HRM and the Worker

Abstract This article argues that there are at least three core claims to which most scholars of HRM subscribe. The first is that major changes in the nature of the environment in which organizations operate have placed pressure on organizations to be more strategic in their management of employees. This is the familiar view that most organizations are now operating in increasingly global, competitive, and volatile markets in which they must be flexible and able to develop unique products and services which are not easily imitable. Whilst some sector differentiation is made, according to most of the HRM literature it is through employees that such competitiveness can best be developed, because employees possess the kinds of skills that allow flexibility and which are difficult to imitate.