Strategic Human Resource Management People and Performance Management in the Public Sector

The movement to reinvent and reengineer government services is transforming public administration. The hierarchical, command-and-control structure is giving way to a new organization whose remaining workforce is concentrated on service delivery. Staff functions previously administered by central offices are now carried out by the first-line supervisor and field manager. No place is this change more evident than in the realm of personnel administration/human resource management. Strategic Human Resource Managementgives the student and first-line supervisor a practical overview of human resources/public personnel practices as tools for management in today's knowledge-based organization. Emphasis is placed on using individual-oriented functions for achieving organizational missions and purposes. Personnel techniques and central personnel functions are addressed from the perspective of their ability to provide value-added assistance to the first-line supervisor and field manager. Strategic Human Resource Managementencompasses three distinct foci. First, the text is focused on a strategic perspective. All personnel or human resource functions are examined in terms of their ability to enhance the organization's ability to accomplish its mission. Second, a practical focus describes how to actually implement and use the personnel techniques examined. Third, research and illustrative examples are drawn not only from the federal government but from state and local organizations and nonprofits as well. This text serves the basic graduate or undergraduate public personnel/human resource management course. The text focuses on management techniques rather than on political policy issues and has a first-line supervisor or field manager perspective rather than that of a central personnel office. Strategic Human Resource Managementprovides a more thorough treatment of the techniques used for managing people than is found in most personnel texts. Students are first introduced to the general personnel function and then provided with an overview of the specific applications or options they have at their disposal. Finally, emphasis is placed on more fully describing in a how-to-do-it fashion those techniques that are most appropriate and recommended. The book is directed at the decentralized, knowledge-based organization. This organization accomplished its work more through coordination by ideas than by organization. The command and control of the central personnel office serving executive-level officials is replaced by a coach-and-consult philosophy of assisting line officials. The performance of personnel functions, including the choice of their appropriateness, is the responsibility of the first-line supervisor and field manager. Strategic Human Resource Managementis written from the perspective of a professional, knowledge-based organization. The organization's needs link the accomplishment of its strategic mission to human resources activities. The student or first-line supervisor is taught to approach organizational problems in terms of adding value through the application of the personnel techniques. Hence, tying the personnel process into the planning and reward systems is highlighted. The inclusion of historical material is limited to brief explanatory segments. Similarly, political policy issues are treated as means for illustrating the framework or environment within which personnel/human resources techniques is practiced. The text includes extensive and recent references to the research in public personnel administration. This enables students to quickly follow up on topics of interest. ACKNOWLEDGMENT I would like to acknowledge my students and colleagues whose questions and interests helped shape this work. I would also like to recognize Beth Murtha and Jessica Drew of Prentice Hall and Merrill Peterson of Matrix Productions for their professional aDaley, Dennis M. is the author of 'Strategic Human Resource Management People and Performance Management in the Public Sector', published 2001 under ISBN 9780130282606 and ISBN 013028260X.