Introduction
Human resource management has always been a problematic topic in that it requires authors and reviewers to consider its positive and negative aspects.
The positives
“Follow the money.” Because approximately 60‐75 per cent of an organization’s operating budget goes toward employee pay and benefits, human resource management is where the action is in today’s organizations.
Flexibility and variability. Unlike financial resources, human resources are neither finite nor exact. Employee productivity (individual or team‐based) depends on employee motivation, organizational leadership and the quality of HRM systems related to staffing, employee development, performance appraisal, reward systems and other personnel functions. It has always been accepted that employees and organizations use each other. It is a necessary and mutually beneficial relationship that, at its best, offers organizations adaptability and profit, and employees’ financial security and self‐fulfillment. This is particularly true in developing countries, where human resource development through education, health and other social programs frequently compensates for lack of capital or other resources in the national development process.
The negatives
There is no free lunch. Employee motivation and productivity require careful attention to organizational processes like adequate training or selection criteria, clear expectations, timely feedback, and meaningful rewards. In their absence, management interest in productivity improvement is unlikely to result in permanent positive changes. As a memorable Dilbert cartoon said several years ago, there are no “BIFFs” (“big improvements for free”).
People can be problematic. While human resources may indeed be variable and flexible, human nature is also sometimes a barrier to productivity improvement. People take time. Solutions to human performance problems are individually crafted, subject to revision, and fundamentally uncertain. Nor do they always produce the desired results. While the principles of motivation and performance are well established, we would do well to remember the conclusion world‐famous psychologist Abraham Maslow reached in Eupsychian Management, the published journal he kept while working as a management consultant to a California electronics firm shortly before his death: “Some people are bastards and you just have to treat them like that.”
“Personnel directors have forked tongues.” In the Hollywood cowboy movies that marked my childhood, someone who spoke with a “forked tongue” was, like a snake, not to be trusted because he or she was a traitor – someone who said one thing and meant another, or said two different things to two sides. The contemporary HRM environment shares this “image problem” because it reflects concern for two contradictory organizational objectives: asset development and cost control. “Permanent” employees are considered assets to be developed and maintained through training, employee assistance programs, and family‐friendly supervision and HRM policies. “Temporary” employees are hired to short‐term positions based on their current skills. Training and development are not part of the deal; and “personal” problems that may impact work performance (such as child care, substance abuse, or financial issues) remain just that – personal problems. Given the inherent conflict between these values and objectives, it is not surprising that cynics accuse HRM specialists (or supervisors) of sending unclear messages to employees and applicants. Indeed, even HRM directors and specialists agree that the contradictory working conditions affecting these two groups often causes them to work uneasily side by side in the same business.
The trends
Within this set of conditions and expectations, HRM has been affected by universal trends and conditions: globalism, diversity, legal requirements and information systems.
Globalism. The world is smaller than it used to be, because of increased possibilities and decreased costs of international communications and trade. With this comes increased awareness and competition for both inputs (capital and labor) and outputs (markets and products).
Diversity. Globalism means diversity, in that organizations must accustom themselves to dealing with a much wider range of languages, cultures and expectations – at home and abroad. While diversity might have been an externally imposed legal requirement in the past, today it is an internally driven response to competition in the global marketplace.
Legal requirements. The major objective of business is to make a profit, yet businesses have always had public policy objectives influenced (or dictated) by government laws and regulations. These include disclosure and marketing requirements directed at their dealings with customers and the general public, as well as personnel laws focused specifically on their dealings with employees – pay, benefits, discrimination, disclosure and other aspects of HRM policy.
Human resource management information systems (HRMIS). The ability of businesses to function and prosper in complex and turbulent environments, under conditions of change and uncertainty, requires information systems. These collect person‐ and organization‐related data, use them to produce periodic reports, and in turn use these reports to guide organizational policy and practice with respect to basic HRM functions like staffing, pay and benefits, employee development and performance appraisal.
The objective: strategic human resource management.
These trends, events and expectations come together in what is known as strategic human resource management – the deliberate and purposeful alignment of environmental conditions, public policy expectations, organizational objectives and employee characteristics to produce a concerted and integrated approach to HRM. This means two things. First, HRM is more than a collection of personnel functions used to manage human resources in organizations. It is also the process for allocating scarce jobs among applicants, the underlying values that reflect this choice, and the personnel systems (laws, policies and procedures) used to implement these values. Second, it means that specific functions (like pay or performance evaluation) are best considered not only as separate entities, but also as interrelated aspects of an integrated program (policy and practice) for handling human resources in the organization.
Criteria for an effective textbook
It is only be examining the field in advance that we can determine the appropriate criteria for assessing the adequacy of a textbook. These include conceptual clarity; good research; clearly interrelated objectives, discussion questions and case studies; organization and readability; and accessible suggestions for further research.
Assessment of Mondy, Noe and Premeaux (7th), Human Resource Management
By these standards, the sventh edition of this standard textbook is largely successful. It adopts a strategic approach to HRM: it considers the changing context of organizations, work and employees, and changing governmental requirements, before moving to a specific discussion of HRM functions.
The book is clearly written for use by graduate and undergraduate students. It defines key terms in context, contains numerous case studies and examples, and clearly ties discussion questions to chapter objectives. Each chapter has endnotes that refer to outside resources. For the most part, these are recent and relevant scholarly literature. The book’s style is readable and straightforward, with remarkably little scholarly or bureaucratic jargon. Visually, the text layout is attractive, with abundant graphics, text boxes and sufficient “white space” to aid organization and readability. The index is useful and relevant. And this text adopts an innovative approach to connecting text objectives to the Internet. At periodic points in the text, “HR Web Wisdom” directs readers to a Web page in the Prentice‐Hall Web site that discusses a topic in greater detail, and presumably also enables the authors to update the book with additional examples, case studies and case law analysis.
There are some details this reviewer would change, though these are issues of comparative emphasis rather than omission. First, the discussion of contingent workers (pp. 174‐6) might be expanded, given the importance of this trend to HRM in general and problems of leadership and performance in particular. By contrast, the discussion of collective bargaining comprises three of the book’s 17 chapters; less emphasis might be indicated by the steadily declining role of unions in the USA and the world, in historical perspective.
Third, while workforce diversity is discussed in some detail (pp. 46‐51), this discussion does not carry over completely to the subsequent discussion of workforce diversity programs (as different from EEO or affirmative action compliance) in Chapter 3.
But taken as a whole, this is an excellent textbook that will clearly help students work their way through the HRM core course in an undergraduate or graduate program in business administration. I found it enjoyable and informative, and recommend it for course adoption.
