Human Resource Management
- 1: What is a high-performance work system? What are its elements? Which of these elements involve human resource management?
High-performance work system is a set of management practices aiming at creating a culture in an organization that ensures that an employee has greater responsibility and involvement. Munteanu (2014) explains that high-performance work system focuses on systemization of various parts of an organization that are interrelated and that complement each other to achieve organization’s objectives.
In a high-performance work system, some elements need to be involved to ensure its effectiveness. The various elements include organizational structure, people, reward systems, task design and information systems (Hughes, 2008). Organization structure involves how an organization groups its people into various departments or divisions while task design focuses on grouping its activities into team responsibilities or jobs. The element of people incorporates selection, training and employees’ development. Reward systems involve encouraging workers to perform better to meet the goals of an organization while modern information systems target to improve sharing of information widely. Some of these high-performance work system elements are involved in human resource management.
An organization targeting high performance has to align human resource practices in how it carries out its activities. The elements involved include selection, training and development of employees, organization structure and rewards to support the organization’s strategy.
- 2: How can teamwork, empowerment, knowledge sharing and job satisfaction contribute to high performance?
A team is a small organizational block consisting of 12-15 members working towards achieving a common goal (Tarricone & Luca, 2002). Teamwork contributes to high performance through quick and efficient decision making and improving the cohesion of the members. Through teamwork, members can work in collaboration and view a situation in a better way leading to effective decisions and making the people more integrated.
Empowerment involves coming up with ways to inspire employees to work effectively towards achieving an organization’s goals (Kimolo, 2013). Empowered employees contribute to high performance by coming up with innovative approaches of rectifying problems delivery of services and in redesigning of the work processes to improve them.
Knowledge is beneficial to an organization when it is shared. Knowledge sharing ensures effective shifting of valuable acquired information from one person to another especially from an external source (Akram & Bokhari, 2011). Knowledge sharing contributes to high performance by encouraging innovative ideas that lead to the development of high-quality products and services.
Job satisfaction involves employees having the feeling that the work or activities that they undertake are fulfilling. It makes employees to be passionate about their work. This makes them perform better hence improving an organization’s performance.
- 3: How can an organization promote ethical behavior among its employees?
One of the ways an organization can promote ethical behavior is through training. Training helps in promoting ethical behavior by teaching employees how to conduct themselves in an ethical manner (Treviño, Weaver & Reynolds, 2006). With the knowledge of the importance of behaving ethically employees will avoid any activities that may violate the company’s set code of ethics. Rewarding ethical behavior can also be effective in ensuring employees conduct themselves ethically.
The organization and the management team should set a good example in observing ethical behavior. Richardson (2014) observes that an organization or management team that is transparent in how it carries out its activities is likely to have cases of unethical behavior as workers developthe sense of behaving ethically
An organization can also promote ethical behavior by considering the work-life balance of the employees. It has to ensure that employees are satisfied with the working environment to avoid unethical behavior by being careful not to lose their jobs. Implementation of policies regarding ethical behavior can also be effective in ensuring that employees conduct themselves ethically. Specifying the repercussions of engaging in unethical behavior through policies promotes ethical behavior, as employees tend to avoid putting their integrity to test.
References
Akram, F., &Bokhari, R. (2011). The role of knowledge sharing on individual performance, considering the factor of motivation-the conceptual framework. International journal of multidisciplinary sciences and engineering, 2(9), 44-48.
Hughes, J. (2008). The High-Performance Paradigm: A Review and Evaluation Jason Hughes.
Kimolo, K. I. M. A. N. Z. I. (2013). The relationship between employee empowerment practices and employee performance in regional development authorities in Kenya. Degree of Masters of Business Administration (MBA). School of Business Administration. University of Nairobi. Google Scholar.
Munteanu, A. (2014). What Means High Performance Work Practices for Human Resources in an organization. Annals of the University of Petrosani, Economics, 14(1), 243-250.
Richardson, F. W. (2014). Enhancing strategies to improve workplace performance (Doctoral dissertation, Walden University).
Tarricone, P., & Luca, J. (2002). Successful teamwork: A case study in quality conversations, Proceedings of the 25th HERDSA Conference, Perth, Western Australia, 640-646.
The Effect of Ethical Leadership on Employee‟s Virtuous Behavior – A Study of Marketing Agencies in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam Mai Ngoc Khuong and Vo Minh Duc
Treviño, L. K., Weaver, G. R., & Reynolds, S. J. (2006). Behavioral ethics in organizations: A review. Journal of management, 32(6), 951-990.
