Contemporry issues in HRM
CHAPTER 1
Introduction
During the first decade of the twenty-first century, human resource management
(HRM) thinking and practice have evolved in significant new directions. Issues and approaches that were previously seen in many organisations as being peripheral have moved to centre stage as HR agendas have been adjusted to take account of developments in the business environment. Hence we have seen much more interest in work–life balance issues, in HR ethics, partnership agreements and in the formal evaluation and measurement of HR practices. Ideas developed in the 1990s have moved from ‘fringe’ or ‘fad’ status to occupying a pivotal role in many organisations’
HR strategies. This is true of employer branding, the use of balanced scorecards, the fostering of positive psychological contracts, the provision of flexible benefits and the range of activities collectively comprising ‘e-HR’. Older, more-established approaches have been reconfigured and often relabelled to make them fit for purpose in the contemporary world. Workforce planning has thus been reinvented as talent management, pay administration has metamorphosed into total reward management, equal opportunities has become diversity management, while terms such as coaching, mentoring, competencies and business partnering have been accorded specific definitions in our professional vocabulary. We have also seen the emergence of some genuinely new areas of research and practice, such as strengthsbased performance management, formal strategies aimed at fostering well-being and happiness at work and the evolving employee engagement agenda. At the same time we have seen a substantial increase in the amount of regulation to which the employment relationship is subject, the emergence of skills shortages across a range of occupations and additional pressure both to intensify work and to increase levels of employee commitment. Last, but not least, we have seen the development of a
situation
Introduction
During the first decade of the twenty-first century, human resource management
(HRM) thinking and practice have evolved in significant new directions. Issues and approaches that were previously seen in many organisations as being peripheral have moved to centre stage as HR agendas have been adjusted to take account of developments in the business environment. Hence we have seen much more interest in work–life balance issues, in HR ethics, partnership agreements and in the formal evaluation and measurement of HR practices. Ideas developed in the 1990s have moved from ‘fringe’ or ‘fad’ status to occupying a pivotal role in many organisations’
HR strategies. This is true of employer branding, the use of balanced scorecards, the fostering of positive psychological contracts, the provision of flexible benefits and the range of activities collectively comprising ‘e-HR’. Older, more-established approaches have been reconfigured and often relabelled to make them fit for purpose in the contemporary world. Workforce planning has thus been reinvented as talent management, pay administration has metamorphosed into total reward management, equal opportunities has become diversity management, while terms such as coaching, mentoring, competencies and business partnering have been accorded specific definitions in our professional vocabulary. We have also seen the emergence of some genuinely new areas of research and practice, such as strengthsbased performance management, formal strategies aimed at fostering well-being and happiness at work and the evolving employee engagement agenda. At the same time we have seen a substantial increase in the amount of regulation to which the employment relationship is subject, the emergence of skills shortages across a range of occupations and additional pressure both to intensify work and to increase levels of employee commitment. Last, but not least, we have seen the development of a
situation