European Management Journal Vol. 21, No. 1, pp. 1–10, 2003  2003 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved. Pergamon Printed in Great Britain 0263-2373/03 $30.00 + 0.00 doi:10.1016/S0263-2373(02)00149-4 Managing Personal Human Capital: New Ethos for the ‘Volunteer’ Employee LYNDA GRATTON, London Business School SUMANTRA GHOSHAL, London Business School The relationship between individual employees and their employing organizations is undergoing fundamental changes. Increasingly, the employee is less a malleable resource for the company and more a mobile investor of his or her own human capital. Defining human capital as the composite of an indi- vidual’s intellectual, social and emotional capitals, this article suggests some new ethos that such ‘vol- unteer’ employees need to adopt as they take greater personal responsibility for both developing and deploying their personal human capital.  2003 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved. Keywords: Human capital, Volunteer employees, Career success, Employing organizations, Employees Introduction We are witnesses to some sweeping changes in the nature of the relationship between individuals and organizations. The geneses of these changes lie not in the managerial rhetoric to empower the workforce: they have occurred as a response to fundamental changes in society, in the nature of labor markets and in the talents and aspirations of individuals. The present temporary reversal notwithstanding, changes in the demographics of most countries have placed young talent at a premium across the globe, and with this ‘war for talent’ has come the opportunity for the new generation to shape the way they work. At the same time the ‘generational markers’ of those entering the workforce are very different from those of the ‘baby boomers’ who are currently running European Management Journal Vol. 21, No. 1, pp. 1–10, February 2003 1 industry. The new entrants prefer working in teams, demand an exciting and stimulating work environ- ment and, most importantly, value autonomy in career. Many have seen their parents sacrifice their personal needs to meet company requirements. They have vicariously experienced the tragedies of the ‘organizational man’ (Whyte, 1956) and are determ- ined not to fall victim to the forces of depersonaliz- ation in the traditional model of individual-organiza- tion relationship. These changes in the relationship between the employer and the employee echo a broader revol- ution which is reshaping social institutions all around us. At the heart of this revolution lie the democratiz- ing forces that push for modernity. The concept of democracy is built around some foundational prin- ciples: the creation of circumstances in which people can express their potentialities and their diverse qual- ities; protection from the arbitrary use of authority and power; involvement of people in determining the conditions of their association; and expansion of opportunity to develop available resources. 1 These forces of democratization are transforming individ- uals’ relationships at all levels — with other individ- uals, with organizations, and with broader collectives such as the State. In this sense, the changes we are witnessing in the employment relationship are very similar to the changes Anthony Giddens has described in the nature of human intimacy and in the institution of marriage 2 — the shift, for example, from investing in life-time relationships to ‘serial monogamy’ characterized by a series of close relationships governed by the expectation that these relationships need to be made to work, yet will inevi- tably not last. 3 These changes also follow closely the