High-Performance Working: A Comprehensive Overview (BUS101)

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HIGH-PERFORMANCE WORKING
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Contents
PART A...........................................................................................................................................3
CONCEPT OF HIGH-PERFORMANCE WORKING...............................................................3
KEY COMPONENTS OF HPW.................................................................................................3
IDENTIFY BARRIERS TO IMPLEMENTING HPW IN ORGANISATIONS........................4
EVALUATE THE LINK BETWEEN HPW AND EMPLOYEE WELL-BEING.....................5
EVALUATE THE LINK BETWEEN HPW AND COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE...............5
EVALUATE THE LINK BETWEEN HPW AND SUSTAINABLE ORGANISATIONAL
PERFORMANCE........................................................................................................................6
TRANSFERRING THE NEW KNOWLEDGE AND SKILLS GAINED INTO WORKING
PRACTICES................................................................................................................................7
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................9
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PART A
CONCEPT OF HIGH-PERFORMANCE WORKING
As per the Katzenbach and Smith (2015), an effective team is the idea of growing teams and
effective organisations and management. In this subject, the area of team development and
attainment of the results are linked directly with the notion of High-Performance Working.
Likewise, the UK Commission for Employment and Skills described that the HPW is a
phenomenon or way of working which involves the employees effectively with committed aim
to achieve the high-performance standards (GOV UK, 2018). HPW can be deployed in a wide
range of areas in organisations like employee relations, development and training, management
and leadership etc. and with the results gained by this; it becomes an essential part of the
companies nowadays.
KEY COMPONENTS OF HPW
The idea of HPW is one of the most popular topics of discussion in boosting the performance
and benefits to the organisations and the economy. The major concept behind this notion is to
enhance the benefits by collaboration, effective working, teamwork, support, implementation of
effective leadership and management etc. so that the future can be deliberately designed for
sustainability. Sienknecht and Van Aken (1999) defines that the implementation of the HPW is
the role of the HR teams in the organizations and are responsible to conduct the tasks in
accordance with the needs. This will help in delivering the best results, enhance the employee
empowerment and team structures, leadership and managerial support, knowledge management
etc. and hence is becoming necessary to implement.
HPW may involve a diverse range of components of the overall organisation’s operations to
make them more effective and durable for the company’s management and also the customers.
these components may be the practices involved, perspectives or systems that might be involved.
Some major components that HPW involve are:
Employee involvement – high performance working organisations and teams are the people who
are more directed towards the task discretion and variety with the problem-solving teams and
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project teams (GOV UK, 2018). This component of the HPW is one of the necessary need that
helps in facilitating many of the important benefits that the dedicated staff can provide
Skills acquisition – induction, off and on the job training, plans, annual performance review,
evaluations of these processes is also involved as the primary aspects of the HPW teams. This
tasks are generally regulated by the HR teams’ and managers. Recruiting and selecting processes
are also involved here, internally or externally
Motivation practices – organisational performance-related pay, discipline, leadership, flexible
benefits and working, opportunities are the additional practices that HPW team or an
organisation requires. Motivated teams have the high possibility of gaining a good range of
results that can be used for the sustainable development and growth of the company over there
and hence create a competitive advantage for the company (GOV UK, 2018)
Succession planning – Industry Forum (2018) has described that there is a need to impose some
effective and strategic plans for the sustainability of the business in future for long terms. With
the introduction of different technologies, practices and methods that can help in making the
tasks effective requires effective synchronization and hence succession planning is a vital part of
HPW
IDENTIFY BARRIERS TO IMPLEMENTING HPW IN ORGANISATIONS
The notion to enhance the performance level of the teams in an organisation the leaders and
managers have a very sophisticated role to handle the tasks and maintained the desired needs
appropriately. While in practice, it is not at all a simple task to sustain and implement the high
performance working as there may have several barriers to the tasks and practices either from
internal or external forces and hence, they have to be strictly analysed. Some of the major
barriers to implementing high-performance working are:
Insufficient skills – lacking teams from skills which are highly required for a project is one of the
major barriers of the high performing team which needs to be erased from the organisation. Just
deciding the best plans for the teams in order to reach the unique standards is not enough
nowadays and there is a need to remove the barriers related to skills in teams by delivering
effective continuous development and training programs (Arendse, 2015)
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Ineffective communication – delivering messages from top management to internal teams and
the outer stakeholders needs effective communication ways to reach the desired goals.
Communication is found to be one of the most effective components of effective organisations
and hence it has to be planned properly which is vital for an HPW team
Abdicating leadership and management practices – the guiding powers of the organisations i.e.,
the leadership and management are the primary support systems of HPW teams. Leadership and
management are the main aspects of an organisation which lead the teams towards positivity by
delivering dedication, motivation, productivity and synchronisation with each other to make the
most effective and high-performance teams
Inconsistent Policy Enforcement – at present the industries needs a sustainable deployment of the
policies and regulations that make the organisation more effective over others and create a
valuable competitive advantage in the markets. In addition to this, legal compliance is always a
necessary object in the business operations to make the people within more effective and feel
free
EVALUATE THE LINK BETWEEN HPW AND EMPLOYEE WELL-BEING
Corporate success is all about getting the best from the managers and employees and nowadays,
many of the organisations might have been forgotten this simple maxim. The high-performance
teams and organisations have a direct link with the wellbeing of the employees which can be
seen as the final results (Armitage et al., 2015). There are several studies and long traditions to
determine the ways to enhance the motivation and raise the organizational performance through
designing the work effectively.
In this subject, the employee’s wellbeing comes at the first priority which involves the
deployment of the best possible healthy working environment, rewards and performance
management practices, training and development, supporting them with leadership and
management and understands their needs for an effective and high performing team. So, it can be
said that these all the above-mentioned aspects are directly related with the wellbeing and
benefits to the employees so that they feel dedicated and motivated to perform the best and
contribute to developing a high performing team.
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EVALUATE THE LINK BETWEEN HPW AND COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE
Deploying the high-performance teams in the organisations and attaining the desired needs
included in the mission and vision of the companies help in enhancing the values and potential of
the company which eventually facilitates a competitive advantage over others in the businesses.
The notion to make the things right in the business operations and attain the high-performance
teams is one of the best strategies on which a firm can work to attain the competitive advantages.
So, it can be said that the there is a direct as well as indirect relationship or link between the
competitive advantage and the high performing teams (Arendse, 2015).
High performing teams involve the attainment of the goals and objectives on the several vital
aspects like motivation, dedication, effective communication and performance management,
deployment of the effective leadership and management skills which all are the factors that are
necessary for attaining the competitive advantage in the markets. In addition to this, it can be
said that the synchronisation between the notion of HPW and competitive advantage is necessary
to enhance the efficiency of the workforce which is also a vital component in the operations
management and to remove the barriers within a business.
EVALUATE THE LINK BETWEEN HPW AND SUSTAINABLE
ORGANISATIONAL PERFORMANCE
There is a vigorously dynamic link between the high performing teams and the sustainable
business practices of the overall organisation. This basically comes under the responsibilities of
the HR departments and leaders of the organisation to make the business continuously growing
and sustainable. Sustainably performing organisations and high performance goes hand in hand
and needs to be effectively addressed within a business. Sustainable organisational development
involves major roles of the leadership, organisational development and staff engagement which
are also necessary components of the teams who what to perform effectively (McGurk, et al.,
2011).
There can be some major organisational insights like tasks alignment, distributed leadership,
shared purpose, locus of engagement, defining and balancing short and long-term horizons and
assessment and evaluations and these are necessary for a sustainable task force which helps them
to attain high performance working conditions and hence they can be related as parallel aspects
of any business (Arendse, 2015). Moreover, it can be said that the organisational performance
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characteristics can consist several aspects to enhance the growth of the company and
sustainability can be reserved as the priority for business as their markets are becoming more
dynamic and with the sustainable practices, a company can enhance its market value.
Figure 1: Enablers of sustainable organisation performance
Source: [McGurk, et al., 2011]
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TRANSFERRING THE NEW KNOWLEDGE AND SKILLS GAINED INTO
WORKING PRACTICES
Learning’s are the benefits one can get through a high level of dedication and
understandings but in order to keep this in the list of personal advantages, there is a
need to transfer the learning’s practically. There can be several ways to share the
information and knowledge gained previously like:
 Identifying the strengths and potential aspects in the learning’s or have a personal
reflection
 Establish an action plan to implement the knowledge with defined goals
 Perform experimental learning at the workplace or in personal tasks
 Set an area to perform where the knowledge can be put to attain a better result
These steps can be used to share the knowledge gained and share the knowledge.
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REFERENCES
Arendse, L., 2015. Understanding the association between high-performance work systems and
organisational performance (Doctoral dissertation, University of Pretoria).
Armitage, Andrew & Keeble-Ramsay, Diane. (2015). High Performance and Wellbeing at Work
– what can HRD learn about the links?
Dr McGurk J., Dr Miller, J., McCartney, C. and Baron, A. Shaping the Future: Exploring the
drivers and derailers of sustainable organisation performance, online available at
https://www.ufhrd.co.uk/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/6_7.pdf last accessed on 1st
December 2018.
GOV UK, 2018. High Performance Working in the Employer Skills Surveys, online available at
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/
file/303154/evidence-report-71-executive-summary.pdf last accessed on 1st December 2018.
Industry Forum, 2018. High-Performance Working (HPW), online available at
https://www.industryforum.co.uk/resources/articles/high-performance-working-hpw/ last
accessed on 1st December 2018.
Katzenbach, J.R. and Smith, D.K., 2015. The wisdom of teams: Creating the high-performance
organization. Harvard Business Review Press.
Sienknecht, R.T. and Van Aken, E.M., 1999. A high-performance work system: definitions,
concepts, and practices. In Management of Engineering and Technology, 1999. Technology and
Innovation Management. PICMET'99. Portland International Conference on (Vol. 1, pp. 215-
vol). IEEE.
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