This chapter discusses the dynamic environment of human resource management. It covers topics like globalization, technology changes, workforce diversity, continuous improvement initiatives, and contingent workers. It emphasizes that HRM must understand these implications and adapt practices accordingly. For example, HRM needs strategies for multilingual and multicultural employees. It also discusses how technology has changed work and affected HRM practices in areas like recruiting, training, and communication. Workforce diversity, work-life balance, labor supply issues, and continuous improvement programs are additional topics covered at a high-level.

1. Fundamentals of Human
Resource Management
Eighth Edition
De Cenzo and Robbins

2. Chapter 1
“Strategic Implications
of a Dynamic
HRM Environment”

3. Introduction
• The World of Work - continues to change, but at an even
more rapid pace.
• HRM must understand the implications of:
– globalization
– technology changes
– workforce diversity
– changing skill requirements
– continuous improvement initiatives
– the contingent workforce
– decentralized work sites
– employee involvement

4. Understanding Cultural Environments
Today’s business world is truly a global village.
This term refers to the fact that businesses
currently operate around the world. For e.g.
BMW.

5. Understanding Cultural Environments
• HRM must ensure that
– employees can operate in the appropriate language
– communications are understood by a multilingual work
force
• Ensure that workers can operate in cultures that differ on
variables such as
– status differentiation
– societal uncertainty
– assertiveness
– individualism
• HRM also must help multicultural groups work together.

6. Understanding Cultural Environments
• The GLOBE Framework:
• GLOBE Dimensions:
– Assertiveness
– Future Orientation
– Gender Differentiation
– Uncertainty Avoidance
– Power Distance
– Individualism/collectivism
– In-group collectivism
– Performance orientation
– Humane orientation

7. Understanding Cultural Environments
• Cultural Implications for HRM (“HRM Practice
Must Be Adjusted”)
– Not all HRM theories and practices are
universally applicable.
– HR manager must understand varying cultural
values.

8. The Changing World of Technology
• Has altered the way people work.
• Has changed the way information is created,
stored, used, and shared.
• The move from agriculture to industrialization
created a new group of workers – the blue-collar
industrial worker.
• Since WWII, the trend has been a reduction in
manufacturing work and an increase in service
jobs.

9. The Changing World of Technology
• Knowledge Worker - individuals whose jobs are
designed around the acquisition and application
of information.
• Information wave (1970’s)

10. The Changing World of Technology
• Why the emphasis on technology?
– It has replaced the human labor with
electronic and computer equipment e.g.
General Motors.
– makes organizations more productive.
– helps them create and maintain a competitive
advantage.
– provides better, more useful information e.g.
information on sales.

11. The Changing World of Technology
• How Technology Affects HRM Practices
– Recruiting
– Employee Selection
– Training and Development
– Ethics and Employee Rights
– Motivating Knowledge Workers
– Paying Employees Market Value
– Communication
– Decentralized Work Sites
– Skill Levels
– Legal Concerns

12. Workforce Diversity
• The challenge is to make organizations more
accommodating to diverse groups of people.

13. Workforce Diversity
• The Workforce Today
– minorities and women have become the fastest
growing segments
– the numbers of immigrant workers and older
workers are increasing

14. Workforce Diversity
• How Diversity Affects HRM
– Employers need to attract and maintain a diversified
work force that is reflective of the diversity in the
general population.
– Employers need to foster increased sensitivity to
group differences.
– Employers must deal with the different
• Values
• Needs
• Interests
• Expectations of employees

15. Workforce Diversity
• What Is a Work/Life Balance?
– A balance between personal life and work
– Causes of the blur between work and life
• The creation of global organizations means the
world never sleeps.
• Communication technologies allow employees
to work at home.
• Organizations are asking employees to put in
longer hours.
• Fewer families have a single breadwinner.

16. Labor Supply
• Do We Have a Shortage of Skilled Labor?
– The combination of the small Gen-X
population, the already high participation rate
of women in the workforce, and early
retirements will lead to a significantly smaller
future labor pool from which employers can
hire.

17. Labor Supply
• Why Do Organizations Lay Off During
Shortages?
– Downsizing is part of a larger goal of an
organization to balance staff to meet changing
needs.
– Organizations want more flexibility to better
respond to change.
– This is often referred to as rightsizing, linking
employee needs to organizational strategy.

18. Labor Supply
• How Do Organizations Balance Labor Supply?
– Organizations are increasingly using contingent
workers to respond to fluctuating needs for
employees.
– Contingent workers include
• Part-time workers
• Temporary workers
• Contract workers

19. Labor Supply

20. Labor Supply
• Issues Contingent Workers Create for HRM
– How to attract quality temporaries
– How to motivate employees who are receiving
less pay and benefits
– How to have them available when needed
– How to quickly adapt them to the organization
– How to deal with potential conflicts between core
and contingent workers

21. Continuous Improvement Programs
• Continuous improvement - making constant
efforts to provide better products and service to
customers
– External
– Internal
• Quality management concepts have existed for
over 50 years and include the pioneering work of
W. Edwards Deming.

22. Continuous Improvement Programs
• Key components of continuous
improvement are:
– Focus on the customer
– Concern for continuous improvement
– Improvement in the quality of everything
– Accurate measurement
– Empowerment of employees

23. Continuous Improvement Programs
• Work Process Engineering involves radical, quantum
changes to entire work processes.
• How HRM Assists in Work Process Engineering
– Helps employees deal with the emotional aspects
of conflict and change
– Provides skills training
– Adapts HR systems, such as compensation,
benefits, and performance standards.

24. Employee Involvement
• Delegation – having the authority to make decisions
in one’s job.
• Work teams – workers of various specializations who
work together in an organization.
• HRM must provide training to help empower
employees in their new roles.
• Involvement programs can achieve:
– greater productivity
– increased employee loyalty and commitment

25. A Look at Ethics
• Three views of ethics:
– Utilitarian View – decisions are made on the basis of
their outcomes or consequences
– Rights View – decisions are made with concern for
respecting and protecting individual liberties and
privileges
– Theory of Justice View – decisions are make by
enforcing rules fairly and impartially
• Code of ethics - a formal document that states an
organization’s primary values and the ethical rules it
expects organizational members to follow.