Financial Analysis for HR Managers: Tools for Linking HR Strategy to Business Strategy

HR leaders and practitioners: master the financial analysis skills you need to become true strategic business partners, gain an equal seat at the table, and get boardroom and CFO buy-in for your initiatives! In this one-of-a-kind book, Dr. Steven Director covers everything mid-to-senior-level HR professionals need to formulate, model, and evaluate their HR initiatives from a financial perspective. Drawing on his unsurpassed expertise working with HR executives, he walks through each crucial financial issue associated with strategic talent management, including quantifiable links between workforces and business value, cost-benefit analyses of HR and strategic financial initiatives, and specific issues related to total rewards programs, including stock, stock options, and pension costs. Unlike other finance books for non-financial managers, Financial Analysis for HR Managers focuses entirely on core HR issues. Director helps you answer questions such as: How do you model HR's financial role in corporate strategic initiatives such as the introduction of a new product line? How do you select bonus drivers to send the right signals to managers (and uncover suboptimal hidden signals you might be sending now)? How do you design compensation packages that are fully consistent with your goals? How do you identify and manage pension-finance costs and risks that can dramatically impact the long-term financial health of the business? HR leaders and aspiring leaders are under unprecedented pressure to provide credible, quantitative answers to questions like these. This is the one and only book that will help them do so.

Steven Director is a professor in the Rutgers University School of Management and Labor Relations. He has held a number of leadership positions at Rutgers, including serving as Associate Dean, as Chair of the Human Resource Management Department, and as Director of the PhD program in Industrial Relations and Human Resources. Prior to joining Rutgers he was an Employment Policy Fellow at the Brookings Institution and on the faculty of Michigan State University. He received his Ph.D. and MBA degrees from the Northwestern University Kellogg School of Management.

Dr. Director teaches courses in Labor Economics, Statistics, and Finance. His most frequent and preferred teaching assignment is a course in Financial Analysis for Human Resource Managers. In addition to his on-campus teaching, Dr. Director has taught Finance for HR to senior executives in the U.S., Europe, and Asia. Recognized for his ability to effectively communicate financial concepts to non-financial audiences, Dr. Director has also developed and delivered customized finance training for scientists, engineers, and physicians. His publications have appeared in numerous journals and edited volumes.

His research interests include the financial aspects of HR, compensation and benefits policy, and the interaction between national and corporate employment policy. In January, 2003 he developed and partnered with the Society of Human Resource Management to produce the monthly Leading Indicator of National Employment (LINE) Report. Dr. Director continues to serve as economic advisor to this project and SHRM has now published over 100 consecutive monthly LINE reports. This data series is followed closely by financial analysts and business economists.