Human Resource productivity...& ...ICT

Human Resource productivity is a result of so many factors such as health are, nutrition, motivation, remuneration, education and training, division of labour, effective administration and the quality of tools at the employees disposal including ICT tools. In recent years ICT has been playing a non dominant role in determining the productivity of the employees. It is argued that even the relatively rich economies seeking to capture some of the key industries of the next century, will need to create the conditions and environment necessary for creativity and innovation essential for moving into and being competitive in the knowledge-based industries which will provide the highest value-added for economies. Perhaps, this was what led Drucker (1992:25) to emphasis that “we now know that the source of wealth is something specifically human knowledge. If we apply knowledge to tasks we already know how to do, we call it “productivity”. If we apply knowledge to task that are new and different, we call it” innovation. Only knowledge allows us to achieve these two goals.
It is argued that the emergence of knowledge and application is the main determinants of competitiveness and the major driver of this is ICT. High productivity depends on the quality of human capital (and on how human resources are used) a lesson to be learnt from the developed countries. As contended by Drucker (1992), productivity is arguably the most important social event in the development of countries in the past hundred years. Education, management and training shorten the time-span within which a country with low wage costs can achieve higher productivity. Although with high productivity wages are expected to rise there has been a steady decline in the importance of other research input such as natural resources in creating national wealth. Information and advances in other technology have increased the demand for intelligent workers who can extract the most out of technology, as well as for people at higher levels to create and adopt technology to new uses.
It is argued that HRD has played a significant role in the quick and rapid industrialization and general development of such countries as Singapore, Hong Kong, the Republic of Korea, Taiwan, China, and earlier in Japan (World Bank, 1993a) . The World Bank studies of East Asian development has identified investment in human capital as one important factor contributing to the rapid development of the East Asian countries enabling it to periodically upgrade labour skills and the economy (Birdsall and Sabot 1993) . The Asian experience gives a direct account of how HRD could easily lead to higher economic growth.
For example, by 1990, raw materials after adjusting for inflation, were approximately 40% less than they were in 1970 (International monetary fund privy commodities: market development and outlook, July 1990:26).

PRODUCTIVITY
Perhaps it is fair to state that the biggest problem faced by any person who is put in charge of the management of any resources is the problem of how to raise productivity. The utilization of resources often raises the problem of economic use. For a venture or an activity to be regarded as productive the ratio between input and output must be positive.