinking that all this attention has become excessive. Research carried out by Jeffrey Pfeffer, author of the "The Human Equation," reveals that companies that care to allocate substantial resources towards a long-term human-asset strategy, also continually achieve returns of approximately 30% to 50% greater than those that do not indulge in the same.