Section Two
As indicated, the changing composition of the workforce
also may cause greater integration between strategy and
human resource planning. Human resource planning efforts,
which forecast diversity can help organizations identify the
proactive efforts needed to take advantage of the unique
perspectives that diverse employees bring to the workplace. In
the future there will be substantially more women, minorities,
and immigrants in the U.S. labor force. There will be older
workers who will be attracted back into the workforce, perhaps
with the aid of innovative scheduling approaches and other
inducements. Further, as a result of the Americans with
Disabilities Act (ADA), there will probably more disabled
employees on the job. Finally, there will be more diversity
involved with coordinating activities that result from the global
sourcing of labor.^102
Mergers and acquisitions may also cause stronger
planning and strategy linkages in the future. Their dismal
record, in terms of both financial performance and adverse
effects on employees, may be improved when human resource
issues are planned out before the merger. In companies having
recent merger or acquisition experience, human resource
managers report that the top-level managerial talent of the firm
to be acquired is the most important human resource criterion
to be considered prior to a merger.^103 Nonetheless, the reported
failures to consider these very issues prior to mergers or