In this chapter we review the findings from the interviews and case studies on the new and different HRM practices adopted by project-oriented organizations. In accordance with our expectations, we found that project-oriented organizations apply additional HRM practices specific to the project, and that they need to apply practices in the line differently than the traditional, large manufacturing organizations. While project management literature has been suggesting for almost 20 years that some HRM practices should be delegated to the project manager for the sake of cohesiveness of the project team and motivation of the project team members (Graham, 1989; Turner, 1999), we found that HRM practices are still, by and large, applied in the line, and in some organizations project appraisals and project-specific rewards are positively banned.

ADDITIONAL HRM PRACTICES SPECIFIC TO THE PROJECT

We report what we discovered about additional HRM practices that project-oriented organizations needed to adopt, which are specific to the project. The results are summarized in Table 5-1.

Assignment of Personnel to the Project

All the organizations investigated had practices for assigning people to projects. Assignment of personnel to projects usually starts in the line and finishes on the project. However, the practices differed depending on the size of projects undertaken by the organization:

• Small- to medium-sized projects of several months in duration
• Large projects over a year in duration

These ranges of duration are deliberately nonoverlapping. It is impossible to give precise definitions of what counts as a small to medium or large project. But the importance of size can be appreciated as we explain the different assignment practices.

Small- to Medium-Sized Projects

In the companies we interviewed or conducted case studies, the majority of projects last several months and have several team members assigned. By and large, individual projects were not known about at the time of the development of the annual budgeting cycle. The firm plans to undertake projects and plans for resources to work on projects, but it cannot predict precisely how many projects there will be or the number of people required to work on those projects. This creates the dynamic work environment we identified in Chapter 3. In contracting companies, projects may need to be resourced rapidly in response to client demands. Company C1, for instance, described a project that a client had been discussing with them for 18 months, but when the client eventually decided to do the project, they wanted the team mobilized within one week. Company C1 had known about the project for a long time, but as a contracting company with an objective of maximizing billable hours, they had not been able to set any people aside to potentially work on the project, as they would then have been idle. When the client decided to do the project, the team had to be mobilized rapidly in response to the client's demand, almost as if the project was unexpected. (There was an additional problem, which we will discuss later. Sixty-four people needed to be assigned to the team, but the company felt they could train only eight people per week in the novel technology required by this project, so it took eight weeks to mobilize the team.) Companies doing internal development projects will be able to mobilize project teams in a more controlled fashion, as and when they feel ready to do the project. But the resource demands can still be very unpredictable. Company I10, for instance, said that for three different projects the first required 20,000 worker hours, the next 40,000, and the third 20,000 again. Therefore, not only do projects have to flex up and down in size, but also the organization has to flex up and down over a timescale shorter than the annual budgeting cycle. The only way they can respond to these fluctuating resource requirements is to supplement internal staff with contract staff.

In most companies, assignments start in the line at project initiation. The project manager, project sponsor, and initial project team members are identified and assigned to the project. The project manager then identifies additional resources required and negotiates with the line for their assignment to the project. Some of the companies interviewed (I1, I2, I4, I8, I10, I11, I13, C1, and C3) had a global resource plan based on a database to identify people everywhere in the world with the skills and capacity to do the work. But companies pointed out restrictions, such as legal regulations of transfer of workforce from one country to the other; restricted mobility of staff, especially employees when they are senior and settled with family and home and do not want to work in a different country; challenges of cultural acceptance; and language barriers. Company I6 has an internal marketplace, where project assignments are posted and staff can offer themselves. Some companies (I1, I2, and I4) have project categorization systems (Crawford et al., 2005), to be able to identify the project manager with appropriate competencies for the particular project (Turner and Muller, 2006). In other companies, the assignment of the project manager to the project is less transparent and rather political (Company I5), but sometimes this company adapts voluntary enrollment practices, especially in their organizational development projects.

Many of the companies interviewed (I1, I3, I4, I6, I8, I9, I10, I12, C1, and C2) said they consciously took account of individuals who required development opportunities when assigning people to projects. Company I6 said they would take somebody off an existing project if an appropriate development opportunity arose, because it was important to both the individual and the company to use the opportunity. In Company I10, individual development objectives stored in the appraisal system are interrogated during the assignment process.

Large Projects

These are projects that take place over a time frame much longer then the organization's annual budgeting cycle, so that the resource requirements can be planned in the annual budgets. Company I12 said that many of their projects take place over several years. A small core project team will be formed initially to work with the customer to scope the work of the project. That core team is appointed by the line organization and will identify the likely workload and resource requirements over several years. Those requirements will be entered into the company's annual budgets. Quite clearly, as the project progresses, the resource requirements will be constantly reviewed and updated in both the project plans and the annual budgets. The line organization identifies appropriate people to work on the project, and they are assigned to the project in accordance with the plans set out in the annual budgets.

Company I13 also undertakes projects lasting several years, creating and operating medical facilities for the villages’ housing construction workers on construction sites. The timing of the projects is set by their clients, the construction companies. The projects can be planned years in advance. So again the resource requirements of the projects are planned into the annual budgeting cycle. Also, internal development projects within the company developing new ICT systems, usually take place over periods of one to two years, and resources for them are also planned in the company's budgeting process.

Company C3 creates dedicated quasi-business units for very large projects. They are currently involved in the work for the London Olympics in 2012, and they have created a quasi-business unit as a focus for all the work on that program. A director is appointed to lead the quasi-business unit and people will be transferred to work in it, including HRM support personnel. Some people will be transferred only temporarily, and at the end of their appointment they will return to their original business units. Others will be transferred substantively, that is, the company's employment records will be changed to show that they are now located in the quasi-business unit and not in the business unit they came from. We interviewed one person who was working on the London Olympics, but had previously been working on the Channel Tunnel Rail Link (CTRL). When he was transferred to work on the CTRL, he had been transferred temporarily, but by the time he came to return to his original business unit, it no longer existed. It had been merged with another, but he was transferred immediately onto the London Olympics.

Company C2 is a former public sector company which has been privatized, but all the employees who were employees at the time of privatization are on legacy contracts of employment through which they retain most of the rights of public sector workers. One specific measure is if they are transferred to work somewhere for more than a year, they must be transferred substantively, that is, the new person they are reporting to must be their line manager, with line management responsibilities, and responsibility for their pay and conditions must transfer to the new department. Thus if a project is going to last more than a year, it must be established as a quasi-business unit, people assigned to the project must be transferred substantively, and the project manager must be given line management responsibilities.

Temporary Assignments

Many of the companies we interviewed also undertook what we describe as temporary assignments. Company C3 explained that a very large proportion of their work is assignments of two or three weeks in duration and involving just one or two people. According to the definition of a project that we suggested in Chapter 2 and derived from the work of Turner and Müller (2003), we would not describe these as projects. A project is a temporary organization, and so must involve at least two people and probably more than three. An assignment of two or three weeks’ duration, given to one or two people, is therefore not a project, but is a temporary task given to the routine organization (Turner and Müller, 2003). However, we include discussion of assignment practices used for these temporary assignments for two reasons:

• Some people, using other definitions of projects, might consider them to be projects
• These practices are used by some project-based organizations for such assignments

With such tasks, the assignment tends to be assigned to the person, and not the person to the assignment. Company C3 said that when such an assignment comes to an office, it is given to somebody with appropriate expertise, with time available to meet the customer's desired time frame. The customer's desired time frame will usually be longer than the time it takes to complete the assignment, so there is some flexibility for individuals to balance their workload. However, if nobody is available in the office to complete the work in time, the assignment is passed to another office. The company operates a three-dimensional matrix organization based on geographical area, technical expertise, and business line. In the first instance, they try to pass the assignment to somebody having the same technical expertise from the same business line in a neighboring location. For instance, the Brisbane, Australia office will try to pass the job to the Sydney, Australia office. If there is nobody from a neighboring location, they can look for somebody from anywhere else in the world. As a last resort, they will seek somebody of the same technical expertise from a different business line, or bring in a subcontractor. That is hardly ever necessary. The company maintains a resource utilization plan to facilitate this, and as you can see, the project is assigned to the person. Each person may have two or three projects to work on at a time, balancing their workload across those projects to complete each one on time. Here assignment is done entirely by the line, and it finishes when the line assigns the project to the person.

Selecting Appropriate People

Most of the organizations we have interviewed use people who are available to be assigned to the projects. We observed little of the practice of matching the project manager's competence to the needs of the projects as advocated by Crawford et al. (2005) and Turner and Müller (2006). However, that is not as chaotic as it might sound. It is generally assumed that if somebody is assigned to the pool of potential project managers, he or she is competent to manage projects undertaken by the organization. Decisions about whether the person can manage projects and at what level are taken through the appraisal and development process in the line, not at the time of project assignment. It is, however, necessary to find somebody in the pool of potential project managers on an appropriate grade for this project. However, Company I4 conducts interviews and assessment centers (Crawford, 2003) when composing a project team, especially for larger complex projects. Company C4 also ensures that at project assignment the project management team of three (project manager and two deputies) has a balance of people and task skills. Many of their employees are task-focused, but for the sake of the well-being of the project team members, they try to ensure that one of the project management team is people-focused.

HRM Practices on the Project

Almost all our respondents said the primary responsibility for appraisal, reward, and development lies with line management and not with project management. We have already seen that sometimes on large projects (C2 and C3), employees are sometimes transferred substantively to the project, and the project manager becomes their line manager and fulfills these duties. But usually primary responsibility for these practices remains with the line manager. We believe that this is usually the right approach, because the main focus of these practices has to be over time frames longer than the individual projects. However, in most organizations, project managers are required to contribute to the practices, and sometimes responsibility is or needs to be delegated to the project manager.

Appraisal on the Project

In 1989, Graham said that project appraisals are essential for project team cohesiveness and motivation of the team members. However, in most organizations, primary responsibility for appraisal remains with the line manager. Graham did not suggest that primary responsibility should be transferred to the project manager, just that he or she should be fully involved in undertaking project appraisals. This is so that project team members know that their performance on the project is being judged and the information used in their appraisals is in the line; and that the assessment is being made by the person who has managed work on the project, and is therefore in the best position to judge their true performance. In the organizations we studied, usually the line manager sought out the opinion of the project manager (C4), and sometimes was required to do so:

 

(a) Company I11 is a small company, and so all appraisals are conducted by the managing director. But he or she seeks information from the project manager, who is usually a client employee, and other project team members.

(b) In some organizations (I8, I10, I12, and C1), 360-degree appraisals are conducted, and so the project manager, other project team members, and the client are formally involved in the appraisal process.

(c) In other companies (I6, I7, I8, I9, I10, I11, I12, and C3), project appraisals are conducted at key project milestones, particularly project completion. In company I9, project appraisals must be conducted at project completion, and once every three months if projects last longer.

 

However, in some organizations, line managers do not actively seek information from the project manager (I5 and I13), and in some it is discouraged (C2).

Rewards on the Project

Again, people's financial rewards are usually linked to the line. As we saw on large projects in Companies C2 and C3, employees are transferred substantively to the project and receive their salary from the project. But much more commonly, they are substantively employed by the line and only seconded to the project, so their salary comes from the line. Thus project-specific rewards will be in the form of bonuses for exceptional performance on the project. Companies I9, I10, and I12 said that they do set money aside in the project budget to pay financial bonuses for the successful achievement of project management milestones to be awarded at the discretion of the project manager. Social events or other nonfinancial rewards, such as T-shirts or pens, are also usually paid out of the project budget, at the discretion of the project manager or project sponsor. Francis Hartman (2000, p. 272) tells the story of a project team where the project reward was a tie, given to the milestone manager on successful completion of a milestone for which he or she was responsible, to be worn until the next milestone was achieved. The tie was striped, and the milestone names were written in the stripes. Significantly, not only did the milestone manager have the tie until the next milestone was achieved, but also he or she could cut off the stripe with the milestone name on it. It became something of a status symbol to have this ever-shortening tie to wear for a month. Company C4 had a scheme whereby each year somebody could be nominated as “person of the project” and receive a monetary reward of between $500 and $2,000. This was part of a larger company that operated at project, base, and organizational levels.

Company C2 forbade the payment of project rewards out of the project budget; neither financial nor nonfinancial rewards can be awarded by the project manager. Instead, if the project manager wants to organize a social event to reward the project team for successful completion of a project milestone, he or she has to request funding from the line.

Development on the Project

The final HRM practice we looked at on the project was development. Overall career development is almost always managed from the line and linked to the organization's needs, as we will discuss in the next section. This is the case on the large projects in Companies C2 and C3. In those two companies, although the transfer is substantive, it is viewed as temporary in the life of the organization, and career development has to be linked to the firm's overall needs. Thus project-specific development is linked to the development of competencies specifically required for this project. We initially looked for the development of new skills required specifically for the current project. Companies I8 and I11 mentioned the development of language or cultural awareness skills for overseas postings. Companies I9 and C1 mentioned the development of skills in the use of new software required by the client, or even the development of skills in the use of legacy software used by the client while the transfer to more up-to-date systems takes place. The development of these project-specific competencies is usually paid for out of the project budget, but Company C2 said that even in this instance, the training had to be paid for by the line and the project manager had to negotiate the release of money for this training from the line manager.

We were about to accept that as the end of the matter on project-specific training when Company C1 mentioned what we found as a very interesting constraint imposed by project-specific development. They mentioned the work they were doing with a Dutch bank. The Dutch bank had outsourced the operation of the IS operations to Company C1. When they took over the operation, the bank's IS systems had six serious incidents a month and employed 96 people. Company C3 spent the first two years stabilizing the operation and improving the efficiency. They got the number of serious incidents down to six per year and reduced the number of staff to 32. But then the bank wanted to replace their systems with more modern systems and develop substantial new functionality. This required increasing the project team back up to 96. Although the bank had been contemplating this for 18 months, they made the decision to proceed very suddenly and wanted Company C1 to ramp up the project team immediately. We have already discussed the problem this situation creates in a company with the objective of maximizing billable hours. The project team members have to be released from the project they are already working on, and that may not be possible with immediate effect. However, the project team members also needed training and development when they joined the project team, specifically in the legacy systems and software, some of which were no longer common; and they needed briefing in the vision and objectives for the new systems. This required people joining the project team to attend a one-week course of intensive training, and because of the nature of the training, only eight people could attend at a time. Thus it would take eight weeks to ramp up the team to the number of people required by the client. That, in fact, became the constraint because people could be released from their current projects more quickly than that. This is project-specific development, not related to career development but related to the specific needs of the project:

• To develop competencies specifically required by this project which are going to be made redundant by this project
• To be briefed in the work of the project

In Company C4 we saw another form of project-specific training. The organization is a public sector body undertaking research. Sometimes project team members need training in new technology developed early in the project to be able to use it later in the project. Also project team members may be required to test new technology in situ, and because of the nature of the work have only one opportunity to do that. Thus they will spend months familiarizing themselves with the technology and making adjustments, if necessary, to increase the chance of success at the one opportunity for testing it.

Dispersement from the Project

Again, dispersement practices depend on the size of the project.

Small- to Medium-Sized Projects

Dispersement practices, as we expected to see them, occurred only in organizations undertaking small- to medium-sized projects. Specific practices we observed were as follows:

 

(a) In Company C1, the individual is expected to find his or her next assignment, making dispersement the responsibility of the individual, not the company.

(b) Some of our interviewees (I10) identified that the phenomenon “sitting on the bench” can be observed in companies where the project personnel are assigned to one project. Sitting on the bench in Company C1 is regarded as something to be avoided because it results in reduced utilization, and the pressure to be assigned immediately to a new project is palpable.

(c) Company I7 mentioned one occasion when at the end of one project a project team member was needed on another project starting in two weeks. This member had a specific skill needed on that new project and was put on development work for two weeks, rather than assigned to another project starting immediately, which would have meant he was not available for the new project.

Large Projects

Companies I12 and I13 did not feel the need for dispersement practices. Assignment of personnel to projects is done as part of the corporate planning cycle, so that also covers their transfer to new projects. Company I11 transferred people to the head office on completion of projects to write proposals for new work. Because there is a regular stream of new jobs, people do not usually spend much time between projects. In fact, the way it works is the person currently between jobs is effectively writing the proposal for the job that the person who will be free next will do. Company C4 undertakes projects lasting several years. Project team members are made responsible for their own dispersement and assignment to new projects. As their involvement with one project nears its end, they are expected to inform their line managers, but also network with other project managers to find themselves new assignments.

Temporary Assignments

With temporary assignments, the person finishes the assignment and starts working on another. He or she remains at his or her place in the line organization. The only concern is if he or she does not have another project to start work on, then some of the dispersement practices used on smaller projects will be adopted. Company C3 did not mention this as an issue. Companies I1 and I2 mentioned this situation specifically because the individual is working on several projects simultaneously. It is thought unlikely that all their projects will finish at the same time.

DIFFERENT HRM PRACTICES IN THE LINE

We now report our results on how conventional HRM practices need to be adapted to meet the needs of a project-oriented organization. The results are summarized in Table 5-2.

Recruitment and Selection by the Parent Organization

In our sample, some Companies (I9, I10, and I12) used very traditional methods of recruitment. However, Companies I9 and I10 said they had to treat the recommendations from recruitment consultancies with caution because such consultancies did not understand the meaning of project management. Other companies (I11 and I13) used the scanning techniques described by Keegan and Turner (2003). Some companies (I1 and I12) also have strong links with universities and recruit directly from there. Company I1 further emphasized that for project work, they need specific people who need to be extremely flexible to deal with different cultures of client organizations. In Company I8, selection is said to be the main HRM challenge. Projects that involve takeovers of large numbers of personnel are common, and selection procedures are not uniform.

Companies I8 and I9 mentioned that more than half of their employees do not join the company by choice, but join from a client organization as part of an outsourcing assignment or as part of a takeover. This can create problems, especially in the case of people joining as part of an outsourcing assignment, who remain on their original terms and conditions of employment, sometimes for a fixed term, sometimes permanently. This can create tensions with other employees. It can also create cultural problems because the people who have joined the company in this way may have different work ethic from the people who were recruited in more conventional ways. Company C2 is a former state-owned monopoly, and they identified differences in the work ethics between people who joined the company since privatization, and former civil servants, whose terms and conditions of employment remain unchanged.

HRM Practices in the Parent Organization

Most of our sample companies had fairly traditional methods for appraisal, development, and reward. We discuss:

1. Appraisal
2. Career paths
3. Development
4. Reward

Appraisal

As we have already seen, most of the organizations we interviewed conduct appraisals in the line. In this way, personal objectives, including development objectives, are linked to organizational objectives. For instance, Company I10 has four strategic objectives, and each individual is set four objectives as their annual targets linked to those four objectives. That includes one objective for personal development, and the bonus at the year end includes a measure on how well that personal development objective has been achieved. Companies I8, I9, and I10 also use computer systems to amalgamate and process the data from the annual appraisals, which does facilitate the process and make it more objective, but does remove the manager's flexibility.

Career Paths

Some companies (I1, I8, I10, and I12) have career paths specifically for project personnel. In Company I8, project personnel can progress through seven levels of the project management job family, each level described by an explicit skill set. Several of the companies (I7 and I12) view projects as learning opportunities in careers, but don't specifically have career paths for project managers. Company I13 has a model called development cells, whose role is to identify and develop project management expertise within the company. They forecast future project management competency required by the company and seek to identify potential project managers who can be developed to meet those needs. One of the objectives of the development cells is to stop line managers from selfishly holding on to good potential project managers and keeping them from developing because they are good at their current job, damaging both the individuals’ development and the firm's future competence development. It is the role of development cells to identify such people and ensure they are developed both to their benefit and the organization's. The development cells are supported by a Project Management Center of Excellence. Keegan and Turner (2003) also report on companies in the engineering construction industry that have career committees that forecast future requirements for competence in project management and identify individuals to be developed to fulfill those requirements.

Development

In most of the companies we interviewed, the routine appraisal in the line sets development objectives for individuals. In Company I10, for instance, as mentioned above, one of the annual objectives set for each individual is the development planned for the coming year. In several of the companies (I6, I7, I9, I10, and I12), the routine appraisal in the line attempts to identify the types of project experiences required for the immediate job development of the individual and set objectives for the individual to achieve those experiences. In Company I6, each person is given a personal annual budget for training on a use-it-or-lose-it basis. It is up to the individual to identify the training that he or she needs to achieve his or her development objectives. Each individual is allowed to spend an amount up to his or her budget, although each course does need to be agreed with the line manager. Any money not used in one year cannot be carried forward to the next.

As we have said, many organizations try to identify project experiences required by individuals to meet both their development needs and those of the firm. The question arises, what happens if a project offering such an experience is about to start, but the individual is in the middle of another project? Enlightened companies will move the individual to obtain the experience. It is good for both the individual and the organization to develop project personnel with appropriate experiences, and often, if the individual finds his or her development blocked, he or she may look elsewhere.

Company I5 has also identified that project personnel require different training programs from other functions, not just training in different competencies, but also different approaches to the training to deal with the dynamic nature of projects.

Reward

There is little more to say about reward in the line. Standard techniques are used for assessing an individual's performance and rewarding him or her appropriately. There is no need to list practices specific to the project-oriented organization here.

Release

The most significant problem faced by many of the companies interviewed is loss of knowledge as temporary workers leave at the end of projects. Projects are temporary organizations, and as a project comes to an end there is a risk that any learning on the project will be lost. Many organizations have knowledge management practices to try to capture knowledge on project completion (Keegan and Turner, 2001), and permanent workers will retain their learning experiences, adding to the organization's tacit knowledge. But temporary workers will take their knowledge with them, and it will be lost to the organization for good. None of the companies interviewed have solved this problem. Company I10 instituted a process of debriefing temporary workers who are leaving, to attempt to capture knowledge. Company I3 has formal release processes, including exit forms that all staff must complete, exit interviews, and knowledge transfer sessions for departing staff. While exit forms are always distributed to staff who are leaving, exit interviews may be planned on the basis of the results of these forms. With the release of freelance workers, it is also important to remain in contact to maintain the organization's network and to make future cooperation possible (Huemann et al., 2004). Company I11 tries to keep using the same freelance workers. Indeed, subcontract staff are treated very much like employees, with annual appraisals, bonuses, etc., and at the end of one project they are encouraged to stay with the organization to work on new projects. They will even stay to write proposals for new work. Thus the organization retains the knowledge of the freelance workers by continually using the same freelance workers.

Other HRM Practices

We close this section by identifying some of the other HRM practices used by our respondents. We do not think these are different from standard practice, but we think it is useful to see these practices in use in project-oriented organizations.

Communities of Practice

Company I6 maintains a community of practice in project management, and, indeed, our first contact with the firm was through the community of practice. Project managers within the firm meet one Friday evening every month. They have an external speaker, followed by dinner. In this way, they can exchange experiences, learn what each other is doing, what problems they are experiencing, and how they are dealing with them, and so develop their own and the organization's competence.

Knowledge Management

As we have seen, knowledge management is critical in organizations using temporary work processes, as knowledge needs to be captured at the end of each project or it can be lost forever. Project debriefing, project auditing, and milestone reviews are the most common practices we observed to capture knowledge, as we described previously.

TABLES

5-1      Additional HRM Practices Adopted Specific to the Project

5-2      HRM Practices Adapted to Meet the Specific Needs of the Project-Oriented Company

TABLE 5-1: Additional HRM Practices Adopted Specific to the Project

HRM practices	Methods observed in companies interviewed
Assignment to projects	Different practices for small, medium, and large projects Smaller projects: assignment starts in the line with appointment of project sponsor, project manager, and key team members; the rest by negotiation between project manager and resource managers Larger projects: part of corporate planning; project established as quasi-business unit and people transferred in some organizations (Temporary assignments: assigned to the person) Several companies had a company-wide resource planning tool, operating globally Several companies account for individual career development needs during assignment
HRM practices on the project	By and large, responsibility for HRM practices are retained by the line, although some activities are delegated to the project manager
Appraisal	Routine appraisal almost always conducted in the line Project appraisals usually conducted either as part of the routine appraisal in the line or at project events and information fed into the routine appraisal in the line Very occasionally, project appraisals not conducted On large projects, the project manager as line manager in the quasi-business unit conducts appraisals
Development	Development usually managed from the line, even on large projects, to meet the need of the organization Some project-specific development conducted and paid for from the project budget One company pays for project-specific development from the line budget Project start methods need to include team building, briefing, and development in project-specific competencies
Reward	Salary usually paid from the line, except on large projects where staff have been transferred substantively Project bonuses paid from project budgets in recognition of project achievements, in most organizations These may be financial, but in most organizations they are non-financial, social events, or small gifts
Dispersement from projects	Different dispersement practices for small, medium, and large projects Smaller projects: dispersement is necessary to manage the transition from one project to another or return to the line Larger projects: planned in the annual budgeting cycle Temporary assignments: dispersement is not necessary as people are working on several projects simultaneously In companies aiming to maximize utilization, employees may be responsible for reassigning themselves Under dispersement practices, project team member may be: Assigned immediately to a new project Held in abeyance for a project about to start where their skills are needed Sent on training Given development work

TABLE 5-2: HRM Practices Adapted to Meet the Specific Needs of the Project-Oriented Company

HRM practices	Methods observed in the companies interviewed
Selection	Organic selection methods are used in some companies Recruitment agencies do not understand the nature of projects, so their recommendations need to be treated with caution Often people do not join of their own free will, but are inducted as part of an outsourcing assignment or acquisition. This creates difficulties from cultural differences and differences in terms of employment.
Appraisal	Appraisals in the line link personal objectives to company objectives Routine appraisals need to incorporate project appraisals
Career paths	Some companies have career paths for project managers, with defined job roles and associated competencies at several levels Career development objectives need to identify project experiences required Companies need to ensure that future project competency requirements are forecast, and suitable individuals identified and developed
Development	Development objectives are set in the annual appraisal, and individuals may be judged against them If a suitable project arises, enlightened companies transfer people from their existing project, others do not. Training needs to train people for project work, and this may require different approaches than training for other functions
Reward	Standard reward practices are fairly universally used
Release	Knowledge management practices need to capture learning from temporary workers leaving the company on project completion Some companies maintain a network of temporary workers who return to work on future projects. They need to be debriefed when leaving the company on completion of one project so as to identify their desire to return.