Autonomous work teams, open systems, and performance-based pay are all innovations that have come to be regarded collectively as high-performance work systems (HPWS). The main focus of HPWS, however, is organizing work so that frontline workers participate in decisions that affect organizational routines. Proponents of HPWS are enthusiastic, but support is mostly anecdotal, and there has been little hard evidence to show that HPWS directly leads to increased productivity. Now the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) reports on its in-depth survey of three diverse industries in which HPWS have been implemented. The EPI study analyzes productivity improvement and the effects of workplace practices within HPWS on trust, intrinsic rewards, stress, job satisfaction, and organizational commitment among workers in the steel, apparel, and medical electronics industries. Other recent EPI studies on topics such as wage inequality and U.S. participation in the bailout of Asian economies have sometimes stirred controversy. EPI's conclusion here that HPWS will help U.S. manufacturing companies meet competitive challenges should stimulate discussions between labor and management.
David Rouse
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