High Performance Pay

Much of the hoopla surrounding quality circles, teams, and high-performance work systems has been based on anecdotes and very thin evidence. It has not been established that those employee involvement strategies amount to anything more than another series of management fads or ruses designed to get more out of workers without giving them anything in return. This revelatory book, written by some of the skeptics, lays some of the suspicion to rest. Based on their visits to 44 plants and surveys of more than 4,000 employees, Eileen Appelbaum, Thomas Bailey, Peter Berg, and Arne L. Kalleberg concluded that companies are indeed more successful when managers share knowledge and power with workers and when workers assume increased responsibility and discretion. The study of steel, apparel, and medical electronics and imaging plants revealed much. In self-directed teams, workers were able to eliminate bottlenecks and coordinate the work process. In task forces created to improve quality, they communicated with individuals outside their own work groups and were able to solve problems. Expensive equipment in steel mills operated with fewer interruptions, turnaround and labor costs were cut in apparel factories, and costly inventories of components and medical equipment were reduced. And what did the employees think? The worker survey showed that jobs in participatory work systems often provide more challenging tasks and more opportunities for creativity. Employees in apparel had higher hourly earnings; those in steel had both higher hourly earnings and higher job satisfaction. Workers in more participatory settings were no more likely than others to report heavy workloads or excessive demands on their time. They were, however, less likely to report involuntary overtime or conflict with co-workers, and were more likely to be satisfied with their surroundings. Manufacturing Advantage provides the best assessment available of the effectiveness of high-performance work systems. Freestanding chapters near the end of the book provide full documentation of research data without interrupting the narrative flow.

How to create the high-performance, high-commitment organization Integrating knowledge from strategic management, performance management, and organization design, strategic human resource expert and Harvard Business School Professor Michael Beer outlines what the high-commitment, high-performance organization looks like and provides practitioners with the transformation process to help them get there. Starting with leaders who have the right values, Beer shows how to weave together a complete system that includes top-to-bottom communication, organization design, HR policies, and leadership transformation process, and outlines what practitioners must do in HR, structure, systems, goals, culture, and strategy to create high-performance organizations.

Leadership teams taking the reins of government in 2017 will have to overcome the demoralizing effects of years of budget deficits, a heavy loss of talent, frequent criticism, and mounting pressure to ‘do more with less,’ all of which have contributed to declining interest in public sector careers and deteriorating performance. Over the past twenty years there has been a widening gulf between the “people management” practices in the private and public sectors. Change is badly needed but it does not have to start by canceling existing civil service rules. This book argues for rethinking the way public employees are managed. The changes will contribute to a healthier, more productive work environment that once again enables public agencies to attract and motivate a highly qualified workforce. Written by leading experts with decades of experience as managers and consultants, It's Time for High Performance Government provides executives, managers, and elected officials at all levels practical advice to improve government performance.

The company is under-performing, its share price is trailing, and the CEO gets...a multi-million-dollar raise. This story is familiar, for good reason: as this book clearly demonstrates, structural flaws in corporate governance have produced widespread distortions in executive pay. Pay without Performance presents a disconcerting portrait of managers' influence over their own pay--and of a governance system that must fundamentally change if firms are to be managed in the interest of shareholders. Lucian Bebchuk and Jesse Fried demonstrate that corporate boards have persistently failed to negotiate at arm's length with the executives they are meant to oversee. They give a richly detailed account of how pay practices--from option plans to retirement benefits--have decoupled compensation from performance and have camouflaged both the amount and performance-insensitivity of pay. Executives' unwonted influence over their compensation has hurt shareholders by increasing pay levels and, even more importantly, by leading to practices that dilute and distort managers' incentives. This book identifies basic problems with our current reliance on boards as guardians of shareholder interests. And the solution, the authors argue, is not merely to make these boards more independent of executives as recent reforms attempt to do. Rather, boards should also be made more dependent on shareholders by eliminating the arrangements that entrench directors and insulate them from their shareholders. A powerful critique of executive compensation and corporate governance, Pay without Performance points the way to restoring corporate integrity and improving corporate performance.

Business success depends on employee innovation, drive, skill, endurance, and dedication. Engaged employees, studies show, provide tangible advantages to the organization like greater customer satisfaction and improved profitability. In contrast, the Gallup Organization has discovered that disengaged workers cost U.S. business between $250 billion and $350 billion each year. How do you engage employees and, in turn, create the high-performance organization? That's what this set is all about. From the latest theories on motivation to innovations in HR to methods to increase employee retention, it provides the essential insights and tools managers, leaders, and HR people need to find new ways to succeed—while keeping employees happy, productive, and loyal. Employees know that cradle-to-grave—or even week-to-week—employment security is a thing of the past, and that they are at the helm of their own career ship. Discerning consumers in the employment marketplace, they therefore seek employment opportunities that speak not only to their wallets and life circumstances, but also to their desire to find work that provides purpose and passion. How can employers meet these needs and create a team of engaged employees? That's a large question, and one that spans a spectrum of issues that includes career development, human resource management, and the alignment between individual and organizational goals. In these three volumes, leaders and managers will find answers. They feature articles, interviews, and reports from academics, psychologists, managers in the practical corporate world, and experts in career management. Despite what Donald Trump might say, work is personal, and the ways in which individuals navigate the organizational environment—and businesses organize to seek, attract, and retain the best employees—is of primary concern. That goes double in these turbulent times, when job security is at stake, cynicism rampant, and loyalty at risk. Building High-Performance People and Organizations connects the dots so employers can maintain a loyal, satisfied, and productive workforce. Volume 1: The New Employer-Employee Relationship looks at trends in demographics and the general business environment leading to and driving the concept of employee engagement. Volume 2: The Engaged Workplace: Organizational Strategies focuses on real-world organizational strategies to find, develop, and retain the best employees, with an emphasis on innovative practices in both the U.S. and internationally. Volume 3: Case Studies and Conversations features interviews with thought leaders in the entire landscape of performance management and employee engagement. Their insights will provide readers with the absolute latest thinking in their fields of expertise. Volume 3 also contains short case studies of companies that are pioneering high-performance cultures.

A popular maxim states that the only constant in business today is change. Whether the result of growth opportunities, new competition, technological advances or other internal and external factors, every business enterprise must manage change. Since the 1980s, companies have experimented with a method for driving change—High Performance Teams (HPTs), work teams that achieve a quantum leap in results in less than a year. Drawing from over 25 years of experience with HPTs, Marc Hanlan traces their history in a wide variety of industries, analyzes the key factors that contribute to success—or failure—and offers a comprehensive guide to building and managing them successfully. Featuring dozens of case examples and a detailed template for translating plans into action, High Performance Teams shows you how to: prepare the organization, select team leaders and members, set goals, accelerate development times, overcome obstacles, and measure results. Including an extensive bibliography and glossary of key terms and concepts, High Performance Teams will become an indispensable resource for business executives and owners, team leaders and members, and facilitators, trainers, consultants, and coaches. For shareholders, customers, and students of organizational behavior, High Performance Teams offers unique insight into the dynamics of breakthrough business performance.

Of pay for performance -- Benefits and risks associated with pay for performance -- What are the goals of pay for performance? -- Who should be paid for performance? -- How should employees be rewarded? -- How should performance-based pay be funded? -- How can costs be managed? -- Who provides input to performance ratings? -- How can agencies facilitate pay system integrity?