A Guide to the Human Resource Body of Knowledge (HRBoK)

1The Human Resource Body of KnowledgeHRBoK™

The way organizations of today utilize the human resource (HR) department tells the story of HR. Some companies continue to view HR as personnel departments and compliance officers, managing the transactions of payroll, processing new hire paperwork, and terminating nonperformers. The second type of company uses human resources to its strategic advantage. Organizations of the second type recognize and support the valued contributions of a high-functioning HR department, delivering outcomes through people management, group management, and ultimately the management and understanding of the organization as a whole (see Figure 1.1).

Figure 1.1 Human Resource Management

The Building Blocks

The inconsistencies in the ways companies use their HR competencies mirror nearly perfectly the evolution of the profession. As the business landscape has changed, the HR industry has changed as well, and some businesses and industries have been better at keeping the two aligned than others.

The early twentieth century was characterized by enormous growth in industrialization and the country's labor pool. Large factories in the northern states expanded beyond textiles and into the middle states, creating a boom of work and many lifetime jobs. This industrialization required more workers, and the European immigrant population from countries such as Italy ...