Policies for managing people in Australia: What has changed in the 1990s?

This article examines the principal ways in which human resource policies have changed during the 1990s in Australia. It reports on the findings of an international survey involving 22 countries. The survey indicates organizations changed significant aspects of their people management policies. These changes included increasing use of performance-based pay, flexible employment practices, training, performance appraisals, and more broadly designed jobs. Taken together, these developments imply an emphasis on improving employee performance while at the same time increasing the flexibility of labour. There is also evidence that the role of HR managers is changing.