Human Resources Management for Public and Nonprofit Organizations

3

After reading this chapter, you should be able to:

Understand the responsibilities and roles of human resources

management

Understand what constitutes public organizations

Explain why civil service systems or merit systems exist in the

public sector

Understand what constitutes nonprofi t organizations

Identify the challenges facing human resources management

today

H

uman resources management (HRM) is the design of formal systems
in an organization to ensure the effective use of employees’ knowl-
edge, skills, abilities, and other characteristics (KSAOCs) to accomplish
organizational goals. HRM concerns the recruitment, selection, train-
ing and development, compensation and benefi ts, retention, evaluation,
and promotion of employees, and labor-management relations within an
organization. In public and nonprofi t agencies, the greatest expenses and
the greatest assets are employees. Unlike many for-profi t organizations,
which can use technology to automate the production of their products
and reduce staff, public and nonprofi t organizations typically provide some

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CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION TO HUMAN RESOURCES

MANAGEMENT IN THE PUBLIC AND

NONPROFIT SECTORS

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