If training is to make a real difference in the organization, we need an alternative to the vacuum of performance. A view exists that springs from two fundamental premises: (1) every individual operates in the context of a performance system and (2) improvements in performance will occur only if we understand the variables in that system. (JOW)

This paper describes the training and development (T&D) profession, discusses problems in proposing a field of practice for it, and proposes a specific field of practice for T&D. It provides an impetus for continued discussion. (Author)

The purpose of human resource development (HRD) should be to improve individual performance so that it contributes directly to organizational performance goals. Performance-focused HRD has no room for blind application of interventions or poorly conceived programs. (SK)

While human resource development (HRD), an extension of education, is regarded as a helping profession, industry mandates that HRD contribute to the maximization of organizational outcomes. HRD personnel can easily become demotivated because of dual loyalties. In order not only to avoid stress and demotivation but also to maximize outcomes…

A project explored the manpower issue termed "burnout" and the impact of this phenomenon on mental health service programs. (In the framework of this study burnout is defined as that state of non-productivity, non-motivation, and indifference which interferes with a worker's delivering services effectively.) Existing literature does not clearly…

This document is intended to promote understanding of performance standards in Job Training Partnership Act (JTPA) and Employment Service (ES) applications; to promote more appropriate use of performance standards in managing and overseeing job training and job placement programs at the state and local levels; and to foster the integration of the…

The Skills Standards Projects have provided further emphasis on the need for benchmarking U.S. vocational-technical education (VTE) against international competition. Benchmarking is an ongoing systematic process designed to identify, as quantitatively as possible, those practices that produce world class performance. Metrics are those things that…

Recent literature addressing workplace learning emphasizes the production in late modernity of worker subjectivity as "enterprising self" amid the discourses of flexible specialization in post-Fordist work environments. Extensive critique of these environments has lamented the management of workers' learning and its subversion to…

The Secretary's Commission on Achieving Necessary Skills (SCANS) examined the demands of the workplace and whether young people were capable of meeting those demands. Specifically, SCANS determined the level of skills required to enter employment. Fundamental changes in the nature of work were identified; these changes were found to hold…

The North Central Indiana Workplace Literacy Initiative seeks to develop a curriculum management system addressing work force literacy needs and a coordinated human resource investment system meeting individual economic self-sufficiency needs and labor market needs. The workplace of the future will contain six key changes: employers will require…

Past investments in the U.S. work force--early childhood interventions, formal education, and training--have improved productivity and made important contributions both to the wages of individuals and to the growth of the economy. Excellent, comprehensive prenatal care, good nutrition, medical care, and intensive early childhood education programs…

This document contains four papers from a symposium on performance, productivity, and continuous improvement. "Investigating the Association between Productivity and Quality Performance in Two Manufacturing Settings" (Constantine Kontoghiorghes, Robert Gudgel) summarizes a study that identified the following quality management variables…

This document contains 14 papers on human resources (HR) and human resource management (HRM) in virtual organizations. The following papers are included: "Series Preface" (Rodger Griffeth); "Volume Preface" (Robert L. Heneman, David B. Greenberger); "The Virtual Organization: Definition, Description, and…

Relatively little research has focused on how organizational culture and existing methods of evaluating the job performance of minority ethnic groups have contributed to exclusion from, and discrimination in, the workplace or on how organizations can address these issues. The evidence suggests the existence of a widespread tendency in…

This book examines the rhetoric surrounding the notion of informal learning in order to expand debate about the uses of informal learning in workplaces and about attempts to "recognize" it through competency-based standards. The following topics are among those discussed in the book's eight chapters: (1) the nature of informal learning…