Electronic Readings

Part 1
Introduction

• The nature of human resource management
• Strategic human resource management
• Planning: jobs and people
• Part I Focus on skills
• Interactive skill 1: Face-toa-face skills

The first part of the book has three chapters and a Focus on skills to introduce various dimensions of what human resource management involves. Chapter 1 sets the scene by describing the way in which human resource management works today and then explains how it has evolved to its present form over the hundred years of its existence as a separate function of management. It shows that present-day practice is not only a response to contemporary business demands and social expectations, but also an amalgam of different features which built up throughout the twentieth century and continue in the twenty-first. Later there is a philosophy for human resource management. This is followed by summaries of major debates in the field.

Chapter 2  concentrates on strategy in personnel and human resource management. We see the way in which HR specialists make their strategic contribution, drawing a distinction between a human resource strategy and strategic human resource.

Chapter 3  is different from all the others in having a strong focus on the analytical techniques and processes involved in planning relating to jobs and people.

The Part I Focus on skills  begins a series of treatments of the way in which being effective in different face-to-face situations is a fundamental feature of life for all in human resource management.