High Performance Management

Progressive companies like Microsoft, Netflix and Accenture have ditched the traditional and outdated performance management system for an approach that is more suitable for contemporary employees. Successful companies are focusing more on the creation of a high-performance culture by encouraging the right and desirable behaviours from their employees. They set up psychological conditions that enable their people to perform their best every time. This is the essence of high-performance management and is essential in ensuring lasting change in the organisation

Approaches to Human Resource Management

There are two fundamental types of companies in terms of how they manage the people in their organisation. These approaches are rooted in McGregor’s XY Theory of Management. Other theories and conceptual models also provide support for either approach.

• Cost Reduction Approach

Organisations that employ the cost reduction approach look at their people as belonging to McGregor’s X classification. It presupposes that people inherently dislike work. It is for this reason that the company must exert control over the people’s actions to ensure the achievement of organisational goals.

This human resource management approach also has its roots in the economic change theory of Beer. Organisations must control factors that can have an impact on labour and operating costs. The focus of this approach is in the establishment of rules and regulations that control how people should act or perform in the organisation.

• Commitment Maximisation Approach

Progressive organisations often decry the controlling nature of a cost reduction methodology. As such, they would rather focus on gaining the trust and commitment of everyone in the organisation. The approach believes that people will work their best even without any controlling factors. It is the organisation’s duty to encourage and motivate their people so that they will form 100% commitment to their tasks.

The approach takes cognisance of McGregor’s Theory Y description as well as the organisational development strategy of Beer. Both authors forward the assumption that people have the capacity for self-control and self-direction. The commitment maximisation approach relies on the trust and autonomy given to employees.

How Commitment Strategies Work

The whole idea about employing commitment maximisation strategies is to empower people to use their discretion when performing their tasks to achieve the goals of the organisation. There are different ways in which how this human management approach can work for an organisation.

• Improve Employee Professional Competencies

Commitment strategies can help increase the skills and knowledge of individual employees. The organisation can recruit, select, and hire people that have the right set of competencies for the job. Continuous training and professional education opportunities can also help improve the competencies of the people in the organisation. The effect of these efforts is that the employees feel valued, trusted, and appreciated. This is essential in building commitment in them.

• Motivate the People to Engage in Behaviours that Show Discretion

The key element of commitment maximisation approaches is the development of discretionary behaviours among employees. Organisations can motivate their employees to use their discretion to work for the good of the company by employing several strategies. These can include employment security, incentives, status distinctions, and internal promotion systems. Organisations can also look at redeployment strategies instead of severance to motivate employees. The institutionalisation of a meaningful performance appraisal system can also work.

• Enable the People to Engage in Discretionary Behaviours

Motivating people is different from enabling them. The latter involves empowerment by providing the people the tools and circumstances that they need to engage in desirable behaviours. If an organisation wants its members to show discretionary behaviour, its managers should be prepared to provide the structure upon which different employees can showcase their professional competencies. It includes the use of functional and parallel structures, the design of competency-based job descriptions, and the decentralisation of decision-making processes. It would also help if employees have a voice in the organisation. Fostering the creation of self-managed teams can also improve commitment.

• Provide Other Benefits to Both Employees and the Organisation

The organisation can also benefit from commitment strategies by reducing the amount of administrative overheads. They can also minimise the need for supervision because people are already committed to do their best. Commitment strategies can also eliminate the typical adversarial relationship between the management and the workforce.

The Essence of Aligning People Management Practices

The reason why many performance managements practices fail is because they often institute piecemeal changes. Most focus only on certain areas or organisational practices. A good example is the conduct of annual employee training. This can be effective as an activity. However, the increase in knowledge will go for naught if the organisation fails to review and redesign its job description to fit the newly-acquired skills and knowledge.

It is for this reason that aligning the different people management practices is crucial in ensuring the success of the organisation. Aligning the different people management practices can help gain the 100 percent commitment of the workforce.

Commitment is the real essence of high-performance management. In fact, there are studies that underscore the importance of employee commitment. It is the cornerstone of high-performance management.

Diagnosis of People Management Practices Alignment

Determining the extent of alignment of the different people management practices is crucial for the high-performance management system to be successful. This involves the assessment and analysis of both internal and external alignment.

Organisations must determine the alignment of the different people management practices with respect to each other. This requires the assessment of the consistency of all people management practices. A good way to do this is by creating a matrix that allows for the more efficient review of the different practices against each other. This forms the diagnosis of internal alignment.

The external alignment requires the analysis of the relationship between the organisation’s management practices and the company’s business strategy. This includes a review of the organisation’s strategy and the identification of critical behaviours that the organisation needs to achieve its strategy. It also involves the identification of people management practices and the assessment of the alignment of these practices relative to each other.

High performance management is the way to go if organisations want to secure long-lasting change and success. Managers and change agents should pay attention to the different practices that can build commitment from their people. This is one of the best ways that an organisation can affect the change they desire.