Imperfect reflections : The challenges in implementing human capital assessment in libraries

Purpose – This is the second of two papers on the benefits and challenges of human capital assessment. The purpose of this paper is to review the most common challenges that library administrators may encounter when developing and implementing a human capital assessment process in their libraries and offer suggested counter‐responses to reduce implementation challenges. Design/methodology/approach – This paper uses a literature review to identify potential challenges and resolutions for library administrators who are developing and implementing human capital assessment. In reviewing human capital assessment from the literature from both outside and within the library profession, it is hoped that the most common challenges can be identified to allow library administrators an effective opportunity to plan and account for these challenges during development and implementation. Findings – Human capital assessment is an increasingly essential element of organizational performance assessment for library administrators. There are several types of common challenges in developing and implementing human capital assessment processes: a lack of consensual operational definitions and assessment values for human capital valuation and assessment, complexity of process, subjectivity in application, and misaligned information needs of mid‐level administrators. However, if these development and implementation challenges can be reduced or eliminated through prior planning and aligning the valuation and assessment processes to the organization and its assessment information needs, there are multiple potential benefits for library administrators who wish to assess the human capital of their library. Originality/value – Identifying the implementation challenges of human capital assessment for library administrators could reduce the initial challenges of in assessing the human component of the library's performance in meeting stakeholder's needs and accountability concerns.