I. Introduction
The opening vignette examines the Jackson, Tennessee plant of General Cable. The plan was
not doing well and it would have been easy to move the manufacturing off shore where they
already had several plants. However, the management of the Jackson plant called the
employees together and announced the “All In” plan which asked everyone who wanted to stray
to be committed to being flexible and learning new skills. The results were incredible with 129%
increase in productivity and four years into the program, the Jackson plant was named the best
facility for General Cable in North America.
Discussion Question and Suggested Response
1. How was it possible for a manufacturing plant in North America to have such a
turnaround while in the recession?
II. High-Performance Work Systems
1. High-performance work systems – the combination of people, technology, and
organizational structure that makes full use of the organization’s resources and
opportunities in achieving its goals.
2. To function as a high-performance work system, an organization needs the right people,
technology, and structure.
3. According to research, organizations that introduce high-performance work practices
usually experience increases in productivity and long-term financial performance.
4. Creating a high-performance work system contrasts with traditional management
practices. Recently, managers have realized that success depends on how well the
elements work together rather than considering the elements as separate, unrelated
items.
A. Elements of a High-Performance Work System
1. In a high-performance work system, a number of elements must work together.
These elements include organizational structure, task design, people (the selection,
training, and development of employees), reward systems, and information systems.
2. Figure 9.1 depicts the elements of a high-performance work system.
3. Organizational structure refers to the way the organization groups its people into
divisions, departments, and reporting relationships.
4. Task design involves determining how the details of the organization’s activities will
be grouped into jobs or team responsibilities.
5. Training, development, and career management ensure that the selected employees
are able to perform their current and future jobs with the organization.
6. Reward systems contribute to high performance by encouraging people to strive for
objectives that support the organization’s overall goals.
7. Modern information systems, including the Internet, have enabled organizations to
share information widely.
B. Outcomes of a High-Performance Work System
1. The elements of high-performance work systems influence the organization’s
achievement of its goals.
2. The outcomes of a high-performance work system include high productivity and
efficiency. These outcomes contribute to higher profits.
3. A high-performance work system may have other outcomes as well including high
quality, great customer satisfaction, and low employee turnover.
4. Figure 9.2, Outcomes of a High-Performance Work System: Examples, looks at
examples of the outcomes of a high-performance work system.
5. In a high-performance work system, the outcomes of each employee and work group
contribute to the system’s overall high performance.
III. Conditions that Contribute to High Performance
1. Many conditions can contribute to the formation of a high-performance work system:
Teams perform work
Employees participate in selection
Employees receive formal performance feedback and are actively involved in the
performance improvement process
2. Practices involving rewards, employee empowerment, and jobs with variety contribute to
high performance by giving employees skills, incentives, knowledge, autonomy-and
satisfaction-, another condition associated with high performance.
3. Ethical behavior is a necessary condition of high performance because it contributes to
A. Teamwork and Empowerment
1. Today’s organizations empower employees. In other words, they expect employees
to make more decisions about how they perform their jobs.
2. One of the most popular ways to empower employees is to design work so that it is
performed by teams.
3. For empowerment to succeed, managers must serve in linking and coordinating
roles.
B. Knowledge Sharing
1. Learning organization – an organization in which people continually expand their
capacity to achieve the results they desire.
2. The people in a learning organization are in a constant state of learning. Their
learning results from monitoring the business environment, taking in information,
making decisions, and making changes in the organization based on what they
learn.
3. A learning organization has the key features which include continuous learning,
generation and sharing of knowledge, thinking that is critical and systemic, a culture
that values learning, encouragement of flexibility and experimentation, and
appreciation of value of each employee.
4. Continuous learning – refers to each employee’s and each group’s efforts to
gather information and apply the information to their decisions.
5. In many organizations, the process of continuous learning is aimed at improving
quality.
6. Knowledge is most valuable to the organization when it is shared.
7. Critical, systemic thinking occurs when organizations encourage employees to see
relationships among ideas and to test assumptions and observe the results of their
actions.
8. A learning culture is an organizational culture in which learning is rewarded,
promoted, and supported by manager and organizational objectives.
9. This culture may be reflected in performance management systems and pay
structures that reward employees for gathering and sharing more knowledge.
10. In a learning organization, employees are valued. It therefore focuses on ensuring
the development and well being of each employee.
HRM Social
When Social-Media Tools Support Knowledge Sharing
Social media is used is so many creative ways but one that should not be overlooked is
knowledge sharing. However, not all companies share knowledge in a productive manner, so
experts give some advice to do it the right way. Knowledege sharing involves sharing team or
product information so the site should be set up where the team can share the information, not
simply a blog by one person. The other recommendation is to post questions to get the group
discussing a specific item or situation and learn from each other. IT is best to have some type
of search item for future look up on topics. A downfall can be the posting of no relevant of
verified information. Organizations can deal with this by setting expectations and holding
employees accountable for accurate information.
Discussion Questions with Possible Responses
1. Which sounds more useful for business: a site where salespeople write stories about
their daily experiences or one where salespeople ask for advice on handling challenges?
Why?
Answers will vary.
2. Suppose your company is considering a social-media site as a way for technicians to
share tips for repairing equipment. Suggest at least two ways to keep the ideas useful
and safe.
Answers will vary. Students should focus on ideas that deal with accuracy of information.
Best Practices
How e-HRM Helps Plan International Respond to Crises with Agility
Plan International is a non-profit organization with over 10,000 employees around the world with
much of its work taking place in disaster recovery in 50 developing nations. In order to better
meet the HRM challenges, they purchased an e-HRM software program from SuccessFactors.
The advantage is that employee information is in the cloud and the system tracks recruiting,
hiring, training, compensations, evaluating, and promoting employees. An example of when this
was helpful to the organization was when they needed to send employees to the Philippines
after Typhoon Haiyan devastated the area. Plan International was much more easily able to
send the employees with the right language, skill, and educational requirements to meet the
needs of the community.
Discussion Questions with Possible Responses
1. Why might e-HRM be especially valuable when an organization’s employees are spread
out around the world, rather than in one location?
2. Give an example of how e-HRM improves the efficiency of human resource
management for Plan International.
Answers will vary. One example has to do with the efficiency in deploring employees to
the Philippines after Typhoon Haiyan. The system allowed HR to easily access the skills
and abilities of employees who should be sent to the area.
V. Effectiveness of Human Resource Management
1. In recent years, human resource management at some organizations has responded to
the desire for total quality management by taking a customer-oriented approach.
2. For an organization’s human resource division, “customers” are the organization as a
whole and its other divisions.
3. Depending on the situation, a number of techniques are available for measuring HRM’s
effectiveness in meeting its customers’ needs. These techniques include reviewing a set
of key indicators, measuring the outcomes of specific HRM activity, and measuring
economic value of HRM programs.
Discussion Questions with Possible Responses
1. How might the use of data analytics improve the quality of decision that had been based on
intuition and experience?
2. What might be the consequence of gathering data without first developing relevant questions
to answer with the numbers?
ROADMAP: CASE STUDY
Thinking Ethically
How Can – and Should- Organizations Measure Ethics Performance?
If ethics is so important to high performance work cultures then why don’t we measure it? Many
organizations don’t know how to measure ethics. One example is from the University of
Michigan Health Systems where they developed a program that emphasized collaboration
and transparency. Doctors were encouraged to admit a mistake, and apologize, to the
patient and then patients were less likely to sue. They also developed a problem-solving
culture where employees work together to solve issues. The results have been a more
desirable place to work and increased quality of care. A key to measuring ethics is to
develop and communicate ethical standards. At University of Michigan Health Systems the
core was to have no compromise on safety. One challenge with measuring ethics is the
unethical behavior that happens under the radar. To help with this, conducting employee
surveys give employers an idea of how much unethical behavior may be taking place. In a
survey done by the National Business Ethics Survey of the Ethics Resource Center in 2013,
they found that four out of ten employees are witnessing ethics violations.
Discussion Questions with Possible Responses
1. How would you expect the measurement of ethical behavior to affect employees’
conduct on the job?
2. How could the various HRM practices, such as training and performance management,
contribute to achieving an organization’s goal of measuring and maintain high standards
for ethical conduct?
ROADMAP: Chapter Vocabulary
High-Performance Work Systems
Learning Organization
Continuous Learning
Employee Engagement
Brand Alignment
Transaction Processing
Decision Support System
Expert Systems
HR Dashboard
Cloud Computing
HRM Audit
HR Analytics
ROADMAP: Review and Discussion Questions
1. What is a high-performance work system? What are its elements? Which of these
elements involve human resource management?
2. As it has become clear that HRM can help create and maintain high-performance work
systems, it appears that organizations will need two kinds of human resource
professionals. One kind focuses on identifying how HRM can contribute to high
performance. The other kind develops expertise in particular HRM functions, such as
how to administer a benefits program that complies with legal requirements. Which
aspect of HRM is more interesting to you? Why?
3. How can teamwork, empowerment, knowledge sharing, and job satisfaction contribute to
high performance?
4. If an organization can win customers, employees, or investors through deception, why
would ethical behavior contribute to high performance?
5. How can an organization promote ethical behavior among its employees?
6. Summarize how each of the following HR functions can contribute to high performance.
a. Job design
A possible response would be that this places employees in work teams where
employees collaborate to make decisions and solve problems.
b. Recruitment and selection
c. Training and development
d. Performance management
e. Compensation
7. How can HRM technology make a human resource department more productive? How
can technology improve the quality of HRM decisions?
8. Why should human resource departments measure their effectiveness? What are some
ways they can go about measuring effectiveness?
HR How To
Making the Most of HR Analytics
Here are some guidelines for using analytics and data for HR decision making: hire HR
employees with statistical knowledge and analytical skills, talk to business leaders about the
talent challenges they face, review the assumptions the HR department currently makes, and
make a practice of thinking about the business impact of HR activities.
Taking Responsibility
The Container Store Puts Employees First
Kip Tindell, CEO of the Container Store, is focused on taking care of his employees because he
knows happy employees will lead to better customer service. He wants his employees to build
relationships with the customers, not simply close sales and he allowed freedom for his
employees to determine how to do that. The hiring process is intense, only about 3% of
employees are hired, but the effort is geared toward hiring great employees. Container Store
pays sales people about 1.5 times higher than industry norms and training far exceeds industry
norms too.
Discussion Questions with Possible Responses
1. Would you describe the Container Store as a high-performance organization? Why or
why not?
2. How could HR managers at the Container Store analyze the effectiveness of HRM to
ensure they are helping the company become more profitable? Would your ideas
compromise the employees-first policy?
Managing Talent
Valuing Labor Drives High Performance at HindlePowe
HindlePower is a small manufacture with 75 employees and the president, Bill Hindle values all
of the employees. He has set up the culture to be one of trust and empowerment. Prospective
customers meet with the laborers as they do their job and there is no time clock to punch in or
out of. Employees are trusted to work and if not able to then co-workers cover. Hindle sees his
employees as source of value rather than cost. He also invests in training to keep the workers
skills up to par with the manufacturing process.
Questions
1. Would you consider HindlePower a high-performance organization? Why or why not?
2. Besides the methods described here, what is one other way an HR manager at
HindlePower could contribute to making the company a high-performance organization?
How well does your idea fit with Bill Hindles’ vision for his company?
Answers will vary.
.
HR in Small Business
Employees Make a Difference at Amy’s Ice Creams
This case highlights Amy’s Ice Cream, located in Austin, Texas. Amy’s is small company that
has deliberately created a culture of fun and a commitment to caring.
Questions
1. Which elements of a high performance work system does Amy’s Ice Cream seem to
have (Figure 9.1)?
2. Suppose Amy’s hired you as a consultant to evaluate whether the company has an
effective HRM function. Which outcomes would you look for? How would you measure
them?
3. Generally, a small ice cream shop such as Amy’s cannot afford to pay store workers very
high wages. How well do you think the company can achieve high employee satisfaction
without high pay? What can it do to foster satisfaction besides the efforts described
here? How could e-HRM support these efforts?
HRM DVD Vol 3 Suggested Video with Discussion Questions and Possible Responses
Learning English (2:35)
The video begins with a Wendy’s employee in Dallas who was offered the opportunity to learn
English. She went from an $8/hr job to a $15/hr job as a manager. More and more fast food
franchises are getting into the business of education, spending millions to teach their employees
to communicate. Less than half of the 2.4 million Hispanics who work in Americas restaurants
and hotels speak English. Employers who are battling in an industry that is notorious for high
turnover are finding that training employees to speak the language are keeping them longer.
The U.S. Department of Labor recently awarded 4.9 million dollars to improve worker language
skills in five states.
Discussion Questions with Possible Responses
1. Why is culturally responsive teaching important?
2. What some of the benefits that exist for employees who learn English