The text is divided into five parts:

*Part One includes a discussion of the environmental forces that companies face in attempting to capitalize on their human resources as a means to gain competitive advantage.

*Part Two deals with the acquisition and preparation of human resources, including human resource (HR) planning and recruitment, selection, and training.

*Part Three explores how companies can determine the value of employees and capitalize on their talents through retention and development strategies.

*Part Four covers rewarding and compensating human resources, including designing pay structures (Chapter 11), recognizing individual contributions (Chapter 12), and providing benefits (Chapter 13).

*Part Five covers special topics in HR management, including labor-management relations, international HRM, and strategically managing the HRM function.

The edition features outstanding pedagogy:

*Updated chapter-opening vignettes contain relevant examples of real-life business problems. Self-assessment exercises ask students to complete and evaluate their skills. 

*Evidence-Based HR sections highlight the growing trend to demonstrate how human resources contributes to a company' s competitive advantage. 

*The end-of-chapter segment, A Look Back, encourages students to recall the chapter's opening vignette and apply it to what they have just learned. 

*Managing People cases look at incidents and real companies and encourage students to critically evaluate each problem and apply the chapter concepts. 

*Application exercises, such as Click and Drag, video cases, and case analyses, allow students to experience and understand the relevance and application that HRM has to their job and their organization. 

*Exercising Strategy cases at the end of each chapter pose strategic questions based on real-life practices.

*Twenty separate videos provide in-depth detail on topics like bullying, cyberloafing, office romance, and negotiation. 

*Self-awareness exercises let students dive into more advanced insights about themselves with topics like empathy, leadership, decision-making style, and positivity, while self-assessment exercises help students evaluate their own skills.

Unique aspects of this text provide instructional capabilities not found in other texts. For example, students watch real managers apply their years of experience when confronting unscripted issues and later watch follow-up interviews with the managers to view how their responses matched the managers' decisions. Materials provide questions that give students the opportunity to discuss and apply HR concepts to a broad range of issues.