The rapid changes that have mainly been brought about by the information age are numerous and irreversible. They have affected our way of life on virtually every front and have left many old companies in ruins while causing other new ones to swiftly emerge and grow to great unprecedented profitability, literally overnight.

But despite everything, there are still a few things that have not changed. For example computers cannot think for themselves and make the appropriate decisions, at least not yet. So a human needs to analyze the data and then based on the information, to make a decision on what to do before finally feeding the computer with instructions for implementation.

In actual fact human resources have become even more important in this information age. While it is true that corporations have massively cut back on people (and still continue to do so), the truth is that many of these jobs have been transferred to other areas and departments. For example most businesses have fairly significant staff numbers helping to run their websites.

Despite what may have been thought earlier, it is becoming increasingly clear that the human resource element in business is in fact growing in importance and not shrinking or declining in significance. A lean enterprise for example means that there are virtually no employees to act as checks and balances of important tasks and decisions made.

Secondly, the skills required from human resources are absolutely critical in any online operation. Take for example, online marketing which is not simple and straightforward as it is offline. Staff resources with those skills are in high demand.

It has therefore become very important for workers to be motivated and skilled enough to work on their own with minimal or no supervision in the new lean way of doing things in corporations everywhere.

Human resource management and staff motivation are still very important and are in fact the often-ignored-keys to success in this exciting and yet chaotic information age.

Copyright ? 2005 Chuck Yorke - All Rights Reserved

Chuck Yorke is an organizational development and performance improvement specialist, trainer, consultant and speaker. His specialty is helping companies improve by tapping into the creative ideas of their workers. He is also co-author, along with Norman Bodek, of All You Gotta Do Is Ask, a book that explains how to promote large numbers of ideas from employees. Chuck may be reached at ChuckYorke@yahoo.com http://www.peoplekaizen.com/