Section Six EVALUATING STRATEGIC CONTRIBUTIONS
OF TRADITIONAL AREAS
As indicated in Figure 6-2, there are many areas within the
traditional functions of human resource management that
probably should be evaluated. Major human resource functions
of obvious strategic importance are human resource planning,
staffing, performance evaluation, compensation and reward
systems, training and development, and labor relations.^34 The
first to be considered is human resource planning. The potential
strategic contributions of human resource planning were
discussed in earlier sections, and the evaluation of this area
should be of importance to general managers.
Human Resource Planning
The effectiveness of human resource planning can be viewed
from a behavioral perspective. This includes the degree to
which managers accept human resource planning as an activity
that helps them perform their jobs. Line management’s
willingness to supply information to be used in the development
of forecasts and actually use human resource forecasts in their
own planning pro-vide other indicators of human resource
planning effectiveness. Even when forecasts are inaccurate, the
human resource planning process has value. This is because, as
in any planning effort, the process of forecasting is often more