These include sexual harassment, smoking in the workplace, discrimination against workers with AIDS, the rights of the disabled, and affirmative action. The big political issue of the 1990s, that of how large government should be and what role it should play, can be defined as a personnel issue. Your text focuses to some extent on the National Performance Review, a controversial document emphasizing the need for efficiency and effectiveness in government. The fortunes of politicians often rise and fall on such issues. We will examine these and a number of other issues during the semester.
Personnel management is also highly legalistic in today's society.
For this reason, one entire module in your text is devoted to constitutional and legal issues in personnel management. Some have commented that without personnel administration many of our law schools would have to close. We will examine the implications of the legal environment in which personnel management exists today during the semester as well. The two key predictions made by most forecasters are that the society of the 21st century will be highly technological and that we will have a global economy. These trends will lead to changes in how and where we work, perhaps in the nature of work itself.