Managing Human Resources

Book excerpt: Students taking a personnel or human resources management course often do not enter the course bursting with curiosity or unbridled enthusiasm. After all, what kind of excitement can there be in studying how to process payroll, check employment references, or learn about some arcane government regulation? It is unfortunate and ultimately self-defeating if such a mindset about human resources persists, because in today's business world, organizational success and competitive advantage come from the "people" side of the business--a workforce that is highly competent and committed to the success of the organization. The key for students in this field is to learn how to use human resources management (HRM) to achieve this advantage. It is important for students to learn to identify, develop, and manipulate policies and programs to produce desired outcomes. A wide range of critical HRM experiences are presented in this book as either exercises, applications, or experiments--all designed to help students see the choices available and experience their implications in managing the organization. They also offer examples of how HRM function must operate within a framework of rules and regulations. More specifically, this book contains over 30 different situations that illustrate both classic and contemporary human resources problems. It covers the entire spectrum of HRM from establishing policies and goals, through job analysis and evaluation, personnel planning, selection and appraisal, to compensation and benefits, training, organizational improvement, and safety and labor relations. Most of the situations described are drawn from the real-life experiences of managing human resources, including several cases from today's headlines. The case exercises, applications, and experiments are designed to be used as part of regular classroom instruction and can be used with any textbook. The exercises incorporate a number of different learning processes, including case discussions, self-assessments, interviews of others, data analysis, team teaching, testing, experimental observation, program creation and design, role-playing, exercise simulations, training, and participation in experiments. The teacher can use these experiential learning activities to supplement regular classroom instruction; the activities clarify, crystallize, and expand the understanding gained from the lectures. Of special interest: * All of the exercises can be conducted during class times or can be used as homework assignments. * The instructor's manual is organized for easy use with a summary of each case, guidelines for administering each case, plus supplemental or background information. * An exercise planning table links each exercise with the chapters found in a number of the most commonly used HRM textbooks. * Most of the cases are based on actual events, drawn from the author's professional or consulting experience or from events first reported in the national media. Each case is intended to replicate and carry a high degree of fidelity to "real world" conditions as fully as possible. * The experiments in the book are intended to serve as both discovery processes and illustrations of the procedures and rules invoked in developing human resources systems. In many of these experiments, students draw on their own background and perspectives to test out various points of view. The experiments illustrate some of the underlying research that often serves as the basis for HRM policies and procedures.