Consider that building a Pyramid is a project and the Pharaoh King established a kind of Construction Company that will work on building it. What does the King need for the company?!
In the Human Capital Aspect:
- CEO (The King)
- Head of Engineers
- Engineers
- Head of Foremen
- Foremen
- Head of money distribution (Chief accountant)
- Money distributor (Accountant)
(In Human Resources Management (HRM), this is called a manpower plan)
In the System/plan aspect:
- Vision, Mission, Goals
- Strategic plan (recruiting, selection, hiring, training…etc)
- Manpower plan (mentioned above)
- W.O.T analysis
- Budget plan (materials, labor, compensations, rewards, food budget…etc)
- Feasibility study
- Marketing
That is the system that runs all the organizations (humans, money, experience, and goals).
You have a goal and the experience and the funding to reach that goal, and now you can start calling people and pay for their efforts and experience to reach your goal. (That is what we can describe as a road map).
Good, now that we have a detailed ABC of Human Resources and Business functions, now what?
Let me mention some information that will help you understand what we are talking about.
The pyramids were built 25 centuries BC, that means the right vision, “trial and error” experience and a good recruiting and training strategy helped in building one of the seven world wonders.
We are going to focus on the great pyramid that took almost 20 years to build and 10 years to construct the corridors and lower parts. (Reference: The Greek historian Herodotus, who visited Egypt in the 4th century BC, more than 2000 years after building the pyramids).
Twenty years of building were definitely not a coincidence, surely they were aware of how long it would take and put that into consideration, and that is what we nowadays call scheduling. Not to mention that they used almost 100,000 workers (engineers, workers, shipbuilders, stone cutters, foremen, well-diggers,…etc.)
Twenty years of building and 100,000 workers, the project surely needed a great Budget plan and the engineers, ministers and King must have put the Feasibility studies into consideration.
The steps where 100,000 workers were chosen, recruited, trained and appointed immediately to the national project (building the pyramid) are called a strategic plan. In addition to that, what would make the people believe that their King would succeed in building such a building except a Vision, Mission, Goals? Finally, spreading that all over ancient Egypt is a benchmark of using Marketing.
Moreover, a port in the Nile near the pyramid is needed for cargo ships to transfer stones from Aswan quarries to quarries near the pyramid. Engineers worked all the time to analyze everything for perfect results in the end: 20 years of hard work. The 100,000 workers needed to eat within work days so they would slaughter thousands of cows every day to feed them, therefore there must have been a Food budget. The King, acted as a god, and let the workers in prayer to keep them motivated. Workers were paid daily for their efforts, which is called Labor. As for those who died during work, their families received compensations.
That is all great but what did they use S.W.O.T analysis for?
The great pyramid was not the first pyramid to be built in history, there were lots of pyramids in varied shapes built before, but engineering had developed and become unique for the first time in ancient Egypt and maybe the world. That happened after many attempts by the King’s engineers to reach perfection by studying previous kinds of architecture in primitive attempts. In modern times, this is called S.W.O.T analysis.
If you look at architecture as example in the ancient world and follow their greatness, you will find primitive forms of HRM, which appeared afterwards as a science in the 18th century, and have now started to become HCM (Human Capital Management).
Human Resources play an integral role in everything in our daily life, starting from one’s personal life and how it can be organized, to organizations and how they can balance everything to reach maximum success.
By: Mohamed Shouman
Photography: Mahmoud Mansi
EDITORS: Mennat-Allah Yasser Zohny & Nada Adel Sobhi