Indian HR

Competitive Imperatives

Productivity - focuse induced by globalization of competition
Quality - forced by decline in American competitiveness/market share in 70’s and 80’s
Service
Speed - in getting new products to market
Learning - recognizing, codifying, and dessimnating the lessons of experience from one part of the organization to another; necessary to change and improve faster than competitors;
Coca-Cola

Improving competitiveness

Planning

diagnosing the "hold-ups"
benchmarking against industry leaders
What are the problems with benchmarking? necessarily limiting organization to second place; what works for other organizations may not be the right strategy for yours

Obtaining commitment

Top management - involve in surveys and benchmarking
Remainder of organization - educational efforts, pilot projects to demonstrate utility of change
Approaches to Competitiveness - Employee involvement, lean production, TQM

Employee involvement

focus on organizational outcomes - learning
employee outcomes - morale, quality of work life

provides employees with greater power - obtaining employee input into decisions
information - about business, e.g. performance info
rewards - provide incentives for becoming skilled or committed to overall org effectiveness - e.g., pay for skills systems, profit sharing, gain sharing, ESOPs
knowledge - corss training, team-work training to allow for more complex decision making
What is an HIO?

HIO - implies more careful selection of employees, greater employment security

HIO well suited for

continuous process productions situations that require relatively complex coordination activities
where work is primarily creative
where org is facing rapidly changing environment
innovation and speed more important than continuous improvement




Lean Production

Small teams responsible for a segment of assembly line
cross training
job rotation
time and motion studies
employee empowerment regarding improvement in ways to do jobs subject to engineering approval
responsible for routine maintenance and quality control
suitable for simple assembly work that can be broken down into repetitive activites
mixed reviews - continuous improvement or "lean and mean"


Total Quality Management

Began in mid-1980s
Focus on quality, "getting it right the first time" to improve productivity, reduce costs of inspection and rework
Employees encouraged to make suggestions for work process or quality improvement
Usually customer focused - either internal or external
statistical monitoring of process to detect any variance from standards; allows for quick correction
does not utilize individual performance appraisal, goal setting, and pay for performance - these practices may punish individuals for quality deviations that result from factors beyond their control
Driven by top management, with little power/info shared with employees
simple, repetitive jobs more amenable to measurement
Points from "A different point of view"

"systems" perspective - must be accompanied by other changes in organization - e.g., culture, incentives
internally, rather than market focused; may increase efficiency, but not effectiveness
activity, rather than results based - e.g., how many employees have received training in quality
may stifle innovation and creativity - hierarchical, rigid system; innovation requires permission to make mistakes
TQM supporters response: problem not with TQM, but with the manner in which it is implemented
Business Process Improvement - process "re-engineering" to increase efficiency or quality

repeated set of activities that add value and create measurable output, usually carried out sequentially across several departments
usually accomplished with cross-functional team lead by a manager who is responsible for the re-engineering effort
requires process analysis - key employees
customer input
determination of solutions
selection and implementation of best alternatives
review and feedback
Specific Interventions

part of another program or stand-alone
group or individual focused


Work Improvement Teams (Quality Circles)

Most popular form of participative management
Group of volunteers who meet regularly to study problems of quality or productivity
make recommendations for change to higher management
purported to boost employee morale
requires training in problem identification, statistical knowledge to evaluate quality
generally have a life cycle of one to three years
Self-directed work teams (Autonomous work groups)

Work team that is given almost total responsibility for producing a product or service including scheduling, assignments, decisions on methods and production, and even selection, performance appraisals, and salary increases
may involve cross training of group members
May have elected team leader
Responsibility of management or provide info to group on costs, quality, output demand, and technical assistance
requires low bureacracy, loose management control, job security
may conflict with items in union contract
evidence that SDWTs result in higher productivity
saves salary expense of management
may increase job satisfaction
Financial Incentives - Pay for performance

Requires that employees be motivated by money (i.e., desire more pay - value increased pay more than the leisure to be derived from working less hard, believe higher performance will result in more pay, be physically able to improve performance, and trust in organization)
Incentive pay - increases productivity
may result in increased efficiency

may be on group or individual basis

Pay for skills - common in Japan
increases in pay provided for learning new skills/increasing skill level

provides greater variety, more interesting work

contributes to improved quality and organizational flexibility

Suggestion Systems

bonuses for suggestions
problems - percentage of savings/increased revenues as basis for bonus, some improvements hard to quantify; may be best to pay flat sum for any suggestion implemented
Behavior Modification

Attempts to change behaviors by modification of consequences of behaviors
May be most effective when several consequences used simultaneously
Positive reinforcement
-rewards for desirable behavior; need not be tangible rewards - may be feedback;

-rewards should be positive, immediate, and certain

Punishment
-aversive stimulus to reduce undesirable behavior;

-employees must be aware of "rules";

-punishment must be immediate, fair, and impartial;

-may alienate employees, result in grievances

Extinction
-ignoring undesirable behavior

-drawback - undesirable behavior may be inherently rewarding; lack of attention may be positive reinforcement of the behavior

Behavioral self-regulation
-self-identification of personally desirable behaviors and self reward

-most effective for employees who are well-motivated

-may involve analyzing environmental cues that lead to performance of desired behaviors and modify environment to trigger

Award Programs

-most effective if immediate and available to everyone who performs

Goal Setting

- must be difficult, but not impossible to accomplish (provide sense of accomplishment)

-must be specific and measurable

- must be accepted (facilitated by employee participation in goal setting)

- employees must be provided feedback as to progress

- specifies desirable behavior (eliminates ambiguity)

- provide motivational rewards

- enables individuals to think more strategically about their jobs

Job Redesign - Job Enrichment - p. 433

-redesigning job to increase its motivating potential, satisfy psychological needs

-success dependent on growth need strenth of employees - desire to achieve

-may result in increased knowledge and motivation (affecting quality/productivity)

-may involve combining tasks to give responsibility for identifiable product

-employee contact with client (experience results of efforts)

-increasing decision making authority and responsibility



What role does HRM play?

apply quality and productivity principles to improve the HRM function
make policies clear, consistent, and complementary or synergistic
facilitate implementation of quality and productivity interventions
attention to such functions as staffing, training, appraisal, and compensation to ensure fit with organization’s goals; if goals change, functions need to change