General

What do you do when you don’t know where to look? In track and field, the sprinters who win have great starts. No pun intended, but getting started on the right foot will save time, and usually produce superior results.

You are learning about best practices in several areas of human resource management. Why not incorporate "best information seeking practices" from the start?

Daniells, Lorna M. Business Information Sources, 3^rd edition. Berkely, Calif. : University of California Press, 1993.

See especially the chapters on human resources management, and production and operations
management. Having a resource nearby when you are not sure of where to look can make
your research infinitely more productive and efficient. Owning a guide to research and resources is good practice.

Human Resources Internet Guide
http://www.hr-guide.com/

An example of a commercial web site with links to internet-based resources for HR professionals and students 

United States Department of Labor. WWW Site Index
http://www.dol.gov/dol/siteindex.htm 

An excellent first stop 

Occupational Information Network
http://online.onetcenter.org/

Professional Associations

Here are a few important professional organizations you should know about. Most of them are engaged in the production and publication of information resources—everything from journals and newsletters to seminars and multimedia materials.

American Management Association
http://www.amanet.org/

International Personnel Management Association
http://www.ipma-hr.org

Society for Human Resources Management
http://www.shrm.org/

Leadership

Here are examples of "best practices" drawn from successful managers.
What are the underlying management approaches of a company which interests
you like? Where would you be likely to find them? How would you find them on
the Web? How would you find them in printed sources like Wall Street Journal,
Business Week, HRFocus, Harvard Business Review?

Business Leader Profiles from Issues of Leading Companies
http://www.beysterinstitute.org  

Leadership Development
http://www.leadership.opm.gov

Recruitment, Staffing & Employment

Many firms are using the technology of the World Wide Web to find quality employees. There are plenty of ways to learn about recruitment+. Here are three examples.

1. NEWS SERVICES, INDEXES TO NEWSPAPERS

Point your WWW browser to http://camellia.shc.edu/byrne/elibrary.htm
CHOOSE LEXIS-NEXIS
Select the file GENERAL NEWS TOPICS
type recruiting and employees

What do you notice about the sources indexed in this service? Lexis-Nexis is the premier
news service but it is very expensive. How could you find this information if you did not
have access to Lexis-Nexis?

2. INDEXES TO BUSINESS JOURNALS

Point your WWW browser to http://camellia.shc.edu/byrne/
From the drop-down menu Online Databases and Journals
CHOOSE  GENERAL BUSINESS FILE
type best and human resource and management

An article from HRFocus describes best practices for human resource technology.

What Are the Best Practices Today in HR Technology?

You can use information contained in one good citation to find additional high quality sources.
Most online indexes and databases use index terms or descriptors to describe the subject content of an
article. If available, simply click on the live hyperlink to search for all citations in the database
with the same index terms. 

3. Literally thousands of WWW sites list openings in various fields. Many employers are posting
their positions on the WWW too. What kinds of employees do these employers seek?

What sorts of sources do you find when you search Academic Index General Business File for:

Employee recruitment
Employee selection


Interviewing

Employment interviews are designed to judge the qualifications and desirability of a candidate
for a job. Studies find that interviews are incredibly important in getting the right job. The
Bureau of National Affairs recently polled 196 personnel executives in an effort to pinpoint the
most important factors in hiring applicants. The studies' results showed employment interviews
are the single most important factor in landing a job.

Here is a very fine Web page by Dr. Eliot S. Elfner, P.E. Chair, Division of Social Sciences, and  Professor of Business Administration at St. Norbert College, DePere, WI on the interview process

http://www.snc.edu/socsci/chair/336/group3.htm

Additional links
http://www.snc.edu/socsci/chair/336/links.htm

Here is a sample WWW site for a company that does "power hiring." What do you think?
http://www.cjapower.com/

Compensation, Benefits and Incentives

    This is an example of one type of publication you may want to always keep within
    reach in your personal library. Are there other situations in which a quick reference
    or handbook would be handy? This is an example of a resource located using a
    subject search in a library catalog. Notice the general topic and subdivision for the
    type of publication. Try searching for other materials using just "compensation
    management" as your term.

The Compensation handbook : a state-of-the-art guide to compensation strategy and design.
New York : McGraw-Hill, c1991. HF5549.5.C67H36 1991

    Compensation management -- Handbooks, manuals, etc

Here is a selected list of professional associations, organizations, and government entities producing
and publishing information on compensation in general and on specific aspects of compensation.

Do any of these organizations publish journals?
Are there any indexes to journal articles which include their publications?
Are any of their book publications available for sale or in a library catalog?
How were they found using the Web? Did finding them take all day long?

American Compensation Association
http://www.acaonline.org/

American Payroll Association
http://www.americanpayroll.org/ 

Benefits Review Board Decisions
http://www.dol.gov/brb/search/schall.htm

Compensation and Working Conditions
http://stats.bls.gov/newsrels.htm#OCWC 

Compensation and Working Conditions (Online Journal)
http://www.bls.gov/opub/cwc/home.htm

Includes employee benefits, employer costs for employee compensation, health care expenditures, etc.

Compensation Strategies
http://www.beysterinstitute.org/resrclib/subject.htm#comp

Department of Labor Employment Standards Administration. Wage and Hour Division
http://www.dol.gov/esa/whd/ 

Employee Benefits Research Institute
http://www.ebri.org/

National Institute of Pension Administrators
http://www.nipa.org/

The International Salary Calculator
http://www2.homefair.com/calc/salcalc.html 

Pensions and Welfare Benefits Administration
http://www.dol.gov/pwba/

    StatAbs is another of those kinds or resources to have within reach.
    Most often the statistical data you need are already there. An invaluable
    reference tool—it also includes references to their source material.
   It is available on the WWW, but the printed version is much simpler to use.

Statistical Abstract of the United States
http://www.census.gov/statab/www/

American Society for Training and Development (ASTD)
http://www.astd.org/

    People don’t always think of organizations as "authors." You often will find excellent
    publications searching for associations, societies, companies, etc. by author. Here is
    one example.

The ASTD training and development handbook: a guide to human resource development. 4^th ed.
New York : McGraw-Hill, 1996. HF 5549.5.T7T6648 1996 STACKS

            Employees -- Training of -- United States

Mager, Robert Frank. What every manager should know about training, or, I’ve got a training problem—
and other odd ideas. Belmont, Calif. : Lake Publishing, 1992.HF 5549.5.T7M33 1992 STACKS

         Employees -- Training of -- United States

                    "Employees training of" is the subject heading to use in any U.S. library catalog.

Do any of these organizations publish books or journals? Training Videos?
Do they offer training seminars? How would you find out?
Are there any indexes to journal articles which include their publications?
Are any of their book publications available for sale or in a library catalog?
How were they found using the Web? Did finding them take all day long?

American Sociological Association Section on Organizations, Occupations, and Work
http://www.northpark.edu/sociology/oow/

Employee Motivation and Empowerment
http://www.beysterinstitute.org/resrclib/subject.htm#motive

Affirmative Action, Equal Employment Opportunity

Web Reference Materials for Human Resources (HR) Specialists
http://www.opm.gov/references/

Many of the "stakeholders" in this important area produce helpful for guidance.

American Association for Affirmative Action
http://www.affirmativeaction.org/

Americans with Disabilities Act Document Center
http://janweb.icdi.wvu.edu/kinder/

U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission
http://www.eeoc.gov/

Remember that we’ve been asking whether or not associations, organizations and other groups publish
helpful information? Here are a few from the EEOC to navigate a potentially tricky area. They were
found using the indicated subject words in a library catalog.

-------. The Americans with Disabilities Act : questions and answers. Washington, D.C. : U.S.
            Equal Employment Opportunity Commission : U.S. Dept. of Justice, Civil Rights
            Division, 1997.

                            Handicapped -- Employment -- Law and legislation

-------. Job patterns for minorities and women in private industry. Washington, D.C. : U.S
            Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, 1966-present.

                            Discrimination in employment

        The subject subdivision "Law and legislation" can be added to a heading to find materials
        dealing with the legal aspects of the subject. West publishing is one of the premier publishers of legal
         resources.

Lewis, Harold S. Civil rights and employment discrimination law. St. Paul, Minn. : West Pub., 1997.
KF3464.L486 1997 STACKS

                            Handicapped -- Employment -- Law and legislation

Performance Appraisal

Performance Management from the Office of Personnel Management
http://www.opm.gov/perform/index.asp

Mohrman, Allan M. Designing performance appraisal systems : aligning appraisals and organizational
realities. San Francisco : Jossey-Bass Publishers, 1989. HF5549.5.P35M64 1989

                            Performance standards
                    Employees -- Rating of

This is one publication from the Jossey-Bass Management Series. Would Amazon Books
or Books in Print tell me what other sources are in the series?

Occupational Health and Safety Administration
http://www.osha.gov/

NIOSH Pocket Guide to Chemical Hazards. U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services, Public Health Service, Centers for Disease Control, National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health ; Washington, D.C. 1990.
HE 20.7108 :C 42/990

                        Occupational diseases -- Prevention

Nelkin, Dorothy. Workers at risk : voices from the workplace. Chicago : University of Chicago Press, 1984.
HD7654 .N45 1984 STACKS

                        Industrial safety

Labor-Management Relations

Professional Organizations/Government Agencies/Labor Unions

AFL-CIO. Today’s Unions.
http://www.aflcio.ord/home.htm

American Arbitration Association
http://www.adr.org/

National Academy of Arbitrators
http://www.naarb.org/

National Labor Relations Board (NLRB)
http://www.nlrb.gov/

Federal Labor Relations Authority
http://www.flra.gov/

Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service
http://www.fmcs.gov/  

Restructuring / Downsizing

Office of Personnel Management Restructuring and Downsizing Services
http://www.opm.gov/employ/html/restruct.htm 

Reduction in Labor Force
http://www.opm.gov/reduction_in_force/

Law, Regulations etc.

Search the U.S. Code online
http://law.house.gov/usc.htm

Search the Code of Federal Regulations online
http://www.access.gpo.gov/nara/cfr/cfr-table-search.html

Search the Federal Register online
http://www.access.gpo.gov:80/su_docs/aces/aces140.html

Industrial Relations WWW Sites (Academic)

Cornell University Legal Information Institute. Institute for Collective Bargaining.
http://lii.law.cornell.edu/topics/collective_bargaining.html

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Institute of Labor and Industrial Relations
http://www.ilir.uiuc.edu

Statistics

News Releases, Bureau of Labor
http://stats.bls.gov/bls/newsrels.htm

Includes the following kinds of data: employment & unemployment, prices & living conditions, compensation
& working conditions, productivity & technology, employment projections, international programs, regional
news releases, etc. Notice that the "producer" of the information is a government entity.

When might these kind of data be useful? Are they available only electronically?
Are they available in print? How often are they released?

Monthly Labor Review Index
http://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/index.htm

See especially Collective bargaining, Compensation costs, Earnings and wages, Health and insurance
plans, Labor-management relations, Industry studies, Occupational safety and health, Workplace injuries
and illnesses, International comparisons, Pensions, Productivity, Retirement, Technological change,
Unemployment insurance, Unit labor costs, Workplace practices.

Employment Cost Trends
http://www.bls.gov/ncs/ect

Includes Expenditures for Health Care Plans by Employers and Employees, Employer Costs for Employee Compensation and Employment Cost Index, etc.

Bureau of Labor Statistics Online Journal Compensation and Working Conditions Online
http://www.bls.gov/opub/cwc/cwchome.htm

Employee Benefits Survey
http://www.bls.gov/ncs/ebs

National Compensation Survey. Compensation by Occupation and City for various US cities
http://www.bls.gov/ncs/ocs/compub.htm

Human Resources Electronic Discussion Groups

http://www.teleport.com/~erwilson/listserv.html

Here are a few of the discussion groups listed:

HRNET

Focus is on general HR issues. If there is only one HR related list you join this should be it! Very popular.

    To subscribe send an e-mail message to listserv@cornell.edu

    Leave the subject blank

    For the text of your message type subscribe hrnet firstname lastname

BENEFITS-L

Focus is on issues related to employee benefits

    To subscribe send an e-mail message to listproc@frank.mtsu.edu

    Leave the subject blank

    For the text of your message type subscribe benefits-l firstname lastname

TRDEV-L

Very active Training and Development issues with around 5,000 subscribers!

    To subscribe send an e-mail message to listserv@lists.psu.edu

    Leave the subject blank

    For the text of your message type subscribe trdev-l firstname lastname

One of the best ways to keep current in any field is to subscribe to an association journal or practitioner’s journal.

Your text lists dozens, many of which are held in a local academic library. Remember that even if you don’t have a personal subscription, most college and university libraries will let you read their materials in the library. Your tax dollars pay for the resources. Why not use them?

Many of the highest quality journals are those produced by societies, associations and of practitioners within a field.

The articles in your text Human Resources, Mcgraw-Hill, are excerpted from some of the most important HR journals. Thomas Byrne Memorial Library subscribes to many of them. Here are just a few print HR journals  held by Burke Memorial Library:  Jump to List of Burke Library Electronic Journals

Business Horizons
Harvard Business Review
HRFocus
HRMagazine
Human Resource Management
People Management
Personnel Journal
Public Administration Review
Training and Development
Vital Speeches of the Day
Workforce

Search Business, Finance, and Management journals from Wiley Interscience

Here are a few electronic journals you may also find interesting

Benefits and Compensation Solutions Magazine
http://www.bcsolutionsmag.com/ 

Compensation and Working Conditions Online
http://www.bls.gov/opub/cwc

Monthly Labor Review
http://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/mlrhome.htm

HR Wire
http://www.hrwire.com/

Workforce Online
http://www.workforceonline.com/ 

Occupational Outlook Handbook
http://www.bls.gov/oco/

Content Contact:  Bret Heim
Content revised: 3/15/00