The specialized literature on human resources management has indicated important conceptual changes as well as changes in the role that human resource management plays in contributing value when it comes to building sustainable competitive advantages using the personnel and as a support to meeting organizational objectives. This article establishes the status of this issue in Colombian businesses, from the resource and capability-based view of the firm and through research that integrates a descriptive focus with a comprehensive one. According to the results, human resource areas are gaining maturity; the area is acknowledged as an organizational capability and the personnel as a source of success; and practice systems are appreciated as a condition for human resource management to add value. Two concerns remain pending: How to properly measure human resource management results and how little it contributes to forming technological capital. The article concludes by proposing an integral human resource management system.