The Hr R Evolution

Many observers have suggested that capitalism is fast destroying our planet, concentrating power in a few big companies. Excessive short-termism, leveraged debt, digitisation, and disruption are the new normal. We stand at a critical juncture where the two paths ahead could lead to very different futures. One route could take us back to the harshest days of the early Industrial Revolution and the Great Depression. The other could lead to a world of abundance, equality, inclusivity, and prosperity for all. Which future awaits us will largely be determined by business, and HR (Human Resources) in particular. Books on HR tend to focus on HR practices and potential interventions, but they rarely look at the profession, how it evolved, and how and why those people practices were created. The HR (R)Evolution: Change the Workplace, Change the World describes the "Seven Great Waves" of change and explains how each wave impacted business. It explains how some companies are stuck in the past and how HR can break the deadlock if it understands what the future holds. This book is meant for senior business leaders or anyone currently working in HR who are grappling with the paradoxes of business today. It’s for leaders who recognise that people issues are the central challenge of our time. Whether we embrace the waves yet to come will determine whether we survive or regress, whether we flourish or flounder. The future is in our hands.

Extracts from a diary (Dec. 30, 1895 - June 12, 1896) dealing chiefly with the Jameson Raid.

HR Without People? is a stimulating and confrontational challenge to conventional thinking on this people-centric profession’s role in the future of work.

This monograph details the entire scientific thought of an influential natural philosopher whose contributions, unfortunately, have become obscured by the pages of history. Readers will discover an important thinker: Burchard de Volder. He was instrumental in founding the first experimental cabinet at a European University in 1675. The author goes beyond the familiar image of De Volder as a forerunner of Newtonianism in Continental Europe. He consults neglected materials, including handwritten sources, and takes into account new historiographical categories. His investigation maps the thought of an author who did not sit with an univocal philosophical school, but critically dealt with all the ‘major’ philosophers and scientists of his age: from Descartes to Newton, via Spinoza, Boyle, Huygens, Bernoulli, and Leibniz. It explores the way De Volder’s un-systematic thought used, rejected, and re-shaped their theories and approaches. In addition, the title includes transcriptions of De Volder's teaching materials: disputations, dictations, and notes. Insightful analysis combined with a trove of primary source material will help readers gain a new perspective on a thinker so far mostly ignored by scholars. They will find a thoughtful figure who engaged with early modern science and developed a place that fostered experimental philosophy.

This book takes a forward-looking approach by bringing in research and contributions that facilitate in mapping the impact of AI and big data on businesses, the nature of work along with providing practical solutions for preparing the work, workplace, and the workforce of the future. Organizations globally have been experiencing immense transformation due to the reinvention and redefining of the business models due to the dynamic nature of the business environment. Looking at an organizational context, undeniably, the definition of ‘work’ and ‘organizations’ is genuinely changing. Artificial intelligence, big data, automation, and robotics are a few of those keywords that are seemingly entering the workplace and reshaping the way work is being done. Moreover, the transition that is being addressed herein not only focuses upon aspects that are operative within an organization like the organizational culture, team building, networking, recruitments, and so on but also aims to address the external aspects like supply chain management, value chain analysis, investment management, etc. Broadly, every single step that is now taken is intensely experiencing this impact upon its functioning. This book serves as a guide not just to the academia but also to the industry to adopt suitable strategies that offer insights into global best practices as well as the innovations in the domain.