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Dave Ulrich and Wayne Brockbank. The HR Value Proposition. Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 2005, 304 pages, $35.00 hardcover.
In this work, Ulrich and Brockbank provide a comprehensive overview of the entire HR function in light of the complex and varied internal and environmental forces that business organizations currently encounter and are likely to face in the future. Their central thesis, namely, that today's HR function must create value for an organization's stakeholders if it is going to be taken seriously and have an important role in organizations, is one that they argue for with consistency and passion and explains the book's title. Given the book's broad focus on all aspects of HR, it should appeal, as the authors state, to a wide audience of HR professionals and potentially to line managers who are concerned with "people issues." In addition, it should be of interest to faculty teaching undergraduate and graduate HR courses, and to students preparing for careers in HR.
Early in the book, the authors present a "blueprint for the future" of HR that starts with the central premise and vision that "HR succeeds when it creates value." This is their HR value proposition. To attain this vision, the authors delineate five central goals or elements: (a) HR professionals must be familiar and conversant with external business realities, (b) HR must serve internal and external stakeholders, (c) all HR practices must be crafted in such a way as to create value, (d) the HR function must create strategies and resources to create value, and (e) HR professionals deliver value through the roles they play and the competencies they demonstrate. These elements in turn serve as the foundation for 14 actions or criteria for an effective HR function. Examples of these include the following: "recognizes external business realities and adapts its practices and allocates resources accordingly" under the first element, and "has staff who play clear and appropriate roles" and "builds staff...