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The article reviews the book, "Relever les défis de la gestion des ressources humaines," by Sylvie St-Onge, Michel Audet, Victor Haines and André Petit,

The article reviews the book, "Leviathans : Multinational Corporations and the New Global History," edited by Alfred D. Chandler, Jr. and Bruce Mazlish.

Afin de répondre aux pressions économiques, aux vagues de rationalisation et aux nouvelles formes d'organisation du travail, les entreprises considèrent pouvoir améliorer leur efficacité en impartissant certaines fonctions organisationnelles à des fournisseurs dans le but de réduire leurs coûts, d'avoir accès à des services d'experts et de s'attarder aux compétences-clés qui constituent une valeur ajoutée pour l'organisation. Basée sur une enquête auprès de 90 entreprises, notre recherche tente d'étudier le phénomène de l'impartition au sein de la fonction ressources humaines (RH). Les résultats de notre étude identifient les activités de gestion des RH visées par l'impartition, les motifs et les variables organisationnelles qui affectent l'ampleur du recours à l'impartition, et, finalement les répercussions de cette nouvelle tendance sur l'efficacité de la fonction.

Dans le contexte actuel de pénuries de compétences, la fonction ressources humaines — après avoir encouragé les départs anticipés — se voit confrontée au défi de maintenir en emploi les employés vieillissants. Après avoir passé en revue les principales pratiques de gestion associées à la rétention des employés de 50 ans et plus, les auteurs mesurent leur effet sur l’extension de la vie professionnelle de 402 cadres des services sociaux et de santé de Montréal. Les résultats, une fois validés à partir de ceux de deux autres sources de données (tirés de la même enquête), permettent d’élaborer une stratégie de maintien en emploi axée sur les quatre dimensions suivantes : 1) élaboration d’un projet de fin de carrière, 2) aménagement du temps de travail, 3) amélioration de la qualité de vie au travail, 4) stimulants financiers. // In many industries in Quebec and Canada, as well as in other Western countries, labour shortages have now replaced labour surpluses in a context where succession is growing scarce and a real culture of rapid departure has developed as a result of the recent waves of early retirement and the work overload that this has created for the “survivors.” After years of encouraging departures and of managing early retirement programs, the human resources (HR) function now faces the new challenge of attempting to retain aging employees in today’s context of multiple restructuring, infrastructure sharing, growing competition and—for the Public Service—tighter management of the financial resources that the state makes available to institutions. This raises the question of whether it is possible today to have end-of-career employees extend their working lives. In the 1980s and 1990s, numerous studies (Rosen and Jerdee 1985a; Nusberg 1986, 1989; Meier 1988; Dennis 1988; Hale 1990; Shea 1991) presented—based on the specific needs and expectations of this category of workers—management practices which were supposed to satisfy end-of-career employees and encourage them to stay in their jobs longer. However, the issue of the effectiveness of these practices has rarely been addressed. What is the value of this model of managing aging? Can it be useful for HR managers? According to the domain-specific literature, a retention strategy may be based on a number of practices aimed at extending the working life of older employees. These practices will be presented according to seven main categories: career planning, career development, career moves, job content design, time management, pay and benefits, and employment relationship. The effectiveness of these practices will then be assessed on the basis of a sample of managers who, in March 2001, answered a more general questionnaire on job dissatisfaction, mobilization and retention in the Montreal health and social services sector. Out of a total of 3525 managers, 1054 managers answered the questionnaire. Of this number, 402 managers were aged 50 years or over and formed the sample used in this study. Extension of working life (EWL), the dependent variable used in this study, was assessed through four indicators: expectations of early retirement, expectations of extending working life, planned retirement age and desired age (regardless of any financial consideration). Thirty-seven practices which are supposed to be linked with retirement departure were drawn from the literature and retained as independent variables. Other variables—socio-demographic, professional, psychological and organizational—act as control variables in certain analyses. The results show that the percentage of explanation of EWL through end-of-career management practices is only 13%. As amply repeated in the literature, end-of-career managers are particularly partial to individualized arrangements. These managers stay on because their employer has organized a stimulating end-of-career project for them that is either challenging or offers particularly attractive working conditions. Without these accommodations, there is no hope of retaining these managers, short of offering substantial financial incentives. From this analysis of management practices emerged a strategy for retaining older managers based on: (1) a stimulating end-of-career project; (2) individualized arrangements of work time (and place) or advantages which allow for this flexibility and (3) in addition to—or in the absence of—these elements, financial incentives can always be used to “purchase” the retention of older employees. To validate the retention strategy which emerged from the preceding results, two additional analyses were conducted. The first analysis used other independent variables, i.e. the opportunities offered by the workplace to satisfy a number of professional expectations. These variables could be considered as intervening variables between management practices and the decision to stay employed. The second analysis was based on the results of an open-ended question which asked the respondent, “Under what conditions would you agree to extend your career beyond the planned retirement age?” The results allow us to complete and specify the retention strategy described above. Thus, four tools are available to retain end-of-career managers in the Montreal health and social services sector: End-of-career individual project. Time management. Improvement of quality of working life. Financial incentives. Although the impact of these practices on the extension of working life is less significant than the impact of individual factors (seniority, health status, expected financial situation at retirement, importance of work in life, etc.), the impact of these practices is far from insignificant. Thus, this demonstrates that the HR function has a role to play in the development and implementation of a management strategy to retain managers aged 50 or over.

Research note on the factors that explain leaving the management and the importance of a career.

The purpose of this research is to examine whether differences exist in the work values of several generations among 186 respondents in Quebec and 252 Arab respondents in the United Arab Emirates. We used an abridged version of Wils, Luncasu and Waxin (2007) work value inventory, including 28 work values arranged on four poles: self-enhancement, self-transcendence, openness-to-change and conservation. In the Quebec sample, there were no significant differences between generations in their scores on the four work value poles. In the Arab sample, the younger generation attached less importance to self-enhancement, but more importance to self-transcendence than the older generation with a small effect size. Our results also demonstrate that cultural origin had no significant impact on the average score on the work value poles. The diversity in work values among generations and cultures that we found in our samples does not support the idea that human resource management practices should be adjusted for different generations.