Here is a list of important concepts from this chapter:

- Trends in the labor force composition and how they affect human resource management
- Areas in which human resource management can support the goal of creating a high-performance work system
- Definition of employee empowerment and its role in the modern organization
- Ways HR professionals can support organizational strategies for quality, growth, and efficiency
- Ways in which human resource management can support organizations expanding internationally
- How technological developments are affecting HR management
- How the nature of the employment relationship is changing
- How the need for flexibility affects human resource management

An organization's internal labor force (i.e. the company's employees) come from its external labor market, or individuals who are actively seeking employment. In the United States, the labor market is aging with a projected 6% increase in workers 55 years or older by 2020 and becoming more racially and ethnically diverse. The share of women in the U.S. workforce has grown to roughly 50% of the total workforce. It is projected by year 2020, that the U.S. workforce will consist of 79% white, 12% African American, and 9% Asian and other minorities. Additionally, the ethnic category of Hispanics is growing at a rapid rate, as the projected Hispanic share of the U.S. labor force is expected to be 19% of the total by year 2020.

To compete for talent, organizations must be flexible enough to meet the needs of older workers, possibly redesigning jobs. Organizations must recruit from a diverse population, establish bias-free HR systems, and help employees understand and appreciate cultural differences. Organizations also need employees with skills in decision making, customer service, and teamwork, as well as technical skills. The competition for such talent is intense. Organizations facing a skills shortage often hire employees who lack certain skills, then train them for their jobs.

Human Resource Management can help organizations find and keep the best possible fit between their social system and technical system. Organizations need employees with broad skills and strong motivation. Recruiting and selection decisions are especially important for organizations that rely on knowledge workers, or workers whose main capital is knowledge (i.e. software engineers, doctors, architects, scientists, public accountants, lawyers, and teachers). Job design and appropriate systems for assessment and rewards have a central role in supporting employee empowerment (further explanation of this concept in the net slide) and teamwork.

Employee empowerment means giving employees responsibility and authority to make decisions regarding all aspects of product development or customer service. The organization holds employees accountable for products and services, and in exchange, the employees share in the rewards or losses that result. Human resource management must design jobs to give employees freedom of action for decision making and train employees to handle their broad responsibilities.
In order for organizations to set up work in a way that gives employees the authority and ability to make decisions is to assign work in teams. Organizations that rely on teamwork often find that labor costs go down and employees are more motivated by making work more interesting and significant.

HR professionals should be familiar with the organization's strategy and may even play a role in developing the strategy. Specific HR practices vary according to the type of strategy. Job design is essential for empowering employees to practice total quality management (TQM), or the companywide effort to continually improve the ways people, machines, and systems accomplish work. In organizations planning major changes such as merger or acquisition, downsizing, or reengineering (i.e. restructuring a company or parts of its operation), HR management must provide leadership for managing the change in a way that includes skillful employee relations and meaningful rewards. HR professionals can bring different issues to the attention of the managers leading these changes. They can provide training in conflict-resolution skills, as well as knowledge of the other organizations involved in a merger or acquisition. HR professionals also must resolve differences between the companies' HR systems, such as benefits packages and performance appraisals (i.e. job evaluations by the manager).
For a downsizing, the HR department can help to develop voluntary programs to reduce the workforce or can help identify the least valuable employees to lay off. Employee relations can help maintain the morale of employees who remain after downsizing.
In reengineering, the HR department can lead in communicating with employees and providing training. It will also have to prepare new approaches for recruiting and appraising employees that are better suited to the reengineered jobs. Outsourcing presents similar issues related to job design and employee selection.

Organizations with international operations hire employees in foreign countries where they operate, so they need knowledge of differences in culture and business practices. Even small businesses discover that qualified candidates include immigrants, because they account for a significant and growing share of the U.S. labor market. HR management needs to understand and train employees to deal with differences in cultures. They must also be able to help organizations select and prepare expatriate employees, or employees who take on overseas assignments.
To support efficiency and growth, HR staff can prepare companies for offshoring, in which operations are moved to countries where wages are lower or demand is growing. HR experts can help organizations determine whether workers in offshore locations can provide the same or better skills, how offshoring will affect motivation and recruitment of employees needed in the U.S., and whether managers are prepared to manage offshore employees.

Human resource information systems (HRIS) have become a standard tool for more HR professionals, and often these systems are provided through the internet. HRIS is a computer system used to acquire, store, manipulate, analyze, retrieve, and distribute information related to an organization's human resources, which includes HRM applications on the internet.
Organizations search for talent globally using online postings, and by screening candidates online. Organizations' websites feature information directed toward potential employees.
Electronic human resource management (e-HRM) has also made it possible to process and transmit digitized HR information using computer networks and the internet.
Employees may receive training online or have the ability to share information digitally using such systems. At many companies, online information sharing enables employee self-service, (i.e. a system in which employees have online access to company information) for many HR needs, from application forms to training modules to information about the details of company policies and benefits. Organizations can now structure work that involves collaboration among employees at different times and places. In such situations, HR professionals must ensure that communications remain effective enough to detect and correct problems when they arise.

The employment relationship takes the form of a "psychological contract", or a description of what an employee expects to contribute in an employment relationship and what the employer will provide the employee in exchange for those contributions. In includes unspoken expectations that are widely held. In the traditional version, organizations expected their employees to contribute time, effort, skills, abilities, and loyalty in exchange for job security and opportunities for promotion. Today, modern organizations' needs are constantly changing, so organizations are requiring top performance and longer work hours but cannot provide job security. Instead, employees are working for flexible work schedules, comfortable working conditions, greater autonomy, opportunities for training and development, and performance related financial incentives. For HR managers, the changes require planning for flexible staffing levels. For employees, the changes may make job hopping look attractive, but this career strategy often backfires.

A flexible workforce is one that an organization can reshape and resize to meet its changing needs through alternative work arrangements. They may use outsourcing* as well as temporary** and contract workers*** and even crowdsourcing****. The use of such workers can affect job design and also the motivation of the organization's permanent employees. Organizations also might seek flexible work schedules, including shortened work weeks. They may offer flexible schedules as a way for employees to adjust work hours to meet personal and family needs. Organizations also may move employees to different jobs to meet changes in demand.

Definition of terms:
* i.e. contract work abroad.

** Workers who are employed by a temporary agency in which client organizations pay the agency for the service of these workers.

*** Workers hired directly by a company for a specific time specified in a written contract.

**** i.e. the process of obtaining needed services, ideas, or content by soliciting contributions from a large group of people.

This presentation described trends shaping human resource management, including the aging of the workforce as well as the growing racial, ethnic, and gender diversification among companies. Additionally, topics such as high performance work systems, employee empowerment, organizational strategy, the global workforce, technological changes in HR management, and changes in the new employment relationship have all been discussed in this outline.