The idea has been advanced that human resources management solves the problems created by industrial relations. In this context, "industrial relations" encompasses such diverse issues as unionization and collective bargaining (Labor-management relations), worker satisfaction (as well as absenteeism and job turnover), recruitment and promotion of workers, affirmative action and other regulatory structures impacting upon the workplace. Additionally, the field of Human Resources (HR) is one that has been enormously impacted by new technologies, new strategies for enhancing worker productivity, and new ideas regarding what constitutes job satisfaction and effective motivational programming. As Jennifer Laabs (1998) has commented, today's HR professionals are "required to have a vast amount of knowledge on a wide array of topics, of which those mentioned above are but a small part.
The purpose of this report is to examine some of the activities of HR management with respect to problems created in the workplace by industrial relations. A broad definition of "industrial relationships" reflecting various issues such as the impact of new technologies and the HR response, training of workers, and response to such programs as affirmative action will be employed herein.
HR and New Technologies: Training as a Mission
Information technology (IT) has forever changed the workplace. Samuel Greengard (1998) has stated that computers have automated and come to manage almost every type of process-succession planning, training, skills development, retirement and government compliance -- all functions in which HR is intimately involved. Workplace flexibility, the advent of the virtual office and technology-driven workplace shifts implicit in telecommuting and video-conferencing and e-mail as a replacement for face-to-face interactions are effects with which HR has come to terms in short order. Greengard posits a strategic role for HR as the...