HPWP (High Performance Working Practice) & amp Employee Engagement

English: Facade of Ives Hall, Cornell University (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

It has been proven and stated so many times in past that current times requires employees to be more efficient and productive in order to keep up with markets demands. In today’s economical environment HRM is really important to a organisation as it handles processes such as selecting the proper candidates for jobs and more over evaluating the work force. This was there is a dedicated department in the organisation who looks over work and work force so in other words HRM is a helpful department for management in order to keep control over performance of workforce in order to advance against competition. This department is solely responsible for putting High Performance Work in to practice. There are so many different ways to implement this practice which will be explained later into document. High Performance work Practice is the right mix  of persons, technology and policies which make the work flow successful. But the most important thing is synchronisation each tool should work with other tools in order to make it work smoothly. High performance working practice requires a system that makes it possible like mentioned above there are different types of elements which put to gather can do the job.  This proves a company which has been working in international market for years also has a strong belief in supporting the employees, This also would be discussed later in the article.

Recent research into this area shows business are looking for new ways to improve working condition to get better result. Trough this the field of High Performance Work System has came in to existence, in last 15 years there are many paper written on Human Resource all of these papers have been dedicated to research for HPWS(High Performance Work System). This paper aims at discussing all the arguments regarding HRM and HPWS but the focus will be upon two, firstly All the positive effect of this system would be discussed which will include elements such as productivity, profitability, teamwork and etc., On the other hand there are some negative effects as well. This paper aims to justify a model for HPWS which can be good for J&W PLC. Furthermore following section will give information on the construction of this paper and what to expect from each section.

First this paper demonstrates the importance of the HRM practices and gives a proper understanding of HRM and its work area. Second section includes the HPWS introduction an its importance. This section also includes the HPWS models. Furthermore the third section of the paper indicates impacts of HPWS on organisation this will give a full explanation of positive and negative impact. Furthermore the forth section recommends a model of HPWS which can possibly give an organisation a balanced high performing work force. Finally the paper ends with concussion of the whole argument and suggestion.

Human Resource Management:

H R M

 This explains the core work of HRM, Human resource management works with organisational heads to employ the right people for the right job this helps the organisation to have a work force which is productive in a positive way. In order to achieve the highest level of success HRM needs to understand the goal of the organisation first. There after HRM can outline the critical areas of working areas and select the right person for right job, This was the only work for HRM before but now HRM is not just employment but it also includes management as well. This approach towards HRM now includes areas such as social, culture and personal employee management. Never then less it is really an important part of the organisation as it is responsible for important processes such as employee evaluation, management of workforce and training program planning and management. As a result it gives a lot of important process and systems to the organisation such as teamwork, Centralised and decentralised approach, communication channels and medium management and Job evaluation and distribution. Below image 1 explains the whole HRM Process in order to understand HPWP, this whole process should be understood completely.

Basically a standard HRM department should have above mentioned processing powers. First stage of process is Recruiting or directing this two process a prim and important as it is really critical to have right people working for the company. Furthermore having the knowledge of the work flow of the organisation the selection process should be easy stage where appropriate persons are selected for appropriate jobs. Next stages can be identified as internal process but they are  as critical as primary processes. Orientation is a process where employee gets the first look at the work and working process so this is in other words first impression which is the last impression. Furthermore next stage includes tanning and management of work related knowledge base. Finally the internal process which are heart of HRM can be identified as most important in today’s competitive environment. Where HRM can overlook the performance of the employee and take step towards improving it this is the section where High Performance Work Practice Comes in to play. As every coin has two side HRM also face some difficult challenges in front of them as it’s main role is to be the bridge between management and work force. Most challenging elements for HRM can be in some cases Unions and Law-Regulations. These two element can restrict the way of working for HRM as they have to be really careful in their operations as on wrong step can affect whole organisation.

At any point if HRM work is to be evaluated, due to changes in organisation or revaluation of HRM,  it should include below mentioned processes. First step toward evaluation should be getting the whole setup in one picture means taking the whole process and putting it to one sync this help organisation to evaluate how much area of the work flow has been covered by HRM. Secondly the whole process has different job roles and responsibility a breakdown of this posts and their working boundaries gives a  respective informative table of job requirement and improvement areas. If at any point organisation feels to make any changes in HRM department or process these two evaluation should help. For HRM to be on the right path towards success it should have the right balance of supplying workers to work process and meeting the demand of workers. Finally in order to move forward A perfect HRM Department should have below characteristics.

• Diversity is one of the first characteristics HRM should embrace to have a balanced environment of working. With Diversity HRM would  have all different options open to organisation.
• HRM should also have a strategic approach towards integration so that organisation is flexible with trying new things.
• HRM also should be committed towards goal and organisation.

This three main characteristics help HRM department to be better and ever improving. Moving further the main aim of this paper to understand the importance of Employee engagement and High Performance Working. Last few years has been a devastating changing years for the economical climate, science then organisations has been focusing on two main elements of HRM HPWP and employee engagement.

Employee Engagement:

This concept is relatively new in Human Resource sector where recent years been evident that Employee engagement has been a commonly accepted tool by organisations who want to make progress in current economical down turn. In other words employee engagement means how much involved and committed an employee. This can also be described loyalty and headworker which reflects possessiveness in work place where it is inspiring and motivational as well. This section focuses on why employee engagement is important and what steps should be taken to make sure that employees are  engaged.

There have been mixed views about defining employee engagement where authors have different definitions for this dedication to work attitude, Some of those definitions are as follows.

Above these two are totally opposite definitions of employee engagement first one states that it is a concept which makes employee salves to their work where they are connected with their work mentally, physically and emotionally. Where second definition states it as a behaviour of flow where it comes to employees naturally that they should work with 100% involvement. When evaluation of to definition takes place with reference to HRM it is clear that work engagement should come naturally, it should not be enforced on some one. when it comes naturally it lasts longer then forced work engagement. This is only possible when employee is happy with every aspects of job starting with salary, working condition, team, management and goals. If HRM keeps all of this in top conditions employee would automatically work with 100% efforts. This is only possible if every element is in place and working if one of above is missing then it can’t work. In short organisation should have working conditions which makes an employee work with heart. This way employees always work engaged. There are some aspects of employee engagement which shows who is more responsible for making engagement work.

• First aspect of engagement of work is experience of work and employee’s mind set towards work which sets the standard for working.
• Secondly it’s organisation’s mindset as well how they think and can make working condition as such that employee can engage to work.
• Finally in any size organisation the communication and interaction between employee and management also helps the engagement at work.

Out of three there are two factors where organisation should actively take part to make employee engagement  in to a reality. Therefore it’s employer who has to make some effort towards employee engagement for making a profitable environment. One would wonder how to put engagement in to practice? This question can be answered by below mentioned image 3, which shows what makes Employee Engagement in to practice.

There are few things which employer can do to get employee’s 100% output Career Development is one of them. On job in most cases employees finds work to be monotones. They feel like they are doing the same job over and over again and not learning anything else to progress. Mc Donald’s is prime example to explain this where when they employee someone they will employee them as crew member after that they have a tanning program that allows a crew member to learn all different jobs in a Mc Donald’s restaurant after getting trained in all of this jobs after 4-5 years they give opportunity to be a Shift-manager, then a branch- manager and franchise manager. This way an employee can always aim higher to progress their career and do their work with 100% engagement. Health and safety also one of the elements which assures the employee that the work place is safer and healthier place to work. Again Mc Donalds can be a prime example where health and safety always comes first as it’s a food industries business.  Thus Things like these empowers employee to work harder and engage to work and work place.

HPWP:

There has been a lot of research done for HPWPs in recent years where organisational performance is one of the key factor. More specifically High Performance Work Practice has been the centre of attention where a lot of work has been published on putting High performance work practice into action because if this is not executed correctly it can cause damage the reputation of organisation and have a negative effect on them.  This shows that this practice is a really intensive yet important work for a company where one of the main concerns is employee. In order to get it right one should question what is high performance work practice? How it should be implemented? What is the perfect model for HPWP? Upcoming section gives a in-depth answers to all these questions.

As mentioned above it has been stated that this topic is relatively new but important in lot of research papers from every part of the world. There are lot of different types of definitions out there for HPWP but most appropriate would be one which incorporate all the aspects of the working system.  According to this HPWP is a mix of employee, technology and infrastructure which forms a system which uses all the organisational resources to achieve all goals. In order to make this system work there should be a synchronisation between these three elements mentioned above otherwise it could really go wrong. There are different elements in High performance work practice which can lead to organisational successes. Image 4 illustrates all elements of High Performance work Practice which all are derived by organisational goals to achieve High performance. all of these elements are interlinked because of synchronisation requirement otherwise it will not work properly. IS(information System) is one of the first element which is required in HPWP system because information is a key factor in today’s fast developing IT world one organisation can’t successful without IS. Information System holds the whole fort together by having a continues flow throughout every part of process.

Secondly A stretchered organisation makes it easy to have HPWP system in place and also makes it easy to implement and control. Task design is also one of the key factor which has a important part in this system where every task should be designed in such way that persons can relate to tasks instantly and act accordingly. This improves working efficiency. This also outlines the job characteristics and team structures. People in other words employees are also important because if people are not well prepared for the job it can cause disruption in process. Furthermore Reward mechanism should be in place because now a days employees do need rewards to keep focus on their job role. This plays an important part in HPWP system because it makes employees to make more effort towards their job roles and objectives.  If all works properly at their place HPWP system out puts higher performance and effectiveness towards work which leads to more profitability. HPWP gives not only good performance and focused work force but also gives good quality, more customers and less staffing costs.

Recommendation:

The main obstacle for companies now a days is to have high quality and quick production. In order to do that organisations should have dedicated work force which is driven by HRM department which has High Performance work Practice system in place. As per the discussion above after overlooking all aspects of employee engagement and HPWP system there is always a need for an organisation to have a personalised model of High Performance work System for being more effective and profitable. J&W PLC has a low performance employee record this is due to the fact that they get away with lack of performance. So the recommended model for HPWP should have main two factors one is positive reflection upon employees and second is job satisfaction for employees. These two factors contribute as centre point for recommended model which is explained further. To understand the model first one needs to understands level of commitment and involvement required for whole process. This working practice will require High level of commitment and involvement because without it would not be possible to implement as J&W PLC employees have not been doing their job properly, Thus to put something in to practice whole model would require high level of commitment and performance. Now coming towards the model for J&W PLC, it is a two part model where the model shows how more focused work force can be achieved with involvement of high performance and high commitment. This model also focuses more on employees rather then management side of because it’s been found that workers do very little work and they get away with it so if worker diplomacy is put into practice the workers will not be felling to much pressure from management yet they will perform more and have more efficiency. Image 5 shows the first part of recommended model which drives form original model of Ramsay’s model.

This High performance work practice model for J&W PLC will have a good impact because it targets all three element with High Commitment approach this derives workers to work more in order to gain more money. Thus this practise can improve performance. But to make this work with High commitment organisation also needs to implement High involvement. This will process the employment in to working process.  This model will improve work force and make them engage at work without having any negative effects. This model can work only when every department is in sync with the model . Main element in this model is employee where the problem are in this case is the same. In order to implement this model a full attention of employee is required, for that HRM need to evaluate all the employees and if necessary hire new persons and fire old employees as well. This way HRM would get attention of the employees and after that they can implement suggested model. This was organisation will be able to produce more quality at low staff turnover.

Conclusion:

Teamwork is really important for any organisation where there are different department. J&W PLC is a work place where there is no team work among workers and worker are  not loyal to their jobs, it has been noticed that employees of J&W Plc are doing less work then they should. In order to rectify this problem this organisation must embrace wide scale of HRM activities where motivation, task analysing and work segregation should be considered. This paper has proved that HRM is really necessary part of an organisation which wants to be at the top of their game, and always wants to have the upper hand in market. HRM always takes care of employees and their related areas which are head hunting, interviewing, motivation, analysing work process and etc. In order to be successful every organisation should have employees which engaged with what they do no matter what the job is. This only can be achieved by having a workflow where any employee can see opportunity to advance in career. Not only that if employee is 100% happy whit work place with regards to health and safety it makes a good impact on their minds. For such practices organisation should have High Performance Work System trough which employees can project on what they are doing and try to improve there working standards by using high commitment and high involvement working practices. For encouraging employees to do that organisation should have work base pay or rewarding system in place. In short key in HPWPs is employee but more over it always need every part of organisation to work in a synchronisation to get maximum output.

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