Articles.

One of the interesting things about the first article in this issue is its title, "Nonstandard Employment Arrangements." By implication, there is a standard employment arrangement, but many of us might wonder out loud what that standard is today, with all the talk about generational differences, about booms and downturns, or, as Peter Cappelli at Wharton phrases it, the new deal at work.

And that's the beauty of the article by our colleagues at the Fisher College of Business at Ohio State University. They lead us to look at and then question the policies that govern "alternative" and "contingent" employment relationships. These workforce levers are critically important in today's workforce planning, and we in HR should be thinking about the problems that surround nonstandard employment and be influencing the institutions that control its operation. It is a strategic issue worthy of our time and effort.

We are placing two articles on HR measurements side by side in this issue. The topic has been around for a long while, and many of our readers have undoubtedly taken their shot at nailing down once and for all just how HR contributes to business performance. But after the meetings and conferences we have attended, we have concluded that few companies really have a lock on this subject. We note, with interest, that the Society for Human Resource Management, for example, has made measuring human capital a key theme in the information provided its members during all of 2003.

So our two articles on measurement, one from Spain and one from the United States, offer frameworks for taking another--if not new--look at how HR impacts the organization. In the first, Professors Elizabeth Cabrera and Angel Cabrera survey the literature on the subject and add current information from over 70 Spanish companies. They reinforce the importance of the role and contribution HR makes to the business but find that the focus still seems to remain more on evaluating efficiency and less on measuring HR's impact on organizational capabilities and business outcomes.

The second article on measurement, by Professor Sunil Ramlall at the University of St. Thomas, also outlines the history of academic and practitioner thinking on HR measurements. His contribution to our readers--especially to those who are new to the measurement issue or who want to take one more stab at it--is a matrix of outcomes and measurements tied to the major functional areas of human resources.

Human Resource Planning is anxious to hear from readers their success stories in measuring HR's impact on business performance. Hopefully, these articles will provoke a reaction either to say we're better at this than anyone thinks or to say we continue to need the insight and help that the Society can provide.

We have enjoyed our stint as Interim Articles Editors, and are now pleased to turn our editing pens and word processors over to Rich Vosburgh, the new executive editor of Human Resource Planning with responsibility for articles in future issues of the Journal.