Mark A. Huselid
Professor Human Resource Management
Featured Faculty Member
Mark Huselid’s latest book, The Differentiated Workforce: Transforming Talent Into Strategic Impact, is designed to provide HR managers with a blueprint for deciding when, where, and how to invest in the workforce. Written with Brian Becker and Dick Beatty and published by the Harvard Business Press (April 2009) – this book expands upon the themes first presented in The HR Scorecard, The Workforce Scorecard, and their December 2005 article in the Harvard Business Review.
Given the financial and managerial resources needed to attract, select, develop, and retain high performers, companies simply can’t afford to have “A players” in all positions. The Differentiated Workforce argues that businesses need to adopt a portfolio approach to workforce management, placing the very best employees in strategic positions, good performers in support positions, and eliminating non-performing employees and jobs that don’t add value. The authors believe that companies all too often invest in their best and worst employees in equal measure, causing “A players” to depart and “C players” to be retained.
In this book, Huselid and his fellow authors show the reader how to identify those Strategic Capabilities – bundles of people, technology, and information – that truly drive strategic success. They then illustrate how the creation of a Differentiated Workforce can help build those strategic capabilities, driving strategy execution and business success. After reading this book, HR professionals will have the tools to develop a Strategic Human Capital Plan that details the specific steps needed to 1.) place “A players” in “A positions,” 2.) effectively manage “B” and “C” players and positions, and 3.) execute and communicate the process throughout the business.
Bio:
(Ph.D., SUNY at Buffalo, human resource management) focuses on the linkages between workforce management and measurement systems, strategy execution, and firm performance. He has published numerous articles on these topics in the Academy of Management Journal, Administrative Science Quarterly, Human Resource Management Journal, Human Resource Planning, Industrial Relations, Journal of Applied Psychology, and Research in Personnel and Human Resource Management, among others. Professor Huselid was the editor of the Human Resource Management Journal from 2000 to 2004 and is a current or former member of numerous academic and professional boards. He was recently the recipient of the Society for Human Resource Management's Yoder-Heneman Scholarly Achievement Award, the Academy of Management's Scholarly Achievement Award in Human Resource Management, the Best Paper award from the Academy of Management Journal, and the Academy of Management's Best Paper award in human resource management. Dr. Huselid's book The HR Scorecard: Linking People, Strategy & Performance (with Brian Becker and Dave Ulrich) was published in 2001 by the Harvard Business School Press. The HR Scorecard has been translated into nine languages and is an international bestseller. His new book The Workforce Scorecard: Managing Human Captial to Execute Strategy (with Brian Becker and Dick Beatty) was published by the HBS Press in March, 2005.
Contact: Huselid@smlr.rutgers.edu
