Commonsense Talent Management: Using Strategic Human Resources to Improve Company Performance

A comprehensive guide to using strategic HR methods to increase company performance.

This book explains what strategic human resources means, how it differs from other HR activities, and why it is critical to business performance. It walks through key questions for designing, deploying and integrating different strategic HR processes including staffing, performance management, compensation, succession management, and development. The book also addresses the role of technology in strategic HR, and discusses how to get companies to support, adopt, and maintain effective strategic HR processes. The book includes dozens of illustrative examples of effective and ineffective strategic HR using stories drawn from a range of companies and industries.

About the Author

Steven Hunt is vice president of Customer Research at SuccessFactors, an SAP company, where he guides development and implementation of strategic HR solutions to maximize workforce engagement and productivity. Hunt has more than twenty years of experience designing human resource applications supporting a range of areas including performance management, staffing, career development, executive coaching, leadership development, organizational culture, employee engagement, workforce transformation, and succession management. A recognized expert in the design and deployment of technology-enabled talent management solutions, Hunt has assisted in implementation of systems that have improved the performance of millions of employees working for hundreds of companies ranging from small start-up organizations to many of the largest employers in the world. He has worked with organizations across a variety of industries including but not limited to retail, health care, manufacturing, finance, information technology, energy, transportation, and the public sector. His work has taken him to almost every continent on the globe. He has written articles for trade and academic journals ranging from the Wall Street Journal to the International Journal of Selection & Assessment, and authored a previous book on the applied use of staffing assessment methods entitled Hiring success: the art and science of staffing assessment and employee selection (2007, Pfeiffer). Steve regularly presents at customer events as well as industry and academic conferences. He holds a PhD in industrial-organizational psychology from The Ohio State University, a BA in applied mathematics from the University of California, San Diego, certification as a Strategic Professional of Human Resources (SPHR) from the Society of Human Resource Management, and serves on advisory boards for the Society of Human Resource Management, the Society of Industrial Organizational Psychology, the Workforce Institute, the Journal of Management, and several other talent management organizations.