Where's the ‘Human’ in Human Resource Management? Managing Work in the 21st Century By MichaelGold and ChrisSmith, Bristol University Press,2023. 452 pp. £39.99 (paperback). ISBN: 978‐1‐52‐921380‐5.
该书批判主流人力资源管理将人视为资源，主张从工人视角重新审视工作与雇佣关系，适合对批判性HRM、工作社会学和雇佣关系感兴趣的学生与学者。
When I discovered that this book had been published, I read it and added it as a core text for students on my postgraduate module on Human Resource Management and Ethics at Work. My view is that it fills a gap in the market for textbooks that adopt a greatly needed critical perspective towards HRM. I tell my students that I do not agree with or like the term Human Resource Management, because the implication is that the (managerialist) terminology portrays people as ‘human resources’, human commodities to be managed and utilised like other commodities like raw materials in production. A return to the term people management would be preferable, or better still, employment relations. This could facilitate teaching (and research) about more illuminating pluralist and radical perspectives on the world of work and push back against the highly unitarist (simplistic assumptions of harmony of interests) and managerialist performativity inclinations of much contemporary HRM (the moral vacuousness of talent management being a prime example). This would also enable the missing worker or missing ‘human’ to take centre-stage, which is why this book by two highly knowledgeable Emeritus professors asking Where's the ‘Human’ in HRM is so important and timely. In so doing, it turns conventional HRM on its head by critically placing workers’ perspectives and experiences towards work and the employment relationship as equally legitimate to those of management. It is also a very ‘lively’ and relevant applied text, which includes current examples and ten case studies from the real world of work that relate to theory and help bring the subject to life for readers. The book also critically engages with the bigger picture of contemporary capitalism, which many HRM textbooks do not address (tending to over focus on the minutiae of micro relations of work and HR practices). A particularly welcome aspect of the book is the list of films about HRM on pages 367–371. This is a very useful resource for engaging students. The structure of the book comprises an introduction, followed by nineteen chapters divided into three parts. The introduction outlines the background of changes in paid work associated with the intensifying marketisation of neoliberal economies. The authors link this to an increased degradation, immiseration and dehumanisation of work, which has accelerated since the global financial crisis from 2008. They make an important point that we need analysis “that examines the HR function not exclusively through the eyes of the managers…. but also through the eyes of workers” (Pg. 3). The book rightly places the wage-effort bargain and the dynamics of power, control, consent and conflict at the frontline of analysis. Part 1: Where We've Been charts the historical emergence of HRM and the recent quite obsessive preoccupation with strategic HRM. The authors view this as underpinned by management's need to control labour costs and increase productivity (hence the emergence of control mechanisms) by encouraging workers to work as hard as possible (which workers, understandably, may not like, leading to potential dissent). It is good to see the use of important concepts like the frontier of control (how often do you see that in other HRM textbooks today!) – the frontier or boundary delineating the details of work organisation contested by management and workers (Pg. 63 and glossary). In Part 2: Where We're Heading, the authors consider trends and trajectories in work and labour markets, regarding themes like flexible working, migrant workers, emotional labour, and corporate social responsibility (CSR). Flexible working is seen as leading to a more dispersed and fragmented workforce, potentially exacerbating tensions in management control systems. The chapter on migrant workers is important, especially as it is such a controversial and highly politicised topic of debate in many countries nowadays, often stirred up and inflamed by opportunist populists. The authors discuss the extent of integration of migrants and suggest that free movement of labour is receding. Part 3: What All This Means for HRM focuses on standard HRM practices and topics in the HRM cycle: recruitment and social networks, discrimination and diversity, pay and rewards, employee participation and involvement, training and development, work-life balance, artificial intelligence and HR analytics. However, it differs from standard HRM textbooks by framing these HR practices analytically in the fundamental nature of the employment relationship and the bigger contextual picture. Highlighting issues of discrimination and diversity is noteworthy in an era when those on the political right increasingly attack it in pejorative terms (‘woke’). But this divide and rule strategy obscures huge problems with inequalities and social injustices that people with empathy are concerned about. The chapter on employee participation makes the important point that employee participation (and employee voice) should be an end in itself and a (democratic) right for all workers, not solely be dependent on management sponsorship based on productivity goals. The last chapter in Part 3 on Artificial Intelligence and HR Analytics (with Yu Zheng) logically observes that the risks of AI vary widely by contextual factors like sector, type of worker (e.g. skill level), and country. The future impact of AI is a ‘known unknown’ risk and is difficult to predict with certainty until the facts become evident. The final section of the book draws the threads together in the summary and conclusions. They pose the question “What is HRM all about?”, concluding “we'd say it's about control – management control of employees in so many different ways” (Pg. 321). Part 4 is entitled Innovative HRM within capitalism – what's possible? While the current epoch can understandably increase resigned pessimism about future prospects, the authors adopt what they call a critical but positive position, imagining some alternatives within the current capitalist system (i.e. the world as it currently is). In doing so, the authors also seek to address their own question in the book title: where's the human in human resource management? These alternatives for reform (putting the missing human back into HRM) include possibilities around dignity at work, new models of worker-ownership, and prospects for radical trade unionism, among others. There is an intriguing short final observation section on pages 336-337 commenting on the revolutionary transformation of the whole structure of control, in contrast to reformist approaches. The authors observe that historical revolutions in the Soviet Union and China still generated highly Taylorist work-effort bargains and authoritarian close control of the working class (and provide contemporary examples of very hard HRM in China today outlined in chapter 18). Overall, this book makes an important critical contribution to understanding the missing ‘human’ in HRM. It signals the relevance and necessity of sociological and employment relations perspectives for revealing the realities of working lives under contemporary capitalism. In contrast, too many mainstream HRM textbooks do not provide the analytical tools to enable us to fully capture the complexities of the employment relationship and the dynamics of change and continuity in an age of uncertainty. Is there anything missing? It would have been interesting to see some more commentary on the combined and inter-linked multiple crises (‘polycrisis’) impacting the world of work (climate crisis, economic crises, technological disruption, geopolitical conflicts, pandemics). However, the book was completed in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic in April 2022, so it was impossible to know at that time how some impacts of crises would unfold. Some incorporation of labour process theory would also have been interesting, given that one of the authors is a renowned expert on LPT. In fairness, the authors note that the book already covers substantial ground, so such issues were likely beyond its remit and scope. I would strongly recommend reading this important textbook, which provides an all too rare critical grounding for students in critical thinking about HRM and adding the missing human back into in HRM. It also showcases the utility of incorporating sociological and employment relations perspectives to enhance understanding about the realities of working lives. Hopefully, scholars in future will pick up the baton and shine a similarly enlightening critical light on the complexities of work and employment relations.