Oxford Handbook of Human Resource Management

(Steven Felgate) #1

and the dilution of union inXuence. In terms of HR practice, there have been
attempts to ‘deprivilege’ the employment conditions of public sector workers and
there has been a degree of convergence between employment practices in the public
and private sector.
In recent years, some of the unexpected consequences of the NPM have increas-
ingly been acknowledged. These diYculties often stemmed from a failure of the
NPM reforms to recognize that HR practice has both to facilitate the eYcient
delivery of public services and also to enshrine deeper constitutional values that
make up an irreducible political core at the heart of the public sector. Ironically,
some of the much derided features of the traditional ‘bureaucratic’ model of HR
practice are being reinvented as the limitations of a fragmented and narrowly
focused target approach are recognized. More emphasis is being placed on valuing
the workforce and, in the UK case, the modernization agenda explicitly seeks to
shift from a cost minimization approach to one modeled on the ‘high-performance
workplace.’ The extent to which this agenda can be implemented eVectively will
shape HR practice in the years to come.


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486 stephen bach and ian kessler

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