Human Resource Management: An Applied Approach

Although some students will go on to become managers requiring a working knowledge of human resource management (HRM), all students will eventually use this knowledge in some way. This book has been written to prepare both, through personal development to help them all understand HRM in order to optimize the benefit that derives from it. And to make the subject engaging while developing long-lasting impact, we focus on developing both skill andknowledge so students learn how to take action in addition to learning about HRM. By helping to successfully acquire, deploy, and motivate the right talent, HRM is critical to every manager s and organization s success. The central theme of our book is helping you understand how to use HRM to hire, develop, motivate, and retain the right people and bring out the best in employees to execute the company s business strategy and secure a competitive advantage. Our book is intended for those who are or who might become a manager or an HRM professional. We discuss the roles of HRM professionals, managers, and employees in the design and implementation of effective HRM systems, and include many current examples of how HRM is executed in organizations. Because there is rarely a single best way to implement HRM, every chapter has an HR Flexiblity feature that highlights how HR needs to be flexible to best meet the needs of different situations. The Global Issues feature in each chapter discusses how HRM practices differ around the world and how HRM needs to be adapted to best meet the demands of different global and cultural contexts. Each chapter s Develop Your Skills feature focuses on improving a specific skill related to that chapter s topic. By developing your competence and confidence in using important HRM skills, this book will help you become a more effective manager through the better use of HRM tools and practices. The importance of the context of HRM, including laws, ethics, and globalization, is woven throughout the book. How organizations are using various technologies to improve and facilitate the execution of HRM is also described. Each chapter opens with a Real World Challenge, describing an actual HRM situation faced by a company or manager to highlight the business importance of the chapter s topic and to prompt reflective reading. The chapters conclude with the Real World Response, which describes how the organization or manager handled the situation to show how the chapter concepts were applied. In addition to the case study contained in each chapter, the Real World Challenge is designed to improve analytical and problem-solving skills. We wrote this book to be very experiential and to cultivate skill development. Rather than just learning about HRM, we also want you to become better at HRM. Developing your HRM skills will make you a more effective manager and will make your job easier no matter what field you are in. A book-long integrated project, case studies, videos, and numerous exercises develop readers personal skills and provide some experience in applying various HR concepts. The Happy Time Toys videos written and filmed exclusively for this book reinforce the relevance of the textbook material and enhance decision-making, analytical, and HRM skills. We wrote the book to be engaging to read. We include many practical examples, and focus on teaching HRM as it is done today. We also provide many opportunities to develop your HRM-related skills, and we hope that you find these activities to be both developmental and enjoyable. If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions about the book please feel free to contact us at phillipsgully@gmail.com.