Success Breeds Success

There is graffiti on a wall in Pompeii dating back over 2000 years that says:

"Si quis stultus nihil aliud. Redderet enim" 

- If anyone wants something for nothing he is a fool. He should pay for it!-

Despite this early insight into the fundamental basis of monetary motivation the primary reason for the Empire's failure and entering the Dark Ages was a combination of a slave-based economy with a decentralized and inefficient trade system.

Human resources can be an organisation’s largest and most difficult to-control expense, but it can also be central to affecting organisational performance and as such is a key task for a company to manage in order to maximise productivity and enhance creativity whilst controlling costs.

High-performance work practices’ (HPWPs) include, for example, incentives, training, employee participation, selectivity, and flexible work arrangements. These HPWPs practices increase employees’ knowledge, skills and abilities resulting in greater job satisfaction, lower employee turnover, higher productivity, and better decision and subsequent increase in performance, all to the organisation’s benefit.  It can be shown that HPWPs improve organisational performance and studies have demonstrated that organisations can increase their performance by 20%.

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has defined high-performance work places or organisations (HPWOs) as those that are moving towards a flatter and less hierarchical structure, where people work in teams with greater autonomy, based upon higher levels of trust and communication. It is the role of the HRM department to address these issues in the job design. A boring and monotonous job stifles motivation to perform well whereas a challenging job enhances motivation. Employee commitment and motivation have to be actively managed to ensure employees are attracted, motivated and retained and the old adage of ‘a fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work’ is no longer enough to gain a competitive edge. Reward system management is usually associated with monetary values in terms of salaries and bonuses and money is the most motivating factor among most employees. It can, however, include non-financial rewards such as recognition, promotion, praise, achieve,met, responsibility and personal growth.

Belbin identified eight team ‘roles’ including Company Worker, Shaper, Chairmen etc with each role required to act at differing times throughout the groups development. Individuals can perform more than one role and the team selection is crucial and in particular the leaders, who must take an overview, anticipate problems, create an environment for success, and provide direction and vision and, most importantly, motivation. The establishment of the right balance in a team is an essential factor for success. 

Summary

Mia Hamm once quoted "I am a member of a team, and I rely on the team, I defer to it, and I sacrifice for it, because the team, not the individual, is the ultimate champion". By establishing HRM high-working performance working practices for all; an organisation can increase its productivity and enhance creativity whilst lowering costs and improve employee's job satisfaction and as Mia Hamm also quoted; "success breeds success".

Summarised Extract of Paper Presented April 2012

by D Staines CEng MIStructE