Making Privatization Work: Utilizing a Scorecard Model of Human Resource Strategy

Three-fourths of privatization efforts fail. Analyses of the other one-fourth have overlooked what is arguably the single most important element: successful management of human resources. In establishing the culture of change necessary to effect competitive initiatives and in motivating employees toward innovation and accountability, a scorecard-based human resource strategy is at the center of it all. A discussion of the strategic role of human resource management supporting privatization efforts in general, and of the remarkably successful Charlotte, North Carolina experience in particular, offers important lessons. Detailed here is a rubric of what works and why.