Human capital management ( HCM ) is the comprehensive set of practices for recruiting, managing, developing and optimizing the human resources of an organization. The phrase connotes an approach to human resource management (HRM) that views employees as assets that can be invested in and managed to maximize their business value. Software HCM has come to be nearly synonymous with the human resources (HR) function in organizations. In HR technology, the comprehensive software systems for managing HR processes differ little from HCM suites. For example, the functions of most human resource information systems (HRIS) are often the same as HCM systems. However, some observers use HCM in a narrow sense to denote just the labor-scheduling and time-tracking functions of HR. HCM suites are sold either as components of enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems or as separate products that are typically integrated with ERP. In recent years, on-premises HCM has been superseded by software as ...