Includes index and bibliographical references.

Contents: Introduction: Meeting present and emerging strategic human resource challenges: Human resource management: the challenges -- Planning and implementing strategic HR policies -- Selecting HR strategies to increase firm performance -- The HR department and managers: an important partnership -- The Contexts of human resource management: Managing work flows and conducting job analysis: Work: the organizational perspective: Work: the group activity -- Work: the individual perspective -- Designing jobs and conducting job analysis -- The Flexible workforce -- Human resource information systems -- Understanding equal opportunity and the legal environment: Why understanding the legal environment is important -- Challenges to legal compliance -- Conflicting strategies for fair employment -- Equal employment opportunity laws -- EEO enforcement and compliance -- Other important laws -- Avoiding pitfalls in EEO -- Managing diversity: What is diversity -- Challenges in managing employee diversity - Diversity in organizations -- Improving the management of diversity: Some warnings -- Staffing: Recruiting and selecting employees:Human resource supply and demand -- The Hiring process -- Challenges in the hiring process -- Meeting the challenges of effective staffing -- Selection -- Legal issues in staffing -- Managing employee separations,downsizing,and outplacement -- What are employee separations -- Types of employee separations -- Managing early retirements -- Managing layoffs -- Outplacement -- Employee development: Appraising and managing performance: What is performance appraisal -- Identifying performance dimensions -- Managing performance --Training the workforce: Key training issues: Training versus development -- Challenges in training: Managing the training process -- A Special case:orientation and socialization --Developing careers: What is career development -- Meeting the challenges of effective career development:Self- development -- Compensation: Managing Compensation: What is compensation -- Designing a compensation system -- Job versus individual pay -- Compensation tools -- The Legal environment and pay system governance --Rewarding Performance: Pay for performance:the challenges -- Meeting the challenges of pay-for-performance systems -- Types of pay-of-performance plans -- Designing pay-for-performance plans for executives and salespeople -- Designing and administering benefits: An Overview of benefits: The Benefits strategy -- Legally required benefits -- Voluntary benefits -- Administering benefits -- Governance: Developing employee relations: The Roles of the manager and the employee relations specialist: Developing employee communications -- Encourage effective communications -- Employee recognition programs -- Respecting employee rights and managing discipline -- Employee rights -- Management rights -- Employee rights challenges:a balancing act -- Disciplining employees -- Administering and managing discipline -- Managing difficult employees -- Preventing the need for discipline with human resource management -- Working with organized labor: Why do employees join unions: Labor relations and the Legal environments -- Labor relations in the United states -- Labor relations in other countries -- Labor relations strategy -- Managing the labor relations process -- The Impact of Unions on human resource management --Managing workplace safety and the health: Workplace safety and the law -- Managing contemporary safety, health, and behavioral Issues -- Safety and health programs--International HRM challenge:The Stages of international involvement -- Determining the mix of host -country and expatriate employees -- The Challenges of expatriate assignments -- Effectively managing expatriate assignments with HRM policies and practices -- Developing HRM policies in a global context -- Human resources management and exporting firms -- Appendix.