"Although world-class firms like GE and Motorola have relied on Six Sigma to build their performance cultures, these processes are all too often left out of human resources (HR) functions. This lack of Six Sigma principles is even more surprising because preventing errors and improving productivity are so critical to the people management processes of hiring, retention, appraisal, and development.From the history and evolution of the Total Quality movement to initiatives for introducing a Six Sigma continuous process improvement strategy in your HR department, Achieving HR Excellence through Six Sigma introduces a new way to envision your role within the organization. It explains how this powerful methodology works and supplies a roadmap to help you find and eliminate waste in your HR processes.Describing exactly what HR excellence means, the book outlines dozens of proven approaches as well as a hierarchy of the exact steps required to achieve it. It illustrates the Six Sigma methodology from the creation of a project to its successful completion. At each stage, it describes the specific tools currently available and provides examples of organizations that have used Six Sigma within HR to improve their organizations.The text presents proven approaches that can help you solve and even eliminate people management problems altogether. Filled with real-world examples, it demonstrates how to implement six sigma into the transformational side of your organization. It also includes a listing of additional resources to help you along your Six Sigma journey.Explaining how to build a new business model for your HR organization, the book supplies the new perspective and broad view you will need to discover and recommend game-changing alternatives to traditional HR approaches in your organization"--

"Foreword The theme of this book is increasing human resource (HR) excellence through the use of Six Sigma processes and approaches, and it could not be more relevant in today's business climate. The intense competition that firms face requires them to reduce waste and to maximize their quality, efficiency, and rate of continuous improvement. Six Sigma is a well- established business process that contributes to each of these goals. Top firms like Toyota and GE have relied on Six Sigma as an important element in building their performance cultures. Although Six Sigma is not new to business, these processes have only been infrequently applied to the HR function. Cost reduction and control processes can be especially impactful in the area of people management simply because employee costs are themselves so high (the cost of labor can reach as high as 60% of all corporate variable costs). A lack of Six Sigma principles and tools in people management is also surprising because preventing errors and improving quality are of paramount importance in the critical people management processes of hiring, retention, appraisal, and development. Looking at hiring as an example, if you hire a weak employee, that employee will likely begin a job by making numerous errors, which can damage the firm's products and your customer reputation. A weak new hire will also initially require a great deal of management time and training resources"--