The past two decades have witnessed a fundamental shift in the role of human-resource professionals. We have watched them evolve from planners of the company holiday party to overseers of the organization's investment in its most important resource: its people.

HR staff are now key business drivers with bottom-line accountability, a welcome shift that Michael Stern Associates has followed (and championed!) for years.

We specialize in finding strategically-minded HR people for organizations that are committed to effective team building and getting the most out of their people. These can be difficult searches; there are still a lot of old-school "personnel department" people out there, more at home with party planning than with binding HR initiations to the company's strategic plan.

We are proud that the majority of our HR searches involve senior positions, usually at the vice-president level or equivalent. Selected other HR searches seek out specialized areas such as labour relations, compensation and benefits, pensions, employee relations, training, and organizational effectiveness.

Our HR search clients represent a wide range of industries, including aerospace, pharmaceuticals, telecommunications, auto parts, real estate, food service, manufacturing, insurance, banking, and transportation.