Chapter 6

Human Resource Practices

THE MANAGEMENT AND CONTROL OF QUALITY, 5e, © 2002 South-Western/Thomson LearningTM 1

 Toyota Georgetown
• “We’ve got nothing, technology-wise, that
anyone else can’t have. There’s no secret
Toyota Quality Machine out there. The
quality machine is the workforce -- the team
members on the paint line, the suppliers, the
engineers -- everybody who has a hand in
production here takes the attitude that we’re
making world-class vehicles.”

THE MANAGEMENT AND CONTROL OF QUALITY, 5e, © 2002 South-Western/Thomson LearningTM 2

 Human Resource Paradigms
Old Thinking New Thinking
People are part of the People design and
process improve processes

Process requires Workers who run the

external control process control it

Managers have to Managers must obtain

control what commitment of workers
people do

THE MANAGEMENT AND CONTROL OF QUALITY, 5e, © 2002 South-Western/Thomson LearningTM 3

 Key Activities in HRM
• Determine organization’s HR needs to build a
high-performance workplace
• Assist in design of work systems
• Recruit, select, train & develop, counsel,
motivate, and reward employees
• Act as liaison with unions & government
• Handle other matters of employee
well-being

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 Leading Practices (1 of 2)
• Integrate HR plans with overall strategic
objectives and action plans
• Design work and jobs to promote organizational
learning, innovation, and flexibility
• Develop effective performance management
systems, compensation, and reward and
recognition approaches
• Promote cooperation and collaboration through
teamwork

THE MANAGEMENT AND CONTROL OF QUALITY, 5e, © 2002 South-Western/Thomson LearningTM 5

 Leading Practices (2 of 2)
• Empower individuals and teams to make decisions
that affect quality and customer satisfaction
• Make extensive investments in training and
education
• Maintain a work environment conducive to the
well-being and growth of all employees
• Monitor extent and effectiveness of HR practices
and measure employee satisfaction

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 Strategic Perspective
• HR plans should be linked to business
strategy and aligned with business needs
• Key choices
– Planning
– Staffing
– Appraising
– Compensating
– Training and development

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 High Performance Work Systems
Work and Job Compensation
Flexibility and
Design
Innovation recognition
Health and safety Knowledge and skill
sharing
Organizational Empowerment
Suggestion
alignment
systems
Customer focus
Employee
Training and Rapid response Involvement
Education
Teamwork and Cooperation
THE MANAGEMENT AND CONTROL OF QUALITY, 5e, © 2002 South-Western/Thomson LearningTM 8
 Designing High Performance
Work Systems
• Work design - how employees are
organized in formal and informal units
(departments, teams, etc.)
• Job design - responsibilities and tasks
assigned to individuals

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 Work Design Issues
• Performer/job level: initiative and
motivation
• Process level: cooperation and
teamwork
• Organizational level: well-being; link
to strategy

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 Hackman/Oldham Model
Core job Critical
psychological Outcomes
characteristics
states
Skill variety Experienced High motivation
Task identity meaningfulness
Task significance of work High satisfaction
Experienced
Autonomy responsibility High work
effectiveness
Feedback Knowledge of
from job actual results
Moderators
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 Employee Involvement
• Employee Involvement - any activity by which
employees participate in work-related decisions
and improvement activities, with the objectives
of tapping the creative energies of all employees
and improving their motivation

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 Levels of Employee Involvement

1. Information sharing 5. Inter-group problem

2. Dialogue solving
3. Special problem 6. Focused problem
solving solving
4. Intra-group problem 7. Limited self-
solving direction
8. Total self-direction

THE MANAGEMENT AND CONTROL OF QUALITY, 5e, © 2002 South-Western/Thomson LearningTM 13

 Advantages of EI
• Replaces adversarial • Helps people
mentality with trust understand quality
and cooperation principles and
instilling them into the
• Develops skills and organization’s culture
leadership abilities • Allows employees to
• Increases morale and solve problems at the
commitment source
• Fosters creativity and • Improves quality and
innovation productivity

THE MANAGEMENT AND CONTROL OF QUALITY, 5e, © 2002 South-Western/Thomson LearningTM 14

 Empowerment
• Giving people authority to make decisions
based on what they feel is right, to have
control over their work, to take risks and
learn from mistakes, and to promote
change.

“A sincere belief and trust in people.”

THE MANAGEMENT AND CONTROL OF QUALITY, 5e, © 2002 South-Western/Thomson LearningTM 15

 Successful Empowerment
• Provide education, resources, and encouragement
• Remove restrictive policies/procedures
• Foster an atmosphere of trust
• Share information freely
• Make work valuable
• Train managers in “hands-off” leadership
• Train employees in allowed latitude

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 Training and Education
• Quality awareness • Meeting customer
• Leadership requirements
• Project management • Process analysis
• Communications • Process simplification
• Teamwork • Waste reduction
• Problem solving • Cycle time reduction
• Interpreting and using • Error proofing
data

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 Teams
• Team - a small number of people with
complementary skills who are committed to a
common purpose, set of performance goals, and
approach for which they hold themselves mutually
accountable
• Effective teams are goal-centered,
independent, open, supportive,
and empowered

THE MANAGEMENT AND CONTROL OF QUALITY, 5e, © 2002 South-Western/Thomson LearningTM 18

 Types of Teams

• Quality circles
• Problem solving teams
• Management teams
• Work teams
• Project teams
• Virtual teams
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 Functions of Teams
Identify
Implement problems Select
solutions problem
Identify
Develop Collect
data
follow-up Solve
plan
Analyze
Focus
Pick best attention
solution Find
Develop causes
solutions

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 Self-Managed Teams
• Empowered • Order materials, keep
• Plan, control, improve inventory, & deal with
work processes suppliers
• Set own goals and inspect • Acquire any needed
own work training
• Schedule & review • Hire replacements or
performance discipline members
• Prepare budgets & • Take responsibility for
coordinate work quality

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 Ingredients for
Successful Teams (1 of 2 )
• Clarity in team goals
• Improvement plan
• Clearly defined roles
• Clear communication
• Beneficial team behaviors

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 Ingredients for
Successful Teams (2 of 2)
• Well-defined decision procedures
• Balanced participation
• Established ground rules
• Awareness of group process
• Use of scientific approach

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 Compensation and Recognition
• Compensation
– Merit versus capability/performance
based plans
– Gainsharing
• Recognition
– Monetary or non-monetary
– Formal or informal
– Individual or group

THE MANAGEMENT AND CONTROL OF QUALITY, 5e, © 2002 South-Western/Thomson LearningTM 24

 Effective Recognition
and Reward Strategies
• Give both individual and team awards
• Involve everyone
• Tie rewards to quality
• Allow peers and customers to nominate and
recognize superior performance
• Publicize extensively
• Make recognition fun

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 Managing HR
in a TQ Environment
• Recruitment and Career Development
• Motivation
• Performance Appraisal
• Measuring Employee Satisfaction and
HRM Effectiveness

THE MANAGEMENT AND CONTROL OF QUALITY, 5e, © 2002 South-Western/Thomson LearningTM 26

 Motivation
• An individual’s response to a felt need
• Theories
– Content Theories: Maslow; MacGregor;
Herzberg
– Process Theories: Vroom; Porter & Lawler
– Environmentally-based Theories: Skinner;
Adams; Bandura, Snyder & Williams

THE MANAGEMENT AND CONTROL OF QUALITY, 5e, © 2002 South-Western/Thomson LearningTM 27

 Performance Appraisal
• How you are measured is how you perform!
• Conventional appraisal systems
– Focus on short-term results and individual
behavior; fail to deal with uncontrollable factors
• New approaches
– Focus on company goals such as quality and
behaviors like teamwork
– 360-degree feedback; mastery descriptions

THE MANAGEMENT AND CONTROL OF QUALITY, 5e, © 2002 South-Western/Thomson LearningTM 28

 Measuring Employee
Satisfaction and Effectiveness
• Satisfaction
– Quality of worklife, teamwork, communications,
training, leadership, compensation, benefits,
internal suppliers and customers
• Effectiveness
– Team and individual behaviors; cost, quality, and
productivity improvements; employee turnover;
suggestions; training effectiveness

THE MANAGEMENT AND CONTROL OF QUALITY, 5e, © 2002 South-Western/Thomson LearningTM 29

 TQ and Labor Relations

• Union-management cooperation
• National Labor Relations Board
(NLRB) rulings on employee
participation programs
• Current legislative proposals and
actions

THE MANAGEMENT AND CONTROL OF QUALITY, 5e, © 2002 South-Western/Thomson LearningTM 30

 Human Resources
in the Baldrige Award Criteria
The Human Resource Focus Category examines how an
organization motivates and enables employees to develop and utilize
their full potential in alignment with the organization’s overall
objectives and action plans. Also examined are the organization’s
efforts to build and maintain a work environment and an employee
support climate conducive to performance excellence and to
personal and organizational growth.
5.1 Work Systems
5.2 Employee Education, Training, and Development
5.3 Employee Well-Being and Satisfaction
a. Work Environment
b. Employee Support and Satisfaction

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