[Excerpt] This chapter, on strategic human resource management (SHRM), is really not for the hospitality human resources (HR) director. We already believe—whether through education and training, through insight gained from experience, or through self-interest— that HR directors accept as true the importance of an organization's HR function and its HR assets. The strategic nature of HR decision making extends far beyond the doors of the HR department. Just as money changes hands and is important to more than those in a finance department, nearly all decisions in a company's purview involve HR in some way, shape, or form. The purpose of this chapter is thus to help those already making HR decisions do so in a way that takes advantage of what we have learned from research in SHRM.