Chapter 6

High
Performance
Workforce
Management
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Toyota Georgetown
 “We’ve got nothing, technology-wise, that
anyone else can’t have. There’s no secret
Toyota Quality Machine out there. The quality
machine is the workforce -- the team members
on the paint line, the suppliers, the engineers -
- everybody who has a hand in production
here takes the attitude that we’re making
world-class vehicles.”
Key Idea
Organizations are learning that to satisfy
customers, they must first satisfy
employees.
Key Workforce-Focused Practices
for Performance Excellence (1 of 2)
 Understand the key factors that drive workforce engagement,
satisfaction, and motivation.
 Design and manage work and jobs to promote effective
communication, cooperation, skill sharing, empowerment, innovation,
and the ability to benefit from diverse ideas and thinking of employees
and develop an organizational culture conducive to high performance
and motivation.
 Create an environment that ensures and improves workplace health,
safety, and security, and supports the workforce via policies, services,
and benefits.
 Develop a performance management system based on compensation,
recognition, reward, and incentives that supports high performance
work and workforce engagement.
Key Workforce-Focused Practices
for Performance Excellence (2 of 2)
 Assess workforce engagement and satisfaction and use results for
improvement.
 Assess workforce capability and capacity needs and use the
results to capitalize on core competencies, address strategic
challenges, recruit and retain skilled and competent people, and
accomplish the work of the organization.
 Make appropriate investments in development and learning,
both for the workforce and the organization’s leaders.
 Manage career progression for the entire workforce and
succession planning for management and leadership positions.
Evolution of Workforce
Management
 Taylor system and scientific management
 Improved productivity
 Changed manufacturing work into series of
mundane and mindless tasks
 Promulgated adversarial relationships
between labor and management
 Failed to exploit the knowledge and creativity
of the workforce
Workforce Management
 Workforce management (which has also been widely
known as human resource management, or HRM)
consists of those activities designed to provide for and
coordinate the people of an organization.
 determining the organization’s workforce needs;
 assisting in the design of work systems;
 recruiting, selecting, training and developing,
counseling, motivating, and rewarding employees;
 acting as a liaison with unions and government
organizations; and
 handling other matters of employee well-being.
Key Idea
The objectives of an effective workforce
management system are to build a high-
performance workplace and maintain an
environment for quality excellence to
enable employees and the organization
to achieve strategic objectives
and adapt to change.
Workforce Engagement and
Motivation
 A survey of 55,000 workers by the Gallup Organization
found that four key employee attitudes, taken
together, correlate strongly with higher profits:
 Workers feel they are given the opportunity to do what
they do best every day.
 They believe their opinions count.
 They sense their fellow workers are committed to
quality.
 They’ve made a direct connection between their work
and the company’s mission.
Workforce Engagement
 The extent of workforce commitment, both emotional
and intellectual, to accomplishing the work, mission,
and vision of the organization. Engaged workers
 find personal meaning and motivation in their work,
 have a strong emotional bond to their organization, are
actively involved in and committed to their work,
 feel that their jobs are important, know that their
opinions and ideas have value, and
 often go beyond their immediate job responsibilities for
the good of the organization.
Key Idea
Organizations with high levels of
workforce engagement are often
characterized by high-performing
work environments in which people
are motivated to do their utmost for
the benefit of their customers and
for the success of the organization.
Advantages of Workforce
Engagement
 Replaces the adversarial mentality with trust and cooperation
 Develops the skills and leadership capability of individuals,
creating a sense of mission and fostering trust
 Increases employee morale and commitment to the organization
 Fosters creativity and innovation, the source of competitive
advantage
 Helps people understand quality principles and instills these
principles into the corporate culture
 Allows employees to solve problems at the source immediately
 Improves quality and productivity
Employee Involvement (EI)
 Any activity by which employees participate
in work-related decisions and improvement
activities, with the objectives of tapping the
creative energies of all employees and
improving their motivation.
Key Idea
EI approaches can range from simple
sharing of information or providing input
on work-related issues and making
suggestions to self-directed
responsibilities such as setting goals,
making business decisions, and solving
problems, often in cross-functional teams.
Motivation
 Motivation - an individual’s response to a felt need
 Theories
 Content Theories (Maslow; MacGregor;
Herzberg)
 Process Theories (Vroom; Porter & Lawler)
 Environmentally-based Theories (Skinner;
Adams; Bandura, Snyder, & Williams)
Key Idea
There is no such thing as an unmotivated
employee, but the system within which
people work can either seriously impede
motivation or enhance it.
Designing High-Performance Work
Systems
 High-performance work refers to work approaches
used to systematically pursue ever-higher levels of
overall organizational and human performance.
 High-performance work is characterized by
flexibility, innovation, knowledge and skill
sharing, alignment with organizational directions,
customer focus, and rapid response to changing
business needs and marketplace requirements.
Work and Job Design
 Work design refers to how employees are
organized in formal and informal units, such
as departments and teams.
 Job design refers to responsibilities and tasks
assigned to individuals.
Key Idea
The design of work should provide
individuals with both the intrinsic and
extrinsic motivation to achieve quality and
operational performance objectives.
Hackman/Oldham Model
Critical
Core job
psychological Outcomes
characteristics
states
Skill variety Experienced High motivation

Task identity meaningfulness
Task significance of work High satisfaction
Experienced
Autonomy responsibility High work
effectiveness
Feedback Knowledge of
from job actual results
Moderators
Enhancing Work Design
 Job enlargement – expanding workers’
jobs
 Job rotation – having workers learn
several tasks and rotate among them
 Job enrichment – granting more
authority, responsibility, and autonomy
Empowerment
 Giving people authority to make decisions
based on what they feel is right, to have
control over their work, to take risks and
learn from mistakes, and to promote change.
“A sincere belief and trust in people.”
Successful Empowerment
 Provide education, resources, and encouragement
 Remove restrictive policies/procedures
 Foster an atmosphere of trust
 Share information freely
 Make work valuable
 Train managers in “hands-off” leadership
 Train employees in allowed latitude
Teams
 Team - a small number of people
with complementary skills who are
committed to a common purpose, set
of performance goals, and approach
for which they hold themselves
mutually accountable
Examples of Teams at Baptist
Hospital, Inc.
Types of Teams
 Management teams
 Natural work teams
 Self managed teams
 Virtual teams
 Quality circles
 Problem solving teams
 Project teams
Six Sigma Project Teams
 Champions – senior managers who promote Six
Sigma
 Master Black Belts – highly trained experts
responsible for strategy, training, mentoring,
deployment, and results.
 Black Belts – Experts who perform technical
analyses
 Green Belts – functional employees trained in
introductory Six Sigma tools
 Team Members – Employees who support
specific projects
Developing and Empowering
Teams
 Teams are generally formed in organizational
settings by direction from a manager, leader, or
governing body.
 They are typically given a broad objective.
 The team may also be given a time frame and
resource limits, if it is a project team.
Key Idea
The key stages of a team’s life cycle are
called forming, storming, norming,
performing, and adjourning.
Life Cycle of Teams
 Forming takes place when the team is introduced, meets
together, and explores issues of their new assignment.
 Storming occurs when team members disagree on team roles and
challenge the way that the team will function.
 Norming takes place when the issues of the previous stage have
been worked out, and team members agree on roles, ground
rules, and acceptable behavior when doing the work of the team.
 Performing characterizes the productive phase of the life cycle
when team members cooperate to solve problems and complete
the goals of their assigned work.
 Adjourning is the phase in which the team wraps up the project,
satisfactorily completes its goals, and prepares to disband or
move on to another project.
Ingredients for Successful
Teams (1 of 2 )
 Clarity in team goals
 Improvement plan
 Clearly defined roles
 Clear communication
 Beneficial team behaviors
Ingredients for Successful
Teams (2 of 2)
 Well-defined decision procedures
 Balanced participation
 Established ground rules
 Awareness of group process
 Use of scientific approach
Workplace Environment
 Key factors:
 Health
 Safety
 Overall well-being
Engaging the Workforce in
Process Excellence
 Develop a shared vision and behavioral
skills
 Develop skills for team leaders:
 Conflict management and resolution, Team
management, Leadership skills, Decision making,
Communication, Negotiation, Cross-cultural training
 Develop skills for team members:
 Rules for effective meetings, Shared decision making
Key Idea
Compared to the technical tools for
gathering and analyzing data, the
“soft skills”—those that involve
people—such as project management
and team facilitation, are more
difficult to teach and learn.
Compensation and Recognition
 Compensation and recognition refer to all aspects
of pay and reward, including promotions,
bonuses, and recognition, either monetary and
nonmonetary or individual and group.
 Compensation
 Merit versus capability/performance based plans
 Gainsharing
 Recognition
 Monetary or non-monetary
 Formal or informal
 Individual or group
Effective Recognition and
Reward Strategies
 Give both individual and team awards
 Involve everyone
 Tie rewards to quality
 Allow peers and customers to nominate
and recognize superior performance
 Publicize extensively
 Make recognition fun
Performance Management
 How you are measured is how you perform!
 Conventional performance appraisal systems
 Focus on short-term results and individual behavior;
fail to deal with uncontrollable factors
 New approaches
 Focus on company goals such as quality and behaviors
like teamwork
 360-degree feedback; mastery descriptions
Key Idea
Performance appraisals are most effective
when they are based on the objectives
that support the strategic directions of the
organization, best practices, and
continuous improvement.
Assessing Workforce Engagement,
Satisfaction and Effectiveness
 Outcome Measures
 number of teams, rate of growth, percentage of employees
involved, number of suggestions implemented, time taken
to respond to suggestions, employee turnover,
absenteeism, and grievances; perceptions of teamwork
and management effectiveness, engagement, satisfaction,
and empowerment.
Assessing Workforce Engagement,
Satisfaction and Effectiveness
 Process Measures
 number of suggestions that employees make, numbers of
participants in project teams, participation in educational
programs, average time it takes to complete a process
improvement project, whether teams are getting better,
smarter, and faster at performing improvements,
improvements in team selection and planning processes,
frequency of use of quality improvement tools, employee
understanding of problem-solving approaches, and senior
management involvement
Sustaining High-Performance
Work Systems
 Regular assessment of
 workforce capability and capacity needs;
 hiring, training and retention of employees;
and
 career progression and succession planning
Workforce Capability and
Capacity
 Workforce capability refers to an organization’s ability
to accomplish its work processes through the
knowledge, skills, abilities, and competencies of its
people.
 Workforce capacity refers to an organization’s ability to
ensure sufficient staffing levels to accomplish its work
processes and successfully deliver products and
services to customers, including the ability to meet
seasonal or varying demand levels.
Key Idea
Meeting and exceeding customer
expectations begins with hiring the
right people whose skills and attitudes
will support and enhance the
organization’s objectives.
Effective Hiring Practices
 Determine key employee skills and
competencies
 Identify job candidates based on required
skills and competencies
 Screen job candidates to predict suitability
and match to jobs
Succession Planning
 Formal processes to identify, develop, and position
future leaders
 Mentoring, coaching, and job rotation
 Career paths and progression for all employees
Succession planning is vital to long-term sustainability
Key Idea
In a culture of performance excellence,
employees need to understand the
importance of customer satisfaction, to
be given the training and responsibilities
to achieve it, and to feel that they do
indeed make a difference.
Example: Medrad Learning and
Development Process
Workforce Focus in the Baldrige
Award Criteria
 The Workforce Focus Category examines how an organization
engages, manages, and develops the workforce to utilize its full
potential in alignment with the organization’s mission, strategy. and
action plans. It also addresses the ability to assess workforce
capability and capacity needs and to build a high-performance work
environment.
5.1 Workforce Engagement
a. Workforce Enrichment
b. Workforce and Leader Development
c. Assessment of Workforce Engagement
5.2 Workforce Environment
a. Workforce Capability and Capacity
b. Workforce Climate
Workforce Focus in ISO 9000
 Personnel performing work affecting product quality shall be
competent on the basis of appropriate education, training, skills, and
experience.
 Organizations should determine the level of competence that
employees need, provide training or other means to ensure
competency, evaluate the effectiveness of training or other actions
taken, ensure that employees are aware of how their work contributes
to quality objectives, and maintain appropriate records of education,
training, and experience.
 The standards address the work environment from the standpoint of
providing buildings, workspace, utilities, equipment, and supporting
services needed to achieve conformity to product requirements, as well
as determining and managing the work environment, including safety,
ergonomics, and environmental factors.
Workforce Focus in Six Sigma
 Teams are an integral part of Six Sigma
implementation.
 Selecting the right people to serve on teams,
training and skill development, and reward and
recognition approaches to drive behavior are vital
to Six Sigma efforts.
 Understanding how changes affect people is a
necessary issue that organizations must address
after Six Sigma projects are completed.

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High

Skill variety Experienced High motivation

“A sincere belief and trust in people.”

Succession planning is vital to long-term sustainability

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