Life is tough in organizations, both for managers and the managed. Negotiating the rapids of restructuring, downsizing, and refocusing the core business brings with it huge upheavals in job security, the smashing of traditional career structures, and a constant imperative for employees to update their skills while working in an environment of great uncertainty. Based on close collaboration with a number of high profile organizations — BT, Citibank, Glaxo, Wellcome, Hewlett Packard, Kraft Jacobs, Suchard, Lloyds–TSB Group, the NHS, and WH Smith — this book sheds light on the organizational resp ... More

Life is tough in organizations, both for managers and the managed. Negotiating the rapids of restructuring, downsizing, and refocusing the core business brings with it huge upheavals in job security, the smashing of traditional career structures, and a constant imperative for employees to update their skills while working in an environment of great uncertainty. Based on close collaboration with a number of high profile organizations — BT, Citibank, Glaxo, Wellcome, Hewlett Packard, Kraft Jacobs, Suchard, Lloyds–TSB Group, the NHS, and WH Smith — this book sheds light on the organizational responses to large scale changes and details the changing demands made of employees in the process. This book goes beyond fashionable management rhetoric to uncover the reality of human resource management. A team of top researchers examines: the organizational strategies pursued in the face of fast-changing circumstances, the links between what is intended and what is realized, the way in which HR interventions impact on the individual, and the influence which HR strategies have on everyday management behaviour.