In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

The elephant in the room thus far is the human resources manager. In the previous chapter, HR managers appeared on stage as important actors in the construction of new employment relations: adversaries of some shop floor managers, novitiates who enlisted Select Labor’s help on occasion, and begrudging recipients of agency staff’s brokering activities. They had bit parts, as objects that agency staff needed to contend with and manipulate in order to construct new workforce practices and a new type of worker, the good temp. These cameo appearances invite a deeper inspection. The narrative about the increase and normalization of temporary employment is intertwined with the narrative about the historical reconfiguration of human resources management. When companies outsource work to temporary labor, they’re also outsourcing some of their human resources activities. And as firms try to better control the conditions of work for their temps on the shop floor, they are compelled to reach into and control a higher level of governance: the human resources staff, who have the power to shape line managers’ actions. More to the point, human resources managers are the personnel policymakers in the firm, a higher level of management that sets the terms on which line managers below them maneuver. Chapter Five Shaping and Stabilizing the Personnel Policy Environment 123 Shaping and Stabilizing the Personnel Policy Environment Select Labor representatives, then, directed their second set of interventions at human resources managers. If HR practices could not be modified to fit the new employment system, the foundation for temporary workers would be too fragile, a threat to the success of agency product-building and market-making goals. Select Labor representatives recruited, interviewed, placed, trained, and evaluated temporary employees, sometimes tipping the balance of power away from traditional human resources or personnel managers and sometimes assisting them. After discussing the historical significance of changes in the corporate human resources function, we zoom in closely and look at this shifting power. Select Labor staff’s work reconfigured corporate hierarchies (especially rules about accountability and authorization), blurred the boundaries between internal and external HR management, and stabilized the larger policy environment governing the use of temporary workers, all toward the goal of building good enough temporary jobs. Origins of HR Management It would not be an overstatement to say that the work of human resources managers throughout the twentieth century made American economic growth possible. HR personnel have been responsible for a number of interrelated management processes that have been critical to corporate profitmaking and to workers’ livelihoods (Table 5.1). As Jacoby (1985, 1997, 2005) has noted, human resources departments (earlier known as personnel offices) emerged in the United States as a significant institutional force that rationalized and regulated relations between workers and employers. Corporations built HR departments because they needed to professionalize personnel procedures—such as hiring, evaluating, and promoting—and to stabilize and smooth out the rough edges of wage relations under capitalism . HR departments set personnel policies and shaped labormanagement relations in the firm. For example, they played a major role historically in depoliticizing relations between capital and labor (specifically , staving off unions, termed “union substitution” by labor economists) and were responsible for creating the model for a whole 124 The Good Temp TABLE 5.1 Traditional Human Resources Practices Process Job description of the traditional human resources manager Staffing Assigning workers to positions in the organization. This process includes a range of functions such as attracting, selecting, hiring, and retaining qualified employees Performance appraisal and review Evaluating individual and group contributions to the organization and communicating those evaluations to the persons involved. This process can include making judgments about the need for discipline Organization improvement Improving the organization’s effectiveness by developing systems and strategies that increase cooperation, teamwork, and performance Employee protection and representation Formally and informally protecting employees from arbitrary and unfair treatment, physical danger, and health hazards can be divided into three subcategories: (1) accommodation— listening and responding to the needs, wants, and complaints of employees; (2) collective bargaining—coming to formal agreements between workers and management in a unionized setting (includes the negotiation and administration of the labor-management contract); (3) health and safety management— protecting employees from illness and physical danger Human resources planning Assessing the organization’s human resources needs in light of organizational goals and changing conditions, and making plans to ensure that a competent, motivated workforce is employed Job and work design Determining which tasks are performed by employees and the working conditions under...

Share