[.ca] New Deal at Work, The (ISBN 0875846688)

From Amazon.com:
The days of lifetime jobs and employee loyalty are over. Instead, competition and other market forces lead companies to lay off people, and employees to leave for the highest bidder, writes Peter Cappelli in The New Deal at Work. These changes in the workplace are making a salient impact on companies, employees, and the nation. For instance, companies are less likely to provide employee training and development, for fear employees will be poached by other firms. At the same time, companies are more apt to hire outside consultants than full-time employees, in order to stay competitive in a rapidly changing environment. This affects everything from national educational policy to employee morale to corporate management and payment principles, warns Cappelli, who is a Wharton School professor of management and codirector of the U.S. Department of Education's National Center on the Educational Quality of the Workforce. The book, well researched and filled with footnotes, provides historical perspective and insight for company leaders looking to manage the current economic reality. It's aimed primarily at managers, but anyone concerned about the nation's economic policies will gain some valuable insight. --Dan Ring

Insightful Reading:
The New Deal explores the breaking of the structural ties that modern employees have with employer. It strives to explain the employee's basis for his association with his managers. A good read..no doubt.

Insightful Analysis of Complex Trends:
Cappelli's main idea -- that HRM is changing because the external marketplace is being brought into the firm -- really gets to the essence of changes in the employment relationship. Once you've read the first two chapters, you'll never think about HRM the same way again. However, I wish Cappelli had explored the complexity of labor markets and practices more deeply -- we really have a multi-model HRM now, rather than the "new deal" he outlines, and probably always will because of differences in product and labor markets and industries.

A Wakeup Call for Middle Managers !:
Cappelli provides an understanding of the changes in the social and psychological contracts between employees and their employers in todays world. I feel as if blinders have been removed from my eyes and that I now have the tools to understand the changing work environment and labor market of the new economy. A must read for those in large companies that have existed longer than 40 years (or are over 40 years old themselves). For for those who believe they have security and entitlement based upon their "knowledge of the company"... Here's a News Flash " Organizational man is dead ..." Thanks Professor for the heads up !