The way in which organizations manage their people has always been pivotal to their performance, long before formal human resource management coalesced into a definable and somewhat fashionable discipline in the mid-1980s. Earlier campaigns for worker welfare in the 18th and 19th century were driven by a mix of humanitarian, religious, philanthropic, and business motives, and sought workplace amenities such as medical care, housing, and libraries. At the same timefunctionaries and departments specialising in HR processes such as hiring, payroll, and record keeping emerged. This Very Short Introduction describes how the key players and watershed moments in labour history shaped the state of human resource management today. In our era of globalization human resource management has to contend with a number of new and increasingly complex factors, such as global sourcing, regional trade agreements and labour standards, remote working, strategic alliances, and innovation driven by...
