Managing Human Resources Strategically in the Public Sector: Trends and New Directions

With the shift from "human resources" to "human capital management" (HCM), public agencies are striving to strategically manage their workforces. Sally Selden’s groundbreaking book moves far beyond describing best practices and offers the context in which innovative practices have been implemented. She details how agencies are creating performance-aligned workforces by adopting systems and policies that are driven by their strategic missions.

This book covers core topics of personnel courses―including hiring, training, retention, performance, and recognition―but also includes integrated coverage on measuring success through assessment. Further helping readers grasp how HCM works, the book uses original data from the Government Performance Project and incorporates many comparative examples across a wide range of states, plus federal and municipal agencies. Unlike anything else available, Human Capital fills a critical gap for both students and public personnel professionals.

Sally Coleman Selden is an associate professor of management at Lynchburg College. Selden’s teaching and research interests include public management, human resource management, and nonprofit management effectiveness. She is also a Principal Investigator for the Government Performance Project (GPP), a study of public management systems in all fifty states funded by The Pew Charitable Trusts. She was responsible for leading the academic team that graded the human resource management systems of the U.S. state governments. The GPP project is a collaborative effort among five universities and Governing magazine. She is the author of over 50 articles, books, or book chapters and serves on the Academic Advisory Board of the Partnership for Public Service and on Human Resource Management Executive Committee of the American Society of Public Administration. She won the James A. Huston Award for Outstanding Scholarship in 2004 and received the Syndor Teaching Award in 2003. She has taught at Syracuse University and the University of Oklahoma. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Georgia and her M.P.A./B.A. from the University of Virginia.