Book excerpt: Human Capital Management (HCM) has recently been described as a high-level strategic issue that seeks to analyze, measure and evaluate how people policies and practices create value. Put simply, HCM is about creating and demonstrating the value that great people and great people management add to an organization. This unique book describes how HCM provides a bridge between human resource management and business strategy. It also demonstrates how organizations can use the concepts of human resource management and the processes involved to enhance the value they obtain from people while continuing to meet their aspirations and needs. Baron and Armstrong explain how to achieve these objectives using various approaches including describing the concept of HCM and how the process works, discussing its application in numerous areas within an organization and examining the role of HR in HCM and the future of the concept. It also contains a toolkit which organizations can use to develop their own HCM policies and practices.