HR Manager's Bookshelf<br> Strategic HR takes flight with new releases

The field of human resources continues its movement towards a more strategic, bottom-line focus. New books emphasizing HR’s strategic role and issues of corporate culture and performance are appearing at an ever-increasing rate.

Strategic Human Resources Planning
By Monica Belcourt and Kenneth McBey, 413 pages (soft cover), Nelson (2000). www.nelson.com

This newest title in the Canadian HR management series from Nelson is an academic text that doubles as a useful practitioner’s reference. The authors are both professors of HR management at York University in Toronto, and other contributors include faculty members at McMaster, Concordia and Saint Mary’s University.

The book’s premise is that different business strategies require different HR policies and practices: “HR professionals should be business partners in strategy formulation and implementation and should be concerned with the implications of strategic decisions on HR (management) practices.”

A range of strategy models is reviewed, along with HR alignment recommendations. Readers will find a variety of approaches to strategic partnering with line management in order to obtain:

•an external fit, alignment with business strategy;

•an internal fit, with other functional areas and among all HR programs; and

•a focus on results.

Individual chapters provide overviews of needs and methods for job analysis, HR management systems, demand and supply forecasting and measurement, and managing diversity. Dynamic succession management is described as a replacement for traditional succession planning, and it is illustrated as applied at Air Canada.

Strategic scenarios are then examined, along with their HR implications.

1. Downsizing and restructuring:

•effective and ineffective approaches to workforce reduction;

•survivor reactions and issues;

•consequences; and

•best practices.

2. International HR management:

•recruiting, staffing, assignments;

•performance appraisal and compensation;

•cross-cultural training and effectiveness; and

•international labour relations.

3. Mergers and acquisitions:

•reasons and types of mergers;

•HR impacts;

•cultural issues;

•HR planning and due diligence; and

•case study, the unified City of Toronto.

In the closing chapter, the book looks at trends for the future: new career models, alternative work arrangements, HR outsourcing and the key question of retention.

Adaptive Enterprise
By Stephan Haeckel, 295 pages (1999), Harvard Business School Press. At bookstores or (800) 565-5758, www.mcgrawhill.ca

This book is subtitled “Creating and leading sense-and-respond organizations” where change is viewed as a given, but as unpredictable. The goal is to become an adaptive enterprise. This contrasts with the model of a “make-and-sell” organization in which change is viewed as predictable and the goal is efficiency.

Written for a general management and CEO audience, it will appeal to those HR readers who want to understand leading-edge thinking about information and technology as related to organizational design and effectiveness.

Chapter headings include:

•adaptiveness, finding meaning in apparent noise:

•the role of leadership in sense-and-respond organizations;

•building organizational context;

•changing corporate DNA; and

•collaborative decision-making in adaptive enterprises.

Haeckel is director of Strategic Studies at IBM’s Advanced Business Institute. He maps out a step-by-step plan for transforming a company into “a new type of organization, one where change is not a problem to be solved, but rather a source of energy, growth and value.”

Wisdom of the CEO
By G. William Dauphinais and others, 372 pages (2000), Wiley. At bookstores or (800)567-4797, www.wiley.com

Senior HR professionals are constantly challenged to understand the issues facing their companies, and to gain the confidence in top management. Here’s a book that can help by offering CEO insights direct from “29 visionaries who are actively changing today’s business paradigm.”

The CEO messages are organized in eight sections addressing timely issues, such as globalization, growth, shareholder value, innovation, e-business, disruptive technology, and organization and knowledge management.

For example, readers will find descriptions of approaches to innovation at ABB, Sony and DuPont, and knowledge management at Novartis, Yahoo and Xerox.

How did a company in the locally based cement and building products industry take on “Organizing and managing for global success?” The story is told by the CEO of France-based Lafarge Group. In another chapter, Dell Computer Corporation’s Michael Dell describes “Creating and managing hypergrowth.”

Corning’s Roger Ackerman profiles his company’s need for both “monitoring the technological advances of competitors and discovering opportunities to create our own advances and disruptive breakthroughs.” Another goal is “ensuring that we are in businesses in which we can change the technology to win — and out of those in which we cannot.”

HR readers may be especially interested in the section on organization, where the authors give perspectives on “How dead is hierarchy?” (not very); “the virtual organization” (manifested mainly in outsourcing and strategic alliances); and market-driven structures and processes (gaining ground).

C. Michael Armstrong of AT&T writes about “slaying the dragon” in order to compete in a new environment, emphasizing customer culture, cost and competitiveness, risk-taking and decisiveness, urgency and accountability.

Johnson and Johnson CEO Ralph Larsen puts the focus on decentralization as the “crucible of growth:” “When I became chief executive, I had to relinquish my personal need to be in total control and instead rely on the abilities of the people running the 180 businesses.

“After all, I had to be willing to give these managers the same kind of rope that I was given. Real-world successes and failures spurred our growth and development, and honed our managerial skills.”

Other organizations featured in this book include Texaco, Ford, Blockbuster, US Postal Service, AlliedSignal, Baxter International and Lloyds TSB Group. The authors are U.S. and U.K.-based partners with PricewaterhouseCoopers.

The Changing Nature of Performance
Ed. by Daniel Ilgen and Elaine Pulakos, 452 pages (1999), Jossey-Bass, 1998. (888) 866-5559, www.josseybass.com

Evaluating and improving performance are increasingly difficult in a work world shaped by extensive change. This collection of views and findings by leading researchers, academics and practitioners will provide thought-provoking input for HR professionals interested in deeper, more analytical reading than offered in mainstream business books.

The expert contributions examine seven major change factors that significantly influence individual performance, organizational needs and expectations:

•technology;

•unique jobs;

•contingent employment;

•continuous learning;

•customer-driven performance;

•leadership; and

•adaptive teams.

The next section examines implications for staffing, motivation and development. For instance, the chapter on staffing probes the post-industrial workplace and the need for new predictors and selection criteria. What is successful performance, and would we recognize it when we see it? Do we want performance now or later? What is the optimal mix of environment, organizing work and staffing strategy in the face of turbulent change?

While the tone of the book leans toward the academic and the conceptual at times, there is considerable material here to assist HR leaders who are rethinking the effectiveness of their approach to defining, measuring and supporting performance in their organization.

Ray Brillinger is a senior consultant with the IBM Consulting Group. He provides change management, business transformation and organizational effectiveness services to client organizations. He can be reached at (905) 316-4646 or [email protected].

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