Human capital of Russian organizations: an alternative assessment approach

M odern economy sees efficient performance of some enterprises and companies, as well as regional and national economic systems to be associated with permanent improvement of human capital quality. This gives rise to certain requirements imposed on the employees to take retraining courses regardless of the nature of their work and their working conditions. These requirements do not actually bring any real knowledge and skills. Therefore, the purpose of this research is to measure the efficiency of human capital investment in the context of business needs in permanent expansion of employees’ education capital. The author applied a large-scale questionnairebased survey as the main method for collecting the source data to reliably sample the heads of the companies (deputy heads, leaders of the structural units) who work in Volgograd City and Volgograd Region. To receive more detailed information, some respondents were interviewed. Official public, regional and departmental statistics were also used as the database for the research. Data was processed with Statistica app. The research gives the following useful findings: 1) accumulated education capital is sufficient and ultimately satisfies the business performance of the national enterprises and companies; 2) regular expansion of human capital with regular retraining and advanced training courses is not a must for the employees and is seen to be an unavoidable measure to comply with the legislation. Thus, this does not deepen knowledge, improve skills and has no evidenced efficiency for all agents of the investment process (individuals, employers, state), because it does not increase their income in a measurable manner. Conclusions from the research prove the need to develop a comprehensive social and economic mechanism aimed to increase the efficiency level of investments into total human capital in a typical region of the Russian Federation. This mechanism can be derived from the current structure of human capital investment at all business levels, and fundamentally new events, institutes, and practices of human capital reproduction should be introduced in the regional economy.