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1.Increasing international competition makes the need for greatly improved human production mandatory. The crisis experienced in both the automobile and steel industries serve as clear illustrations. Foreign management practices, particularly Japanese management models, are being used to guide developing HRM techniques, especially those that seem to increase employee commitment while providing companies with a long term source of workers with necessary competencies and skills.

2.As organizations increase in size and complexity layer upon layer of management has resulted in expensive, but not particularly effective, bureaucracies. Multiple layers of management also serve to isolate workers from the competitive environment in which organizations operate

as well as company policy makers. It?s hoped that a reduction of middle management layering will put workers closer to the competitive environment, fostering commitment to the organization as well as sharpening the competitive edge. Multinational companies have additional challenges in managing human resources, and need to adapt policies to work within diverse cultures and vastly different social values.

3.Some companies may face declining markets or slower growth, handicapping the organizations? ability to offer advancement opportunities and job security. How then to attract and retrain a competent and highly skilled work force?

4.Greater government involvement in human resource practices generates a need to re-examine HRM policies and mandates the development of new policies. For example, the Americans with Disabilities Act forced the revision of HRM policies in companies across the nation.

5.America?s workforce has become increasingly more educated making it necessary to rethink assumptions about employee capabilities and the delegation of responsibilities. Under utilization of employee talent is a major cause of workforce turnover.

6.Expectations and the values of the workforce are changing, particularly those values and expectations relative to authority. This fosters a need to reexamine how much involvement and influence workers should be given. Means of voicing employee concerns and addressing those concerns with due process need to be provided.

7.As workers become more concerned with life and career satisfaction corporations are revisiting traditional career paths and seeking more alternative career paths that take into consideration employee lifestyle needs.

8.Demographic shifts in the workforce, particularly the infusion of women and minorities into organizations, are causing corporations to reexamine all policies, practices and values that impact the treatment, responsibilities, and advancement of these groups. (5)

Developing Human Resource Policies

How do universal General Management issues affect HRM departments and practices? While narrower in scope than those concerns voiced by General Management, impact areas identified by HRM professionals closely mirrored major corporate needs identified by General Managers.

Human Resource professionals, in an effort to meet the needs of both worker and organization, have examined ways to ensure a desired working environment while increasing productivity. In the early 1990s, the advisory board of the Commerce Clearing House were asked to identify the issues that they felt would shape the role of human resource functions in the next decade. Commerce Clearing House advisory board members saw four main HRM areas where current issues would influence the role of the human resource function in the near future: compensation; communication and personnel practices; employment relations; and Equal Employment Opprtunity requirments. (6)

Compensation issues focused on the diversity of worker needs, pay-for-performance plans, and the regulation of employee benefit plans. Flexibility and adaptability in HRM practices are primary keys in addressing worker needs. Job sharing, staggered scheduling and flex time are some of the outcomes generated by creative approaches to HRM practices. Pay-for-performance plans hold the allure of rewarding productivity while providing monetary motivation. Successful implementation of such practices, however, require effective performance evaluations. To attempt such compensation without valid, reliable, and standard assessment instruments is to court litigation.

Fairness is a national concern strongly affecting human resource managers. Personnell plansfocused soley on organizational needs must be abandoned to benefit workers and organizations alike. One example is the growing social phenomena of two career couples. As the numbers increase nepotism policies must be reexamined. Managing change and preparing people for change also require HRM professionals to rethink policy. New demands for an increase in functions such as retraining evolve as workers move through change.

Training and professional development are crucial in all areas of operation. Even the lowest clerk needs to stay abreast of the latest innovations brought on by technical advancement. The march of technology, however, not only changes jobs, it makes some of them redundant or obsolete. In an era of company reconfiguration it becomes apparent that layoffs and divestirtures will occur when retraining isn’t an option. Outplacement policies must be considered and developed in preparation of the need. HRM professionals also understand the need for the development of effective HR auditing instruments to measure employee perceptions of management fairness and the climate for effective communication within the company. The information obtained by employee attitude surveys can be greatly beneficial to supervisors, but only if they’ve been trained to use it. (7)

The legal environment of personnell