Customer Reviews

Tomorrow's HR Management: 48 Thought Leaders Call for Change

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"This book offers one approach to thinking about the future of HR. A number of other approaches can and have been used. Futurist methodologies have been applied to study the 'state of the art' and the future and have through surveys of thought leaders identified likely priorities for the future. Our approach", D.Ulrich, M.R.Losey, and G.Lake write, "to thinking about the future of HR parallels closely and draws heavily on a methodology used by F.Hesselbein, M.Goldsmith, and R.Beckhard (Leader of the Future, Organization of the Future)...We have tried to select thought leaders in three groups : academics who study and write HR issues, consultants who offer advice and councel on an array of HR issues, and HR professionals who practice the craft of HR in leading companies...Each of the contributors to this book was asked to write an original ten-page essay on 'the future of HR' as he or she chose to define it...Our hope in this book was for a unique variety of opinion : positive, negative; broad, narrow; optimistic, pessimistic; provocative, discreet; calls for change, calls for status quo (from the Introduction pp.2-3)."

In this context, Ulrich, Losey, and Lake organize the 37 essays into six general sections.Each of these sections deals with a series of questions such as :

Section I :

* What is the strategy of HR?

* What are the products and services of HR?

* How should HR be organized to ensure that the strategy is executed?

Section II :

* What are the future deliverables from HR work?

* What are the metaphors of the HR professional of the future?

* What are the actions for future HR professionals?

Section III :

* What is the history of HR?

* What of the past should be left in the past, and what should be adapted for the future?

* What set of conditions will create a new future?

Section IV :

* Where should HR work be done?

* How do we measure HR work?

* How do HR executives align HR work both inside and outside?

Section V :

* How is intellectual capital operationalized?

* How can HR practices be created that motivate and commit employees?

* What is the impact of humane treatment of employees?

Section VI :

* What are the HR implications of a more global business?

* How can HR practices help a business develop a more global outlook?

* What are the competencies of global leaders?

"If our purpose is to propose a debate about the future", D.Ulrich writes, "it is better to end with questions than with answers. Questions elicit new frameworks, approaches, and alternatives, so, the final two questions we would ask (with our answer) are :

* Do you want to play in this always changing and at times unclear future?

* Are you having fun?

Without a doubt, all the authors in this volume and many others of the best HR professionals we know answer with a resounding 'yes' (p.360)."

I highly recommend.

This book presents a wondeful overview of the topics affecting HR. I admit I was a little wary, because this is supposed to be about "tomorrow's" HR trends, and I bought it four years after publication. Despite that, it seems fresh, some of the forecasted trends have already come to pass, and this book is as impressive and essential as when it was first published. Maybe more so. Kudos all the way 'round.

Cualquiera que trabaje en Recursos Humanos DEBE de leer este libro. This books is about what HR should be in any organization where HR has any kind of value added. No se lo pierdan esta realmente "abre ojos", despierta al mas dormido de la funcion de Recursos Humanos. Even better than HR Champions.

I thought that this was a very cogent and insightful look at HRM as it comes into the 21st Century and redefines itself. I greatly appreciate that the essays feature a wide-range of thought leaders, from in-house HR staff to external consultants, to professors of management to I/O psychologists out in the field. The chapters offer excellent perspectives built upon years of experience and hard empirical research, which is a nice change of pace since a lot of the management literature is littered with flavor of the week theories and half-baked ideas without any substantial peer-reviewed research backing it up.

Personally, there are two things I saw that I thought could be improved upon. The first was that the overall theme that HR needs to become a strategic partner got a little redundant after about four chapters. Now, HR as a strategic partner is pretty much the new paradigm, perhaps so much that it's taken for granted. I do understand that at the time of the book's publication, the field was going through a little bit of an existential crisis and people were urging practitioners to take on more of a change agent role. It just got a bit annoying to be beaten over the head with that concept throughout the book. The other thing is that the book does focus almost exclusively on competiveness and the for-profit sector. I would have liked to have seen at least one chapter dedicated to HRM in the non-profit and public sectors.

As another reviewer said, despite this book being published in 1997, it's still relevant today. My favorite chapters were from Kennth Alvares, who described HR as an internal service center; Thomas Kochan, who gave a great neutral perspective on labor relations; David Ulrich, who wrote a piece on ethics; Kathryn McKee who dealt with the shifting responsibilites of HR as it goes through its existential crisis, and; Anne Tsui, who delineated an amazing perspective of comparative HR between Western and Eastern cultures.

This book is a must for every serious H.R. professional who want to know what are the coming challenges for the H.R. function. Remember Luck favor the well prepared mind.

This is an impressive collection of 38 insightful essays offering core ideas about HRM, focusing six central themes: departments need to operate as a business; today's environment means new roles for HR; HR needs to build on its past; new competencies, roles and use of measurement are vital; the human enterprise must remain central; and HR must adjust to the new global realities. Presents an impressive panorama of the newest thinking about HRM. Reviewed by Yvette Borcia, author of Stern's Sourcefinder: The Master Directory to HR and Business Management Information & Resources, Stern's CyberSpace SourceFinder, and Stern's Compensation and Benefits SourceFinder.