Human Performance Improvement: Building Practitioner Performance

by William J. Rothwell, Carolyn K. Hohne, Stephen B. King

Organizations are under pressure to build and sustain competitive advantage with and through people. For that reason, managers continue to demand results from workers and look for as many ways as possible to increase productivity and decrease the costs of doing business. Human performance improvement (HPI) is a systematic approach to securing better performance from people.

This book provides a thorough overview of the theory and practice of HPI, looking at the long-term action plan and specific interventions that can improve productivity and address performance problems. This new edition provides up-to-date references and sources, examines the manager's role in HPI in more detail than previous editions, and explores how to build on human performance improvement strengths and opportunities. Written by a group of highly respected authors in the field, this book will show you how to discover and analyze performance gaps, plan for future improvements in human performance, and design and develop cost-effective interventions to close performance gaps.

HPI is not a tool reserved exclusively for training and development practitioners, human resource specialists, or external consultants. Almost anyone can use it, including managers, supervisors, and even employees, making this book vital reading for anyone looking to improve human performance.

254 pages, Hardcover

First published September 19, 2000

About the author

William J. Rothwell is professor of Workplace Learning and Performance at Pennsylvania State University and President of Rothwell & Associates, a business consultancy.

Reviews

[Michael Belcher · Rating 4 out of 5]

Perfect primer for Human Performance Improvement practitioners.

[Brent Wilson · Rating 4 out of 5]

I gave this book about four hours of my time - got through about a third of the content. It's a typical textbook in its ambition to "cover" a subject area. In this case it does a pretty good job through clear exposition, tons of simple figures and tables, attractive text design.

In my opinion Appendix III is largely a waste - 50 pages of reference material that could have been better placed on the web - and kept updated there.

It's been interesting to see how the field of human-performance improvement (HCI - or "technology" HPT) has matured into a field with established textbooks.