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Human Resource Management, Employee Attitudes and Workplace Performance: An Examination of The Linkages Using The 2004 Workplace Employment Relations Survey
Human Resource Management, Employee Attitudes and Workplace Performance: An Examination of The Linkages Using The 2004 Workplace Employment Relations Survey
David E Guest
Department of Management
King’s College, London
Neil Conway
Department of Organizational Psychology
Birkbeck College, London
A report for the Department for Business, Enterprise & Regulatory Reform
(BERR)
July 2007
URN 08/626
Any questions concerning the content of this report may be addressed to:
David Guest
Department of Management
King’s College London
150 Stamford Street
London
SE1 9NH
Email: david.guest@kcl.ac.uk
Acknowledgements
Material from the Workplace Employee Relations Survey (2004) has been
made available by the Office of National Statistics (ONS) through the UK
Data Archive. We would also like to acknowledge the financial assistance
of BERR. None of these bodies is responsible for the views expressed in
the paper.
The views expressed in this report are the authors’ and do not necessarily
reflect those of BERR or the Government.
This study explores some key issues concerning the relation between
human resource management (HRM) and performance. These include the
way in which we conceptualise and measure HRM, the nature of
performance and the process whereby HRM and performance might be
linked. The main focus is on the way HRM and performance might be
linked and in particular a core assumption in many models that HRM has
its impact through its effect on workers attitudes and behaviour. The
2004 Workplace Employment Relations Survey provides an opportunity to
address these issues.
Since there are no clear associations between any of the measures of HRM
and workers’ attitudes, the core aim of exploring the role of workers’
attitudes as a link between HRM and performance is rendered largely
irrelevant. However it is still possible that worker attitudes may be linked
to workplace performance. The regression analysis shows only one link;
job satisfaction is associated with lower labour turnover.
There is a powerful logic to the case for a high performance work system
designed to ensure competence, motivation and contribution. It follows
that the human resource practices that need to be in place are those that
are most likely to lead to these outcomes. At this point, the model
becomes rather more vague and more controversial. We might agree that
selection and training are likely to be key determinants of competence.
But firms have choices about whether to ‘make or buy’ staff. Is training
still important if firms buy in already highly competent staff from
elsewhere? Motivation has always been a controversial topic. Should the
focus be on intrinsic motivation through job design or should extrinsic
motivators such as financial incentives be used? In short, the general
principle that competence, motivation and contribution are important
becomes problematic when we seek to operationalise it by identifying HR
specific practices. Nevertheless, the approach provides a general model
for measuring HRM because it implies that a minimal level of practices
associated with each HR outcome should be in place.
A second issue in the analysis of HRM and performance concerns the unit
of comparison. One strand of the research on HRM and performance that
initially attracted attention focussed on complex financial indicators of the
performance of a cross-section of large firms (Huselid, 1995). However
others have argued that a more appropriate approach is to compare firms
within the same sector or even similar workplaces within the same
organization, since this controls for a range of exogenous factors (Wright
et al, 2005). Another option is to focus on changes in performance over
time within the same organizations. Using WERS2004, this is not possible,
although the panel data might be of some use in assessing change.
However performance would have to be based on subjective measures
collected six years apart and quite probably from different people raising
questions of both reliability and validity. In the context of WERS2004, we
are also clearly constrained by the collection of data at the workplace
rather than the firm level. Nevertheless it is clearly appropriate that we
should take account of sector either by considering results for a specific
sector or by controlling for sector in any regressions. These concerns will
be taken into account in our analysis of the WERS2004 data since we shall
control for sector as well as a range of other variables.
A further factor that has been the subject of much debate is the relation
between objective and subjective indicators of performance. Indeed, this
is an issue that is explicitly addressed in WERS2004, with a special section
in the sourcebook (Kersley at al, 2006, Chapter 10) and is the subject of
further research by members of the WERS team. WERS2004 for the first
time provides the opportunity to compare subjective and more objective
indicators of workplace performance but this information was not available
at the time when this analysis was conducted. There is some evidence to
suggest that the subjective estimates serve as a reasonable proxy of the
more objective indicators (Wall et al, 2004; Machin and Stewart, 1996).
Since they are collected systematically across all the workplaces, they will
be used in the analysis that follows.
Much has been written about the need to explore the process whereby
HRM and performance might be linked, but this exhortation has not been
matched by a parallel body of research. In their review of 104 studies of
HRM and performance, Boselie, Dietz and Boon (2005) found only 20 that
reported any data on the intervening processes and in most cases these
were only partial tests. For example, Appelbaum et al (2000) reported an
association between greater use of HRM and more positive employee
attitudes but did not link the attitudes to performance. Wright et al
(1995) found an association between HRM and commitment and also
found that both were associated with performance; but commitment did
not mediate the link between HRM and performance. The assumption is
that some combination of HR practices affects worker attitudes and
behaviour by increasing competence, motivation, opportunity to
contribute and commitment to the organization. There are additional
potential gains through increased interaction and knowledge sharing. If
the influence of the HR practices is positive, then they will be reflected in
behaviour such as low absence and labour turnover, high quality of goods
and services and higher labour productivity. These in turn, other things
being equal, should result in relatively higher sales and profitability, at
least on the basis of within-sector comparisons. The model of linkages is
set out in Figure 1.
There is, as yet, no compelling evidence that HRM has an impact in the
way implied in Figure 1 by enhancing the competence, motivation,
opportunity to contribute and commitment of employees. There has also
been some debate about whether HRM is used predominantly as a
mechanism to enhance performance, in other words as a variant of
performance management that increases efficiency or primarily as a
means of enhancing employee involvement and commitment. This
distinction has sometimes been described in terms of ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ HRM
(Storey, 1992) or pursuit of the ‘low road’ or ‘high road’ to enhanced
performance.
The analysis we undertook to measure HRM and its impact was as follows.
First we established the distribution of responses to determine the extent
to which HR practices are in place. Second, we undertook a principle
components factor analysis to identify whether the practices combined
together in any systematic way. We had no strong expectation that this
process would yield meaningful factors; for example, there is no logical
reason why the practices should combine and be present or absent in a
way that conforms to the four hypothesised bundles. But we decided,
despite this, to test for any systematic combinations of practices. Third,
we combined the practices into the four bundles as outlined in Table 1 as
a basis for further analysis. In the subsequent regression analyses, we
explored the impact of individual practices on employee attitudes and
workplace performance, while controlling for all other practices. Secondly,
we explored the impact of each of the bundles, while controlling for the
effects of the other bundles. Thirdly we explored interactions between the
bundles, while controlling of the presence of the bundles. We first looked
at pairs of interactions. We did not pursue more complex interactions
between three and four bundles of practices because of the difficulty in
interpreting such analyses (e.g., a moderate score on a three-way
interaction could represent numerous combinations of low, moderate and
high scores across the three variables). Finally, we looked at the impact of
an additive score of all the practices in place, based on a count of the
average across the standardised scores on each weighted individual item.
In effect, this means that each practice carries equal weight. The results
are shown in the next main section.
These five performance measures can be divided into four that are
proximal – absence, labour turnover, quality of product and service and
labour productivity – and one that is distal – financial performance. In
this context, we should acknowledge that financial performance can be a
highly problematic measure at the workplace level. It is also difficult to
measure in parts of the public sector. Despite this, we might hypothesise
that the various measures of HRM should be more strongly associated
with the proximal than with the more distal measure of performance. In
the regressions, we explored the factors significantly associated with each
outcome in turn. In the subsequent analysis of the linkages, we also
tested for (and found) a latent variable measuring the three performance
indicators on which managers provided ratings, namely, quality of goods
and services, productivity and financial performance.
Factor analysis confirms that the items that make up each of the four
attitudinal measures combine well to form a single factor with a high
alpha score (employment relations consisted of just one item). Similarly,
factor analysis of the items covering each of the three perceptual
measures combines to form a single factor with high alpha scores
(training days was a single item).
Control Measures
The Sample
The central part of this report is concerned with the association between
HRM, employee attitudes and workplace performance. We approached
this analysis in a variety of ways.
A first step was to inspect the correlations. Neither STATA nor SPSS
permit straightforward correlation analysis based on weighted samples.
However SPSS permits a restricted analysis that retains the weightings.
The results must be viewed with some caution; they provide accurate
correlation sizes but not information about the statistical significance of
any associations as the full sample size is scaled to 100.
The next step was to explore the potential use of sequential tree analysis
in an attempt to identify which practices and which combinations of
practices are most strongly associated with the various performance
measures. In the event, this technique is less appropriate where there
are a large number of control variables and our initial exploration of its
use led us to abandon it.
The final main step was to use structural equation modelling. This has a
number of advantages over other statistical techniques in its ability to test
for the best fit between variables. It also allows us to test a number of
different combinations and therefore to assess the acceptability of more or
less complex models of the link between HRM, employee attitudes,
employee perceptions and workplace performance.
Statistical Procedures
Since the data are weighted, STATA was used to analyse most of the data.
Exceptions were the factor analyses of the employee attitudinal and
perceptual items and the construction of a correlation table for which
SPSS was used. The first analysis regressed the background and
independent variables first on the performance indicators and then on the
core attitudinal items. In the regressions, the variables were entered in
the following sequence. First the control variables, followed by either the
individual HR practices (Table 3), the HR bundles and their interactions
(Table 4) or the measure of total HR practices based on the sum of
practices reported by managers (Table 5). To test for mediation effects,
the attitudinal items were then added with performance measures as
dependent variables. In addition to these analyses, we explored a
number of variations and possible explanations for the results. These are
reported in the following section.
The Results
Descriptive Results.
The mean scores on all the attitudinal and performance variables that are
scored on a five-point scale (the exceptions are absence and labour
turnover) fall between 3 and 4 indicating a moderately but not strongly
positive response. As expected, there is a positive response bias on the
performance indicators, with only a small minority comparing their
workplace performance unfavourably against the industrial sector
average.
The correlation analysis reveals that the HR practices that form bundles all
correlate with the measure of the bundle to which they have been
allocated at a level above 0.50 and they correlate more highly with the
bundle to which they have been allocated on the basis of theory than with
any other bundleii. There are two exceptions – job design and appraisal,
both of which have correlations of below 0.50 with the bundle to which
they have been allocated. Job design, nevertheless, correlates much
more highly with ‘opportunity to contribute’ than with the other three
bundles while appraisal has a moderate correlation with all the bundles.
The analysis also shows that the attitudinal variables are strongly inter-
correlated with each other but less strongly with well-being while the
correlations between the performance measures are comparatively low.
Finally, there are consistent and often quite strong negative correlations
between most of the individual and composite measure of HR practices
and employee well-being.
The first step was to explore the relation between the different measures
of HRM and the five indicators of performance. Theory of HRM predicts
that some combination of HR practices will show a stronger association
with outcomes than individual practices. Table 3 shows the results for
the regressions of each of the individual practices on the attitudinal and
performance outcomes, after entering the control variables. They reveal
only a limited association between the individual HR practices and
outcomes. Indeed, only four practices have two or more significant
associations with outcomes. Selection is associated with lower absence
(beta -.09*) and labour turnover (beta -.10**) and job design is
associated with higher trust (beta .11*), lower labour turnover (beta -
.09*) and higher quality of goods and services (beta .14***). In
contrast, flexible working is associated with lower well-being (-.09*) and
lower trust (-.09*) while fringe benefits are associated with lower job
satisfaction (-.10*) and lower well-being (-.17***). In other words, two
of the core HR practices, more sophisticated selection and design of jobs
to provide autonomy and challenge show significant associations with
outcomes that are in the expected positive direction. However greater
provision of flexible work arrangements and a more widespread use of
fringe benefits are associated with negative outcomes. In line with the
findings of Combs et al (2006), performance appraisal, team-working and
information sharing have little or no impact on any outcomes. In
summary, the individual HR practices have only a limited and mixed
association with outcomes.
The next step is to look for any association between the bundles of
practices and outcomes. The relevant regression results are shown in
Table 4. Each bundle has a rather different association with outcomes.
The competence bundle is associated with lower labour turnover (beta -
.13*) and superior financial performance (beta .11*) while the motivation
bundle is associated with higher productivity (beta .11*). Although these
results are in the expected direction, they represent only a very limited
association between the bundles and outcomes. Only three out of a
possible twenty associations are statistically significant, indicating that
there is only very weak evidence of an association between the bundles of
HR practices that we have identified and the various measures of
performance.
One reason why the association between HRM and performance has not
proved as strong as expected might be because the link is mediated by
employee attitudes. To consider this possibility, we need, as a fist step,
to explore the association between HRM and employee attitudes.
The only practice associated with job satisfaction is fringe benefits and the
results show that greater use of fringe benefits is associated with lower
satisfaction (beta -.10*). Three practices are significantly associated with
well-being and all three associations are negative; they are fringe benefits
again (beta -.17***), flexible working arrangements (beta -.09*) and use
of attitude surveys (beta -.12**). Only one practice is associated with
organizational commitment and this is greater use of induction processes
which is associated with lower commitment (beta -.09*). None of the
measures of individual HR practices is significantly associated with
workers’ perceptions of employment relations. Finally, three practices are
associated with trust. Greater use of job design (beta .11*) and of
employee involvement (beta .07*) are both associated with higher trust
while greater use of fringe benefits (beta -.09*) is associated with lower
trust. In summary, only eight out of a possible 95 associations are
significant and all but two of these are in the opposite direction to that
predicted. This seems close to a chance distribution of significant
responses. Inspection of the correlation analysis confirms the results;
however any logic behind them is hard to fathom.
The second step was to explore the role of the four bundles of HR
practices with respect to employee attitudes. The relevant results are
shown in Table 4. The competence and motivation bundles are not
associated with any of the worker attitudes. The participation bundle is
associated with higher commitment (beta .14**) and with a perception of
better employment relations (beta .09*). The commitment bundle shows
consistent associations with attitudes, but they are all negative including
lower well-being (beta -.13*), lower commitment (beta -.12), poorer
employment relations (beta-.14**) and lower trust (beta -.13**). The
results for job satisfaction are also negative but fall just outside the 5 per
cent level of significance. The commitment bundle includes the measures
of flexible working and fringe benefits while the participation bundle
contains job design and employee involvement. These were the individual
practices that had an impact and this might help to explain the significant
associations of the respective bundles to which they belong. On the basis
of these results, we are forced to conclude that the bundles of HR
practices show no consistent association with positive employee attitudes
and in the case of the commitment bundle show an unexpected and quite
consistent negative association.
The third step is to explore the interactions of the bundles. These results
are also shown in Table 4. They can be dealt with quickly. None of the
two-way interactions shows a significant association with any of the
employee attitudes.
We have now presented the results from the main regression analysis.
With respect to HRM and performance, there is support only for the
aggregated total HR measure. There are no consistent associations with
performance outcomes for any of the individual practices or for the
bundles of practices. Analysis of the interactions between bundles reveals
that a combination of the competence and motivation bundles is
associated with four of the five performance measures, but none of the
other interactions has a marked or consistent effect. It is common in
research on HRM and performance to use an aggregate measure which
conforms to the notion of ‘strong HRM’ proposed by Bowen and Ostroff
(2004). However it is also based on a single respondent for accounts of
both HR practices and performance outcomes. It is therefore a less than
ideal basis on which to arrive at conclusions. The introduction of
independent information on employee attitudes significantly strengthens
the analysis. However, it fails to support any mediating role for employee
attitudes. It should be borne in mind that the survey measures attitudes
and perceptions rather than behaviour. Employee behaviour is more likely
to be manifest in some of the outcomes such as absence and quality.
The strong negative association between the total HR measure and
employee well-being was unexpected and is a result we return to in the
discussion.
One possibility is that the attitude results have been somewhat distorted
by the focus in many of the questions about HR practices on the largest
occupational group. If they form a minority among those who completed
questionnaires, and the practices differ across the workforce, this may
have affected the results. We therefore examined the associations
between HR practices and worker attitudes only among those employees
who belonged to the largest occupational group. This was made possible
by questions in the interview with managers that asked them to identify
this group. This could then be matched to the responses about
occupation provided by employees who reported that they belonged to
this group.
Since the results in the main analysis showed that the strongest
associations were based on the total HR measure, we used this as an
initial test on the sample of the largest occupational group. For this
purpose, we retained only those workplaces where there were at least two
people in that group. This reduced the sample size to 1418. The
resulting analysis reveals similar associations to those for the full sample.
The only attitudinal variable that is significantly associated with total HR is
the measure of well-being and this association remains negative (beta -.
17** compared with -.19** for the full sample). Other results include a
beta of -.01 for the largest occupational group compared with -.03 for the
full sample with respect to job satisfaction and a beta of -.05 for the
largest occupational group compared with +.03 for the full sample with
respect to organizational commitment. On this basis, we can conclude
that the lack of an association between HRM and positive employee
attitudes cannot be explained by the heterogeneity of the sample.
Further explorations using regressions: comparing the public and private
sectors
Another possible explanation for the lack of association between HRM and
positive employee attitudes is that we have failed to take sufficient
account of the business strategies pursued by the workplaces (for a
discussion of the role of strategy, see Boxall and Purcell, 2003). If the
aim is to seek a form of external fit, by matching HRM to the business
strategy, it is possible that a positive link to attitudes might only be found
in those workplaces where a quality/innovation strategy is being pursued.
Collins and Smith (2006) among others have tested and found some
support for the proposition that the adoption of high commitment HR
practices will be more effective in the context of a strategy based on
quality rather than cost. In the main analyses reported above, we
entered business strategies as control variables. We now carried out a
further test to explore possible interactions. Again we used the total HR
measure and we interacted it with a cost-based and a quality-based
strategy. The results failed to demonstrate any consistent pattern of
interactions. Two significant interactions were found. The interaction
between a cost-based strategy and total HR is associated with productivity
and the interaction between a quality-based strategy and total HR is
associated with labour turnover. However these interactions do not
substantially affect the general pattern of results.
A further summary
WERS2004 has a much fuller employee survey than its predecessor but as
we have noted, it collects only very limited information on employee
accounts of HR practices. Nevertheless there are four areas where
employee experiences or perceptions, rather than their attitudes, are
collected. These concern their reports of autonomy, consultation,
flexibility arrangements and training. We might expect to see an
association between these and the cognate HR practices reported by
managers, although, bearing in mind our comments on the potential
inaccuracies in accounts, we cannot take this for granted. It is then
possible that these worker perceptions mediate the link between
management accounts of practices and employee attitudes. In other
words, only when the workers are aware of, and experience the practices
are they likely to affect attitudes.
The four measures of perceptions taken from the employee survey can be
compared with management accounts of overlapping areas of practice.
The data are drawn from the correlations reported in Table 2. This
reveals that employee accounts of training days in the past year correlate
0.43 with the management measure of training which incorporates an
account of training provision along with other aspects of training and
development. Employee accounts of the availability of flexible working
arrangements correlate 0.30 with management accounts. Employee
accounts of autonomy correlate 0.22 with management accounts of job
design that incorporates similar items. Finally, employee accounts of
consultation correlate –0.09 with management accounts of consultation
and 0.01 with the management measure of communication. This confirms
that the correlations are stronger for the more objective indicators but
that they are still relatively low. The correlations of the four employee
measures with the total HR measure based on the composite management
score ranges from 0.43 for training to –0.05 for autonomy. This
compares with correlations for the individual management items with the
composite management score ranging from 0.66 for training to 0.20 for
autonomy.
Figure 2 shows the results for a simple model exploring the association
between the measure of total HR practices, employee attitudes and
financial performance. The analysis confirms that job satisfaction,
organizational commitment and employment relations can be incorporated
as indicators of a latent employee attitude factor labelled ‘state of
employment relationship’. Job satisfaction and organizational
commitment are strongly associated with this latent variable while the
association of perceptions of employee relations is rather weaker. The
results largely confirm the regression analysis in showing a direct and
positive association between HRM and performance and no link between
HRM and employee attitudes. However it adds new information in
revealing a strong association between positive employee attitudes and
performance. It appears that OLS regressions can be inappropriate for
testing the effects of attitudes since when they are included as predictors
in the same model, as in Table 5, their high inter-correlation cancels out
their effects on outcomes. The association between the stronger
combined latent variable and financial performance indicates that
employee attitudes may matter for performance, reinforcing the argument
about the role of employees. However the evidence that employee
attitudes are not affected by HR practices implies that we may need to
look elsewhere for an explanation of what determines employee attitudes,
possibly to leadership style and organizational climate (Gelade and Ivery,
2003).
We undertook the same analysis for productivity and obtained very similar
results. On this basis we tested for and found a latent variable
representing the three management rated performance indicators of
quality of goods and services, productivity and financial performance. All
three items loaded highly on the latent variable. The results for this
analysis are shown in Figure 4. The results using the latent performance
measure differ from those in Figure 3 only in now showing stronger
associations between both total HR practices and employee attitudes and
the composite measure of workplace performance.
Discussion
This report has investigated the links between HRM and performance. It
has, in effect, sought to test a model that links HR practices, employee
attitudes and performance. Four different measures of HR practices have
been presented. Employee attitudes include standard measures of job
satisfaction and commitment to the organization as well as measures of
trust and perceptions of employee relations. Performance has been
measured using proximal measures of absence, labour turnover, quality of
goods and services and productivity and the more distal measure of
financial performance. These are all based on management reports. In
addition, there is information on employee well-being which is arguably an
important employee outcome. What is perhaps lacking is a measure of
employee behaviour, although this can be inferred from the proximal
outcome measures.
These results raise some challenging questions for the theory of HRM and
performance and for the practice of HRM. Before we accept them at face
value, we should consider some of the possible explanations for them. In
doing so, we should bear in mind that we have already considered and
rejected the possible biases created by use of the largest occupational
group as the reference point when describing practices.
One reason why we have obtained unexpected results may lie in the
construction of the measures of the HR practices. As noted earlier,
WERS2004 collected a considerable amount of information about HR
practices. The various questions relating to each practice were combined
into a composite measure of that practice. It is possible that this could
backfire if the specific questions did not contribute to the measure of the
practice. We therefore explored how far each item was correlated with
the overall score for the practice measure. This confirmed that in almost
every case, all the items included were correlated with the overall score
on the practice. This justifies their retention as well as the claim that
WERS2004 provides a comprehensive and reliable measure of each
practiceiii. We should also note again that the construction of the bundles
is somewhat arbitrary. The WERS2004 survey was not designed as a test
of a bundles model. Nevertheless, there is a sufficiently full set of
practices in each bundle to provide a reasonable test of the bundles
hypothesis. We could have used a different test of bundles that insisted
on a certain minimum level of practices in each bundle, accepting some
substitutability. Because of the absence of any association between
individual practices and outcomes, it seemed unlikely that this would
prove fruitful so we have not explored it.
A further possible explanation for the unexpected results is that the core
model used in this study is a universalist rather than a contingency model
(Boxall and Purcell, 2003). In the discussion of the regression results, we
reported further analysis using interactions between HR practices and
competitive strategy that failed to support the kind of interactions that
might reflect a contingency approach. Linking back to the nature of the
HR practices measured, it is possible that high use of HR practices in
Great Britain reflects a focus on performance management rather than
quality and therefore we have what is at best a very crude measure of
high commitment HRM. There is some evidence to support this in the
moderating role of a cost-based strategy with respect to productivity and
also in the rather low adoption of job design and employee involvement
practices. However the failure even of these individual practices to be
associated with employee job satisfaction and commitment raises doubts
about this explanation. There is no strong evidence that the results
presented here reflect the adoption of a primarily universalist model of
HRM.
A third possible explanation for the results that we will consider concerns
the size of the establishments in the WERS2004 sample. Most
establishments are small. On the other hand, many are part of larger
organizations that are likely to have well-developed practices. Most of the
reported studies of HRM and performance are based on larger
organizations, typically quoted companies. This study has controlled for
both establishment and organization size. It is possible that a separate
analysis of larger organizations in the sample could have produced rather
different results. Although only four per cent of workplaces employed
over 200 staff, 58 per cent of workplaces were part of a larger
organization and many were quite large. There is some evidence (Forth
et al, 2006) that employees in smaller workplaces report greater
satisfaction and that in smaller workplaces HR practices are less formally
developed. By implication, employees are less satisfied in larger
workplaces that have more extensive HR practices in place. It also follows
that other factors associated with (small) size may be more important
than the HR practices in affecting employee attitudes.
A further factor that we should take into account is that the strongest
associations are found where the independent variable (HR practices) and
the outcome (performance or attitudes) are reported by the same person.
The results are therefore susceptible to the criticism of a consistency bias.
The exception to this is the association found in the SEM analysis between
the combined measure of employee attitudes and performance. However
the same can be said of the negative association between well-being and
both HR practices and performance.
Even if we make allowances for some of the problems with the measures
and the analysis, we are left with findings that contradict many others
that have been reported and that cast HRM in a less favourable light than
heretofore. Most research has ignored the process linking HRM and
performance (Boselie, Dietz and Boon, 2005) but when it has been
considered, even if the research goes no further than exploring the
association between grater use of HRM and employee attitudes, the
results are generally positive (see, for example, Appelbaum et al, 2000;
Guest, 1999). This is even the case with the previous Workplace
Employee Relations Survey (Guest et al, 2000; Guest 2002), although
there were also some doubts raised about the impact of HRM on stress
(Ramsay, Scholarios and Harley, 2000). In contrast to most previous
research, this analysis finds no association between management
accounts of HRM, however it is measured, and typical employee attitudes
such as job satisfaction and employee commitment. There is also a clear
negative association to well-being, reinforcing the argument of Ramsay,
Scholarios and Harley.
We are left with a number of possible explanations for why the WERS2004
results are so out of line with the main body of evidence. One is that the
measures of HRM are poorly constructed from the rich body of data
available in the survey. However this is unlikely since the process of
variable construction is not dissimilar to that used in other studies
including the analysis of WERS1998 (Cully et al, 1999; Guest et al, 2000).
A second is that the WERS data are based on a much better sample than
that available in other studies and provide a more accurate account. On
this basis, we would have to accept these findings and reject the existing
body of research that obtains rather different findings. In WERS2004, the
key finding is the lack of association between HRM and employee
attitudes; the SEM analysis does confirm an association between
employee attitudes and performance and this is in line with other large-
scale studies of this association (see for example, Harter, Schmidt and
Hayes, 2002) even if, like them, it cannot make firm comments about
causal associations. However, if we accept this explanation it would
require us to reject previous WERS surveys and is inherently implausible.
A third explanation is that managers are suffering from survey fatigue and
have become careless in how they complete questionnaires, resulting in
less reliable data. Again, given the care that goes into the WERS data
collection process, this seems unlikely.
A final possible explanation is that the world of work has been changing.
Although there has been only a modest increase at best in the adoption
and use of HR practices between 1998 and 2004, it is possible that the
way they are used has changed. We might conclude that the adoption of
a performance-management oriented, “low road” approach among
managers in Britain has led to some improvements in performance but
has had no impact on employee attitudes and has had a possibly
damaging impact on well-being. As noted earlier, although attitudes are
associated with performance, they appear to be influenced by something
other than HR practices. It confirms that employee attitudes matter. We
have evidence on levels of autonomy in WERS2004. In an analysis of
earlier data, Green (2006) argues that job satisfaction in Britain is static
or declining and that this could be attributed to reduced autonomy and
increased work intensification. However the evidence from WERS2004
suggests that the decline in autonomy has been halted, so this is not a
wholly plausible explanation for these results. More detailed investigation
of the data may reveal some answers to these questions. For now, we
are left with a puzzle.
Conclusions
This analysis presented in this report has explored the relationship
between HRM and performance and in particular the process whereby they
might be linked. There is a well-established body of theory that proposes
that HRM will be linked to performance through the impact of HR practices
on employee attitudes and behaviour. However to date only limited
research has been undertaken to explore this link and WERS2004 provides
an opportunity to examine it more fully. The results confirm an
association between an aggregated measure of HRM and workplace
performance but they fail to show any mediating effects of employee
attitudes. This is because there is no association between HR practices
and employee attitudes. They also fail to confirm the other element in the
link whereby HRM should be more strongly associated with proximal
outcome measures than with more distal ones such as financial
performance.
There are some other rather negative elements in the results. The
somewhat different outcomes from the analysis depending on whether
management or worker accounts of HR practices are taken into account
raises challenging questions about the most appropriate source of
information about HR practices. There does appear to be a case for
collecting evidence about whether HR practices are actually put into
practice from those on the receiving end. However WERS2004 has too
little data from workers about HR practices for this to be a firm conclusion
from this study alone. Perhaps more troubling is the strong negative
association between HRM and employee well-being alongside the negative
association between well-being and workplace performance. Most
previous studies have focused on job satisfaction and organizational
commitment rather than well-being and WERS2004 presents new
challenges by collecting a wide range of employee responses. Although
there is a strong association between employee attitudes and well-being,
they need to be treated as separate constructs and they have very
different associations with both HRM and with workplace performance.
These rather negative results limit the scope for any clear-cut policy
implications. Indeed, before arriving at policy implications, the findings
from WERS2004 need to be considered and more fully debated in the
context of the existing body of research that reaches rather different
conclusions. Elements of consistency across most studies including
WERS2004 include the importance of job design, the provision of
autonomy and a sense of involvement for both employee and employer
outcomes. It is sometimes unclear where the responsibility for job design
lies. It is one of the more neglected HR practices but one that deserves
the fuller attention of the social partners.
References
Appelbaum, E., Bailey, T., Berg, P. and Kalleberg, A. (2000).
Manufacturing advantage. Ithaca, NY.: Cornell University Press.
Becker, B., Huselid, M., Pickus, P. and Spratt, M. (1997). ‘HR as a source
of shareholder value: research and recommendations’. Human Resource
Management, 36: 39-47.
Combs, J., Liu, Y., Hall, A. and Ketchen, D. (2006). ‘How much do high-
performance work practices matter? A meta-analysis of their effects on
organizational performance’. Personnel Psychology, 59, 501-528.
Cully, M., Woodland, S., O’Reilly, A. and Dix, S. (1999). Britain at work.
London: Routledge.
Kersley, B., Alpin, C., Forth, J., Bryson, H., Bewley, H., Dix., G. and
Oxenbridge, S. (2006). Inside the workplace: Findings from the 2004
Workplace Employment Relations Survey. London: Routledge.
Job design
Team-working
Two-way communication Opportunity to Participate/
Consultation Contribute
Involvement
Attitude surveys
Total count of HR
practices in place
Performance appraisal
Individual PRP
Collective PRP Motivation
Profit-related pay
Employee share ownership
Information sharing
Equal opportunities
Flexible working Commitment
Fringe benefits
Job security
Table 2: Means, standard deviations, correlations and Cronbach alpha reliability scores
M SD
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19
1 Selection .10 1.03
2 Induction .16 .90 .19
3 Training .22 .98 .20 .33
4 Job design -.09 .97 -.01 .05 .21
5 Team-working .08 .99 .15 .09 .27 .03
6 Communication .14 .98 .21 .19 .37 .04 .34
7 Consultation .08 1.06 .20 .17 .28 .06 .28 .47
8 Surveys .18 1.07 .13 .25 .28 .00 .11 .19 .26
9 Involvement .05 1.05 .13 .13 .22 .12 .21 .20 .22 .08
10 Appraisal .18 .90 .16 .29 .46 .00 .18 .29 .18 .21 .13
11 Individual PRP .06 1.06 .08 .11 .16 .02 .00 .01 -.06 .09 .00 .13
12 Collective PRP .10 1.08 .08 .13 .13 -.03 -.02 -.01 -.05 .19 .05 .12 .52
13 Profit-related pay .06 1.05 .07 .13 .16 .11 .01 -.01 .01 .12 .05 .10 .13 .28
14 ESOPs .14 1.15 .08 .16 .17 -.04 .04 .07 .04 .25 .04 .21 .21 .28 .31
15 Information sharing .22 .98 .21 .30 .40 .04 .19 .30 .25 .34 .14 .27 .11 .16 .17 .27
16 Equal opportunities .22 1.04 .14 .22 .27 .01 .24 .27 .29 .29 .10 .15 -.03 -.03 -.06 .04 .28
17 Flexible working .15 .99 .16 .24 .34 .08 .21 .25 .27 .26 .11 .22 .01 -.01 .00 .08 .30 .35
18 Fringe benefits .21 .99 .23 .34 .37 .06 .18 .24 .28 .38 .17 .28 .18 .17 .13 .26 .38 .32 .35
19 Job security .04 1.04 .00 .10 .14 -.02 .07 .08 .09 .19 .00 .07 -.04 .02 -.05 .05 .16 .22 .18 .15
20 HR competence
.16 .68 .68 .70 .73 .11 .25 .36 .31 .31 .23 .43 .16 .16 .17 .19 .43 .30 .35 .44 .11
bundle
21 HR participation
.08 .57 .24 .26 .48 .36 .58 .66 .69 .51 .55 .30 .02 .04 .09 .12 .38 .36 .36 .39 .12
bundle
22 HR motivation
.11 .66 .15 .26 .33 .02 .06 .10 .03 .28 .08 .46 .65 .72 .59 .67 .32 .01 .09 .33 .02
bundle
23 HR commitment
.17 .65 .23 .37 .47 .06 .28 .35 .37 .45 .16 .30 .07 .10 .06 .21 .65 .68 .67 .68 .54
bundle
24 HR total .12 .46 .40 .50 .66 .20 .42 .52 .49 .55 .36 .51 .32 .36 .32 .43 .62 .47 .51 .64 .28
25 Autonomy 2.98 .39 -.03 -.10 -.03 .22 .04 .08 .04 -.15 .07 -.01 .00 -.03 -.05 -.08 -.11 -.02 -.02 .00 -.18
26 Training .89 .53 .20 .30 .43 .04 .14 .20 .16 .27 .10 .34 .07 .16 .10 .05 .28 .19 .25 .26 .12
27 Flexibility .86 .44 .01 .09 .10 .02 .08 .14 .01 .08 .00 .05 -.09 -.13 -.03 -.05 .12 .15 .30 .00 .01
28 Consultation 3.41 .62 -.13 .07 .06 .16 -.05 .01 -.09 -.06 .03 .04 .07 .09 .12 .02 .07 -.03 -.07 -.07 .04
29 Job satisfaction 3.56 .44 -.07 -.09 -.02 .12 .04 .03 .00 -.20 .05 -.06 -.03 -.09 -.08 -.13 -.12 -.05 -.09 -.17 -.10
30 Well-being 3.24 .49 -.04 -.16 -.16 .05 -.11 -.11 -.12 -.27 -.01 -.20 -.11 -.12 -.11 -.16 -.18 -.10 -.20 -.30 -.05
31 Organizational
3.70 .51 -.06 -.09 .03 .15 .07 .08 .04 -.11 .08 .02 .03 -.04 -.05 -.14 -.11 -.03 -.05 -.08 -.05
commitment
32 Employee relations 3.86 .66 -.14 .00 .00 .12 -.06 -.04 -.11 -.08 .01 -.04 .04 .08 .06 .01 -.03 -.10 -.12 -.12 -.04
33 Trust 3.60 .59 -.13 -.03 -.05 .14 -.09 -.03 -.13 -.15 .03 -.04 .01 .02 .03 -.03 -.07 -.11 -.15 -.16 -.01
34 Employee turnover .89 .67 -.12 -.05 -.07 -.16 -.04 .01 -.04 -.02 -.01 .07 .02 .08 .01 .04 .03 -.04 -.07 -.12 -.11
35 Absenteeism 4.35 4.39 -.01 .11 .13 -.05 .01 .05 .09 .13 .05 .07 .01 .04 .02 .08 .05 .08 .07 .04 .05
36 Financial
3.53 .82 .05 .08 .10 .08 .02 .02 .09 .05 .03 .03 .03 -.03 .12 .06 .08 -.02 .01 .06 .00
performance
37 Productivity
3.50 .77 -.01 .01 .10 .15 .01 .06 .06 .03 .05 .08 .02 -.01 .11 .05 .01 -.02 -.01 .00 .02
performance
38 Quality performance 3.96 .72 .01 .04 .07 .17 .01 .00 .04 -.03 .05 .03 .06 -.02 .02 .03 -.04 -.06 .02 -.02 .02
Table 2: Means, standard deviations, correlations and Cronbach alpha scores (cont)
20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38
20 HR competence bundle
21 HR participation
.47
bundle
22 HR motivation bundle .35 .17
23 HR commitment
.50 .50 .23
bundle
24 HR total .74 .76 .61 .78
25 Autonomy -.08 .08 -.06 -.11 -.05 (.81)
26 Training .45 .27 .21 .34 .43 -.03
27 Flexibility .10 .09 -.08 .18 .10 .22 .11 (.77)
28 Consultation -.01 .00 .11 -.02 .03 .25 .17 .27 (.94)
29 Job satisfaction -.09 .01 -.13 -.17 -.13 .51 .02 .19 .58 (.83)
30 Well-being -.17 -.17 -.22 -.26 -.29 .27 -.18 .16 .37 .66 (.85)
31 Organizational
-.05 .09 -.06 -.10 -.04 .39 .13 .10 .52 .77 .46 (.85)
commitment
32 Employee relations -.07 -.05 .05 -.13 -.07 .25 .10 .19 .82 .58 .40 .51
33 Trust -.10 -.08 .00 -.15 -.11 .25 .03 .19 .87 .63 .46 .56 .86 (.93)
34 Employee turnover -.12 -.08 .07 -.10 -.07 -.06 -.14 .18 .09 -.02 .01 -.05 .12 .11
35 Absenteeism .11 .09 .07 .09 .12 -.16 .13 -.04 -.12 -.21 -.22 -.14 -.14 -.16 .01
36 Financial performance .10 .09 .07 .04 .10 .04 .01 .08 .16 .17 .06 .14 .11 .11 -.03 -.02
37 Productivity
.05 .11 .07 .00 .08 .11 -.02 .05 .14 .16 .08 .16 .14 .13 -.04 -.06 .51
performance
38 Quality performance .06 .07 .04 -.02 .05 .05 -.05 .06 .11 .18 .08 .21 .12 .11 .00 .02 .33 .35
Table 3: Effects of individual HR practices on attitudes and establishment performance (weighted OLS regressions)
Job Well- Organizational Employment Trust Absence Labour Quality Productivity Financial
satisfaction being commitment relations turnover performance
Union density -.13** -.13** -.08 -.07 -.01 .09 -.07 .05 -.05 -.03
Public sector -.13 -.07 -.15 -.01 .00 .11 .08 -.09 .01 .01
Organization size .05 .03 .03 .12* .05 .02 .06 -.02 -.02 .01
Selection -.01 .07 -.05 -.05 -.03 -.09* -.10** .03 -.01 .05
Induction -.05 -.05 -.09* .01 -.01 .06 -.04 .05 -.02 .06
Training .02 .01 .00 .04 -.03 .11 -.09 .05 .05 .06
Job design .07 .06 .09 .07 .11* -.04 -.09* .14*** .09 .05
Team-working .01 -.07 .02 .02 -.02 -.04 -.02 .01 -.06 -.01
Communication .04 -.01 .10 .04 .08 -.02 -.03 -.10* .03 -.07
Consultation .04 -.02 .02 .00 -.03 .03 .03 .06 .04 .10*
Surveys -.09 -.12** -.04 -.01 -.06 .05 -.01 .00 .08 .05
Involvement .03 .04 .04 .03 .07* .02 .02 .00 -.01 -.02
Appraisal -.03 -.09 .02 -.03 .01 -.03 .12** .00 .05 -.05
Individual PRP .07 .01 .08 .00 .04 -.02 -.01 .04 .04 .04
Collective PRP -.03 -.01 .03 .04 -.02 .03 .04 -.06 -.05 -.11*
Profit-related pay -.01 -.04 .03 .02 .02 .03 -.01 -.03 .08 .09*
ESOPs .03 .03 -.03 .02 .00 .03 -.06 .03 .08 .01
Information sharing .01 .03 -.03 .00 -.01 -.05 .11* -.03 -.01 .06
Equal opportunities -.02 .01 -.02 -.06 -.05 .00 .02 -.05 -.02 -.05
Flexible working -.03 -.09* -.06 -.06 -.09* -.03 -.04 .04 -.05 -.06
Fringe benefits -.10* -.17*** -.06 -.07 -.08 -.08 -.08 -.02 -.03 .02
Job security -.01 .05 .00 -.01 .05 -.04 -.03 .08* .05 .04
Observations 1559 1559 1559 1559 1559 1680 1884 1910 1769 1831
R-square .22 .22 .21 .22 .25 0.13 .26 .19 .16 .11
F 3.70*** 2.96*** 4.09*** 6.00*** 6.50*** 3.04*** 6.18*** 4.11*** 2.39*** 2.81***
Notes:
All regressions are computed using the weighted data; stand alone establishments with less than 25 employees are omitted.
Standardized regression coefficients (i.e., beta weights) are presented. The items in each column are entered simultaneously.
*** p < 0.001, ** p < 0.01, * p < 0.05.
33 control variables were entered into the analysis, although only three are presented.
Table 4: Effects of bundles of HR practices on attitudes and establishment performance (weighted OLS regressions)
Job Well- Organizational Employment Trust Absence Labour Quality Productivity Financial
satisfaction being commitment relations turnover performance
Control variables Union density -.13** -.13* -.09 -.06 .01 .09 -.08* .05 -.04 -.02
and main effects of Public sector -.12 -.04 -.14 -.01 .00 .12 .10 -.07 .02 .00
HR clusters entered Organization size .04 .01 .02 .12* .04 .03 .08 -.04 -.03 -.01
simultaneously
HR competence bundle -.03 .01 -.09 -.01 -.04 .01 -.13* .07 .01 .11*
HR participation bundle .07 -.06 .14** .09* .08 .02 -.03 .04 .09 .05
HR motivation bundle .01 -.09 .08 .05 .02 .04 .04 -.02 .11* .00
HR commitment bundle -.11 -.13* -.12* -.14** -.13** -.09 -.01 .02 -.01 .01
Observations Observations 1559 1559 1559 1559 1559 1680 1884 1910 1769 1831
R-square R-square .20 .17 .20 .21 .22 0.11 .22 .16 .14 .11
F F 4.18*** 3.16*** 4.60*** 6.91*** 6.64*** 3.06*** 7.59*** 4.27*** 2.67*** 2.72***
Interaction terms Competence x participation -.04 .01 -.04 .03 .02 -.04 .12* .04 .02 .03
entered after Competence x motivation .00 .02 .03 .04 .08 .13 -.12* .15** .12* .10*
control variables Competence x commitment -.01 -.03 -.01 .01 .00 -.03 -.02 .01 .06 -.03
and main effects Participation x motivation .04 .01 -.01 -.02 -.08 -.04 -.03 -.02 -.05 .03
Participation x commitment .01 .05 .00 -.08 -.06 .00 -.04 -.01 .02 .02
Motivation x commitment .00 -.06 -.05 .06 .08 -.14** -.04 .00 -.11* -.13**
Notes:
All regressions are computed using the weighted data; stand alone establishments with less than 25 employees are omitted.
Standardized regression coefficients (i.e., beta weights) are presented.
*** p < 0.001, ** p < 0.01, * p < 0.05.
33 control variables were entered into the analysis, although only three are presented.
Table 5: Effects of HR practices and attitudes on establishment performance (weighted OLS regressions)
Job Well- Organizational Employment Trust Absence Labour Quality Productivity Financial
satisfaction being commitment relations turnover performance
Union density -.14** -.13 -.09 -.06 .00 .04 .11 -.08 -.11* .05 .03 -.04 -.03 -.02 .04
Public sector -.13 -.05 -.15 -.02 -.01 .01 .06 .10 .09 -.07 -.06 .01 -.03 .00 -.01
Organization size .01 .01 -.03 .08 .01 .13* .03 .07 .02 -.04 -.04 -.05 -.10 .00 .02
Total HR practices -.03 -.19** .03 .01 -.04 -.01 -.04 -.10* -.06* .09* .10* .15** .20*** .14** .10*
Observations 1559 1559 1559 1559 1559 1680 1280 1884 1441 1910 1461 1769 1359 1831 1397
R-square .20 .17 .18 .20 .21 0.10 0.16 .21 .26 .16 .21 .13 .19 .11 .16
F 4.15*** 3.30*** 4.19*** 6.48*** 5.94*** 2.81*** 2.97*** 7.17*** 7.28*** 4.36*** 3.94*** 2.88*** 3.26*** 2.83*** 3.08***
Notes:
All regressions are computed using the weighted data; stand alone establishments with less than 25 employees are omitted.
Standardized regression coefficients (i.e., beta weights) are presented. The items in each column are entered simultaneously.
*** p < 0.001, ** p < 0.01, * p < 0.05.
33 control variables were entered into the analysis, although only three are presented.
Figure 1: A Simple Model of the HRM and Performance Link
Union density*
0.50*
0.50
0.23*
0.23 Public sector*
0.98 E5
Financial performance
0.12*
0.12
0.29*
0.29
Organization size*
0.20*
0.20
0.12*
0.12
-0.21
-0.21*
0.39*
0.39
0.20*
0.20
HR practices*
-0.12*
-0.12
State of ER
0.96 D2
Org commt
Empt rel'ns
Job sat'n
Notes:
All presented paths are robust standardized coefficients and significant (p < 0.05).
Fit statistics: Chi Sq.=176.79, p < 0.01, CFI=0.96, RMSEA=0.07. For large samples such as
here, CFI values above 0.90 are considered to reflect a good fit between the data and the
hypothesized model
41
Figure 3: SEM model 2 adding employee perceptions of HR practices
Union
density
Public sector
Financial performance 0.98
0.98
Organization
size
0.12*
0.12
-0.12*
-0.12
-0.21*
-0.21 0.19*
0.19
0.12*
0.12
HR practices
-0.09*
-0.09
-0.08*
-0.08
State of ER
0.17*
0.17 0.67 D2
0.38*
0.38
0.37*
0.37
E13 0.98
0.98 Autonomy
0.95
0.95 0.80* 0.25*
0.25*
0.80*
0.54*
0.54
Org commt
Empt rel'ns
Training days
Job sat'n
Flexibility
0.89
0.89
0.32
0.32 0.60
0.60 0.88
0.88
Consultation
1.00
1.00
E22
E23 E14 E17 E18
1.00
1.00
0.16*
0.16
E24
0.20*
0.20 0.15*
0.15
0.08*
0.08 0.75*
0.75
Notes:
All presented paths are robust standardized coefficients and significant (p < 0.05).
Fit statistics: Chi Sq.=549.60, p < 0.01, CFI=0.94, RMSEA=0.08.
We omit inter-correlations among control variables as they are identical to Figure 2.
42
Figure 4: SEM using a combined latent variable measure of performance
Union density
Public sector
D3
-0.08*
-0.08
State of ER
0.67 D2
0.38*
0.38
0.37*
0.37
E13 0.98 Autonomy
0.54*
0.54
Training days
0.89
Flexibility
Consultation
1.00
E22
E23 1.00
E24
Notes:
All presented paths are robust standardized coefficients and significant (p < 0.05).
Chi Sq.=710.13, p < 0.01, CFI=0.93, RMSEA=0.07
We omit the inter-correlations among control variables and HR practices and the
indicators of the latent factor ‘State of employment relations’ as they are identical to
Figure 3.
43
Figure 5: SEM adding measures of absence and labour turnover
D3
0.09*
0.09
State
0.67 D2
of ER
0.38*
0.38
0.37*
0.37
0.98 Autonomy
0.54*
0.54
Training days
Flexibility
0.89
Consultation
1.00
E22
E23
1.00
E24
Notes:
All presented paths are robust standardized coefficients and significant (p < 0.05).
Chi Sq.=870.11, p < 0.01, CFI=0.92, RMSEA=0.07
We omit the inter-correlations among control variables and HR practices and the
indicators of the latent factors ‘State of employment relations’ and ‘Establishment
performance’ as they are identical to Figure 3.
44
Figure 6: SEM adding in well-being
D3*
0.08*
0.08 -0.07
-0.07
Establishment performance
0.20*
0.20
HR practices*
-0.08*
-0.08 0.36*
0.36
0.19*
0.19
State 0.57 D2
-0.24*
-0.24
0.38*
0.38 of ER
0.30*
0.30
0.46*
0.46
0.98 Autonomy
0.15*
0.15
WELLBE_1
-0.14
-0.14 0.37*
0.37
0.86
Training days
E15
0.33
Flexibility
0.89
Consultation
1.00
E22
E23
1.00
E24
Notes:
All presented paths are robust standardized coefficients and significant (p < 0.05).
Chi Sq.=973.69, p < 0.01, CFI=0.92, RMSEA=0.07
We omit the inter-correlations among control variables and HR practices and the
indicators of the latent factors ‘State of employment relations’ and ‘Establishment
performance’ as they are identical to Figure 3.
45
Appendix 1: Construction of HR practice variables from WERS5 manager questionnaire
Summary Operationalisation Derived Scale
Variable from
WERS5
questionn
aire items
Selection Count across 3 items:
1. Which of these statements best describes Cfillvac 1 = filling vacancies internally; 0 =
your approach to filling vacancies at this otherwise
workplace?
2. Factors important when recruiting: skills, Cfactors 1 = All four important; 0 = otherwise
qualifications, experience, motivation
3. When filling vacancies at this workplace, 1 = use personality and performance
do you ever conduct any type of Catests, tests; 0 = otherwise
personality/attitude test and/or performance cptests
or competency test?
46
involvement in decisions over how their
work is organised?
Team-working Code 1 if 3 or more of the following, else 0:
1. What proportion, if any, of employees at Cteams 1 = 60% or more; 0 = less than 60%
this workplace work in formally designated
teams?
2. Count across 5 items:
3. Team members depend on each other's Cteamhoa 1 = yes; 0 = no
work to be able to do their job?
4. Tasks or roles rotate among the members of Cteamhoe 1 = yes; 0 = no
the team?
5. Team members are able to appoint their Cteamhob 1 = yes; 0 = no
own team leaders?
6. Team members jointly decide how the work Cteamhoc 1 = yes; 0 = no
is to be done?
7. Teams are given responsibility for specific Cteamhod 1 = yes; 0 = no
products or services?
Communicat- Count across 6 items:
ion 1. Do you have meetings between senior Dmeeting 1 = yes; 0 = no
managers and the whole workforce (either
altogether or group by group)?
2. How frequent are these meetings? Dmeetn 1 = less than every 3 months; 0 =
otherwise (DAVID?)
3. Issues discussed at SM meetings with Dmwhic 1 = more than 7 out of 13; 0 = less than 7
employees
4. Do you have meetings between line Dbrief 1 = yes; 0 = no
managers or supervisors and all the workers
for whom they are responsible?
5. How frequent are these meetings? Dbriefn 1 = more than fortnightly; 0 = less than
fortnightly
6. Issues discussed at LM meetings with Dbwhic 1 = more than 7 out of 13; 0 = less than 7
employees
47
formal survey of your employees' views or
opinions during the past two years?
2. Were the results of the survey made Dresults 1 = yes, 0 = no
available in written form to those
employees that took part?
Involvement Code 1 if two or more of the following, else 0:
1. Do you have groups of non-managerial Dcircles 1 = yes, 0 = no
employees at this workplace that solve
specific problems or discuss aspects of
performance or quality?
2. Are the groups predominantly for a fixed Dcirclif 1 = permanent, 0 = otherwise
period of time or are they permanent?
3. In the last twelve months, roughly what Dpropor 1 = 40%+, 0 = less than 40%
proportion of non-managerial employees
have been involved in them?
4. Has this workplace attained either of the kwrkplac 1 = yes, 0 = no
quality standards BS5750 or ISO9000?
Performance 1. Performance appraisal for any occupational Fsocind 1 = yes, 0 = no
appraisal groups?
2. Performance appraisal for all occupational Fsocind 1 = yes, 0 = no
groups?
3. What proportion of non-managerial Fmeaspr 1= all; 0 = less than all.
employees at this workplace have their
performance formally appraised?
4. How frequently are appraisals conducted? Fappwhen 1 = at least annually; 0 = less frequently
than annually
5. Number staff conducting performance Fwhoapp 1 = 1 or more; 0 = no one
appraisal other than immediate boss
6. Is individual employees’ pay linked to the Fapppay 1 = yes, 0 = no
outcome of the performance appraisal?
Individual Code 1 if three or more of the following, else 0:
PRP 1. Do any employees in this establishment get Fperf 1 = yes, 0 = no
paid by payment by results or merit pay?
2. What proportion of non-managerial Fpernon 1 = 40%+, 0 = less than 40%
employees at this workplace are paid in
either of these ways?
3. Are payment by results determined by Fmeasure 1 = yes, 0 = no
individual performance?
Collective Code 1 if three or more of the following, else 0:
PRP 1. Do any employees in this establishment get Fperf 1 = yes, 0 = no
paid by payment by results or merit pay?
2. What proportion of non-managerial Fpernon 1 = 40%+, 0 = less than 40%
employees at this workplace are paid in
either of these ways?
3. Are payment by results determined by Fmeasure 1 = yes, 0 = no
team, workplace, or organization based
measures?
Profit-related Code 1 if two or more of the following, else 0:
pay 1. Do any employees at this workplace receive Fprof 1 = yes, 0 = no
profit-related payments or profit-related
bonuses?
2. Profit related pay applies to all staff Fprpocc 1 = yes, 0 = no
3. What proportion of non-managerial Fnonman 1 = 40%+, 0 = less than 40%
employees at this workplace have received
profit related pay in the last 12 months?
48
3. What proportion of non-managerial Fsharwho 1 = 40%+, 0 = less than 40%
employees at this workplace are eligible for
the employee share ownership scheme(s)?
4. What proportion of non-managerial Fnonwho 1 = 20%+, 0 = less than 20%
employees at this workplace participate in
the employee share ownership scheme(s)?
Information 1. Ways management communicates or Dconsult 1 = more than 4 out of 7; 0 = less than 4
sharing consults with employees
2. Does management regularly give Dinvplan 1 = yes, 0 = no
employees, or their representatives, any
information about ... internal investment
plans?
3. Does management regularly give Dfinance 1 = yes, 0 = no
employees, or their representatives, any
information about ...the financial position of
the establishment?
4. Does management regularly give Dstaffin 1 = yes, 0 = no
employees, or their representatives, any
information about ... staffing plans?
5. Are employees or their representatives Kempinf 1 = yes, 0 = no
informed of the targets?
Equal 1. Does this workplace (or the organisation of Ipolicy 1 = yes, 0 = no
opportunities which it is a part) have a formal written
policy on equal opportunities or managing
diversity?
2. Have you tried to measure the effects of Imeasur 1 = yes, 0 = no
your Equal Opportunities policies on the
workplace or on the employees at this
establishment?
3. Do you monitor recruitment and selection Ipract1 1 = yes, 0 = no
for EO (i.e., all four of gender, ethnicity,
disability, age)
4. Do you review recruitment and selection to Ipract2 1 = yes, 0 = no
identify indirect discrimination (i.e., all four
of gender, ethnicity, disability, age)
5. Do you monitor promotion for EO (i.e., all Ipract3 1 = yes, 0 = no
four of gender, ethnicity, disability, age)
6. Do you review promotion to identify Ipract4 1 = yes, 0 = no
indirect discrimination (i.e., all four of
gender, ethnicity, disability, age)
7. Do you review pay for EO (i.e., all four of Ipract5 1 = yes, 0 = no
gender, ethnicity, disability, age)
Flexible 1. Flexible working: work from home Iflex 1 = yes, 0 = no
working 2. Flexible working: ability to reduce hours Iflex 1 = yes, 0 = no
3. Flexible working: ability to increase hours Iflex 1 = yes, 0 = no
4. Flexible working: job sharing Iflex 1 = yes, 0 = no
5. Flexible working: flexitime Iflex 1 = yes, 0 = no
6. Flexible working: compressed hours Iflex 1 = yes, 0 = no
7. Do all employees have the option of Iptelig 1 = all, 0 = restricted
reducing their working hours, or is it
restricted to some employees only?
8. Do all employees have the option to work Iflxelig 1 = all, 0 = restricted
flexitime or is it restricted to some
employees only?
9. Would any female employees going on Imatfull 1 = yes, 0 = no
maternity leave from this workplace receive
their normal, full rate of pay?
10. Would any fathers taking leave from this Ipatpaid 1 = yes, 0 = no
workplace receive their normal, full rate of
pay?
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11. Are any employees entitled to school term Ifamily 1 = yes, 0 = no
only working?
12. Are any employees entitled to leave to care Ifamily 1 = yes, 0 = no
for elderly?
Fringe Is the workplaces’ largest occupational group Fothtitl
benefits entitled to the following fringe benefits:
1. pension 1 = yes, 0 = no
2. car 1 = yes, 0 = no
3. health 1 = yes, 0 = no
4. leave 1 = yes, 0 = no
5. sick 1 = yes, 0 = no
6. workplace nursery Ifamnurs 1 = yes, 0 = no
7. financial help with child care Ifamsub 1 = yes, 0 = no
8. financial help with elderly care Ifamold 1 = yes, 0 = no
Job security 1. Is there a policy guaranteeing job security Jobsec 1 = yes, 0 = no
for any occupational groups at this
workplace?
i
Although it is not possible to calculate the levels of statistical significance in SPSS using weighted
data, given the sample size, we can be confident that any correlation above 0.10 will be statistically
significant at the 5% level or better.
ii
We undertook a factor analysis of the HR practices but, as expected, this did not reveal any
meaningful patterns of responses.
iii
This analysis is available on request.
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