Business

The way modern businesses run is vastly different from the way they were run in the past. These changes in the way organizations need to be managed have been comparatively recent. The competitive pressures on an organization have risen steadily in recent times demanding leaders who are skilled securing continuous and sustainable improvements in productivity, customer service, response time, cost reduction, intellectual capital and quality (Fazzari and Mosca, 2009). The challenges in the modern workplace are many and varied. Competitive rivalries have gone global, customers demand better overall satisfaction and a typical office has people from all kinds of diverse backgrounds. In face of these newer challenges, the older style of management no longer gives optimum results. In this situation, High Performance Work System (HPWS) offers a way to get better employee participation and thus improve efficiencies.

The Problem
In the present case, the organization is losing market share because of lack of cooperation and understanding between various departments of the organization. This lack of cooperation is, in fact, just a symptom of a much bigger problem. Each of the departments is working in isolation with little communication with the other departments. This is because the company has a task oriented culture instead of a goal oriented one. The employees are only looking to complete their respective tasks and get paid for it. They do not have an eye on the overall mission of the organization. The supervisors of the respective departments are driven only to meet their respective targets. For example, the sales department may have certain annual targets which they must meet. The employees in the department get incentives for meeting or exceeding these targets. However, these employees do not have incentive to talk to other people in the organization, even within their own department. With their eyes firmly set on meeting their targets, they probably devote all their time and attention to reaching these targets. Each of the employees would have their own idea of how to achieve these targets. These ideas are based on years of experience and on the belief that what has worked in the past will continue to work in future. Similarly, the sales department on the whole also has its own belief of what constitutes success. It is possible that the department is consistently meeting its sales target and yet losing market share because the sales targets have not been revised in years. In this scenario, even if the department was informed that the company is losing its market share, it would only result in the department revising its sales target. As the organization continued to lose market share, the department and employees would argue that they are meeting their sales target, even after revising them, and the problem lies elsewhere in the company. The senior management of the organization, noting that the sales figures are indeed meeting the targets, would start to look elsewhere for the problem. This would result in further isolation of the sales department and they would continue with their negative sales practices.

This example shows that even though the employees and department are not lacking in their commitment, their efforts are unable to boost the market share of the organization. This is mainly because of lack of communication between the department and the rest of the organization. The department focus is on reaching the departmental targets rather than achieving organizational goals. When they are repeatedly asked by the management to increase the sales, it can even result in hostility with employees contending that they are doing everything they can and the problem lies elsewhere. This passing around the buck will not solve any problems and only encourage the various departments to continue to operate in this negative manner.

Also, the lack of training on the newer methods of sale and the recent products also causes problems. The employees are probably using the same sales methodology they have been using for years. Newer employees are quickly trained in these sales methods and then given their sales targets. Neither the employees not the department makes any effort to explore the newer methods sales and find better and faster ways to reach the consumers. Nor is their any effort to link sales with other departments in the organization. A lot of problems which plague the sales department can be easily solved by training the employees in newer methods of sales.

Finally, the incentive system in the department is very uni-dimensional. The system rewards the employees only for reaching or exceeding their sales target. The employees do not even try to rise above meeting these basic sales target because any other behavior is not rewarded. Any employee who tries to suggest something new is probably told to concentrate on his or her work rather than try and play management. These negative attitudes make it very difficult for the employees and the department as a whole to achieve targets and can even erode motivational levels of the employees.
This example concentrates on just one department of the organization. However, similar problems probably exist throughout the organization resulting in the organization losing out on market share. If the organization hopes to reverse this trend, it will have to bring about some sweeping changes in it HR practices. One way of doing this is to implement High Performance Work System.

Implementing High Performance Work System
Employees are the most important resource that an organization has. And for employees to provide sustained competitive advantage, they must be rare, valuable, inimitable and difficult to replace (Martin-Tapia et al, 2009). Unfortunately, high levels of these workforce characteristics are comparatively rare. Hence the human resource department must invest in practices such as performance management, rewards, training, participation and communication mechanism (Martin-Tapia et al, 2009) because they enhance a firms capacity for innovation, adaptability and productivity. All of these are extremely important in the present case because the organization is suffering as a direct result of lack of innovation and inability to adapt with the changing times.
High Performance Work System is the name given to the organizational practice that encourages employee participation in the running of the organization. To facilitate this, the organization must actively train its employees in the latest skills and technology and reward them suitably. High Performance Work System is a way to improve the efficiency of the employees by providing them with a sense of ownership. HPWS aims to improve organizational practices by maximizing employee knowledge, skill, commitment and flexibility. In order to be successful, the top management must be totally and completely committed to implementing the system. It is also important to implement all the components of HPWS. Part implementation of HPWS may not have the desired impact and may misfire. Since HPWS aims to improve efficiency by improving collaboration between teams and promoting creative thinking, the system, if implemented properly, may help solve the problem at hand.

Let us first understand the various aspects of HPWS. HPWS has three main components (Brown, 2006). The first component is giving employees an opportunity to increase participation in day to day decision making. This is a very important aspect of HPWS since it gives the employees an opportunity to affect their immediate environment. Having more say in how things are run also helps in bringing a sense of ownership among the employees. This motivates the employee and a motivated employee is more likely to work for the benefit of the organization and to help it reach its goals.
While involving employees in the decision making process is an important way improve motivation levels, it is not the only way. Recognizing employee effort and giving them proper incentives is also important. If an organization does not reward its employees for their creativity and innovativeness besides meeting their targets, the employees will have very little incentive to go out of their way and come up with ideas for the betterment of the organization. Employees will only be motivated to give ideas and make suggestions for the company if doing so will not only benefit the company but will also be personally beneficial for the employees themselves. Proper incentives include publicly recognizing an employees efforts, promotions, pay raises, bonuses, profit sharing plans and other special employee benefits.

Even highly motivated employees with the organizations best interest at heart will not be able to give the desired outcome if they are not properly trained. Hence, the third component of HPWS is providing the employees with proper training. Training allows employees to perform their work more efficiently and assume greater responsibility within the organization. This is an important aspect of HPWS because the entire system rests on the ability of all employees to contribute to the organizations success.

Once we have understood HPWS and its various aspects, the next step is implementing it. In the technologically driven twenty first century, including technology in all aspects of the organization is not only important for the implementation HPWS but even for the general growth of the organization. Hence the first step in the implementation of HPWS is to introduce a technological infrastructure throughout the organization which allows the employees to communicate effectively and share vital business information with each other. The system should have provisions for the employees to enter their experiences, and give feedbacks, record problems and successes.

Having a technology is one thing but getting the employees to use it effectively is a completely different thing. HPWS can only be successful with total commitment from the senior and middle level management. Hence the next step in implementation of HPWS is to educate the management in benefits of HPWS and ways to implement them. This can prove to be difficult since HPWS essentially requires that the decision making process is taken away from the managers and given to the employees across the organization. Mangers who are used to making decisions and giving out orders may resent having to give up their authority. This problem is especially an issue with the older managers who subscribe to the autocratic leadership style and are used to having the control in their hands. However, without total commitment of the senior management, HPWS can never be successful. Hence, it is important to convince the senior managers to let go of some control and include their subordinates in the decision making process.

The next step is training the employees to make them ready for the additional responsibilities. For this, the management must first identify the areas in which the employees need to be trained. For example, if the sales department is still personally going to retailers to sell its products, they could be trained in using the internet as another source of sales and thus reaching the consumers directly. Also, if employees are to be more responsible, they need to be trained in managerial techniques which would allow them to take better decisions. Another policy which could be adopted across the organization is encouraging employees to self educate by sponsoring employees who wish to go back to school to further their education. This important investment in human resource will not only result in a more skilled workforce but also employees who are more loyal to the organization.

Most employees value a system which gives them chance to grow in their career. Career progress is seen as an important motivational tool. If employees feel that their participation and hard work can provide them with an opportunity to grow in the organization, they are more likely to contribute positively. To ensure this, the organization could shed some of its hierarchy based bureaucratic policies and introduce a more merit based system for employee promotions. Once employees know that their hard work will be rewarded not only in monetary form but also through increased opportunity for career growth, they will be a lot more motivated.

Finally, a proper feedback system is also important. As mentioned before, some senior managers may resent giving up control and despite training may soon fall back to their old system of management. Hence introducing a 360 degree feedback system will allow managers to understand how their performance is viewed by their coworkers and allow them to make changes in their management style according.

A Word of Caution
Although HPWS has many benefits, if not properly implemented, it may not give the desired results and the investments made in implementing the process may further affect the profits. As Chaudhuri (2009) points out, since organizations invest heavily in implementing HPWS, they expect to receive proportional rewards for their efforts. This results in employees feeling an increased pressure to perform, resulting in stress, deteriorating work-life balance and burnout. This may result in poor or negative results from HPWS. Hence, the management must guard against being overzealous and making too many demands of the employees. HPWS works by nurturing the employees, an organizations most important asset. This takes time and the management must understand that HPWS is a long term investment and not a quick fire solution to all its problems.

HPWS has a number of benefits as a tool to help raise employee motivation levels and participation within the organization. However, implementing HPWS is expensive and it does not give immediate results. Hence, before implanting the system, the management must consider all the aspects of HPWS and be prepared for the long haul. In the long run, the system will definitely yield positive results and the management needs to be patient about its results.