1-2. The trends shaping human resource management are influencing what human resource managers do and how they do it. Globalization means more competition, and more competition means more pressure to lower costs and to make employees more productive and quality conscious. Technology is requiring more employees to be technologically well informed and pressuring employers to improve their human resource processes by applying new distributive technological tools. There is more emphasis on “knowledge work” and therefore on building “human capital,” the knowledge, education, training, skills, and expertise of a firm’s employees. Workforce and demographic changes mean that the workforce is becoming older and more diverse.