Chapter 4

Workforce Focus

MANAGING FOR QUALITY AND PERFORMANCE EXCELLENCE, 10E, © 2017 Cengage Publishing,
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.”

2
Workforce
…everyone who is actively involved in accomplishing
the work of an organization. This encompasses paid
employees as well as volunteers and contract
employees, and includes team leaders, supervisors,
and managers at all levels.
Many companies refer to their employees as
“associates” or “partners” to signify the importance
that people have in driving business performance.

3
Workforce Focus in ISO 9000
 Personnel performing work affecting product quality shall be
competent on the basis of appropriate education, training, skills, and
experience.
 Organizations should determine the level of competence that
employees need, provide training or other means to ensure
competency, evaluate the effectiveness of training or other actions
taken, ensure that employees are aware of how their work contributes
to quality objectives, and maintain appropriate records of education,
training, and experience.
 The standards address the work environment from the standpoint of
providing buildings, workspace, utilities, equipment, and supporting
services needed to achieve conformity to product requirements, as well
as determining and managing the work environment, including safety,
ergonomics, and environmental factors.

4
Key Workforce-Focused Practices for Performance
Excellence (1 of 2)
 Understand the key factors that drive workforce engagement,
satisfaction, and motivation.
 Design and manage work and jobs to promote effective
communication, cooperation, skill sharing, empowerment, innovation,
and the ability to benefit from diverse ideas and thinking of employees
and develop an organizational culture conducive to high performance
and motivation.
 Make appropriate investments in development and learning, both for
the workforce and the organization’s leaders.
 Create an environment that ensures and improves workplace health,
safety, and security, and supports the workforce via policies, services,
and benefits.

5
Key Workforce-Focused Practices for
Performance Excellence (2 of 2)
 Develop a performance management system based on
compensation, recognition, reward, and incentives that supports
high performance work and workforce engagement.
 Assess workforce engagement and satisfaction and use results for
improvement.
 Assess workforce capability and capacity needs and use the
results to capitalize on core competencies, address strategic
challenges, recruit and retain skilled and competent people, and
accomplish the work of the organization.
 Manage career progression for the entire workforce and
succession planning for management and leadership positions.

6
Quality Profile: VACSP
The Veterans Affairs Cooperative Studies Program (VACSP)
Clinical Research Pharmacy Coordinating Center (the Center)
is a federal government organization that supports clinical
trials targeting current health issues for America’s veterans.
The Center sees engagement as the single most important
criterion for workforce satisfaction.
Excellence in the workplace, superior customer service, and
personal involvement in organizational improvement are
rewarded through the Center’s performance management
system with visible, tangible benefits.

7
Quality Profile: PRO-TEC Coating Company
A joint venture between United States Steel Corporation
and Kobe Steel Ltd. of Japan, providing coated sheet
steel primarily to the U.S. automotive industry.
Culture centered around three fundamental concepts—
ownership, responsibility, and accountability.
Associates work in self-directed teams and are
empowered, innovative leaders who fix problems as they
are identified.

8
Evolution of Workforce Management
Taylor system and scientific management
Improved productivity
Changed manufacturing work into series of
mundane and mindless tasks
Promulgated adversarial relationships
between labor and management
Failed to exploit the knowledge and creativity
of the workforce
9
Workforce Management
Workforce management (which has also been widely
known as human resource management, or HRM)
consists of those activities designed to provide for and
coordinate the people of an organization.
determining the organization’s workforce needs;
 assisting in the design of work systems;
recruiting, selecting, training and developing,
counseling, motivating, and rewarding employees;
acting as a liaison with unions and government
organizations; and
handling other matters of employee well-being.

10
Strategic Human Resource Management
… concerned with the contributions HR strategies
make to organizational effectiveness, and how these
contributions are accomplished.
It involves designing and implementing a set of
internally consistent policies and practices to ensure
that an organization’s human capital (employees’
collective knowledge, skills, and abilities) contributes
to overall business objectives.

11
High Performance Work Culture
Performance - the extent to which an individual contributes
to achieving the goals and objectives of an organization.
High-performance work - work approaches used to
systematically pursue ever-higher levels of overall
organizational and human performance.
Characterized by:
 flexibility
 innovation
 knowledge and skill sharing
 alignment with organizational directions, customer focus, and rapid
response to changing business needs and marketplace requirements

12
“Conditions of Collaboration” in a High
Performance Work Culture
Respect
Aligned values
Shared purpose
Communication
Trust

13
Workforce Engagement
… the extent of workforce commitment, both emotional and
intellectual, to accomplishing the work, mission, and vision of
the organization. Engaged workers
find personal meaning and motivation in their work,
have a strong emotional bond to their organization, are actively
involved in and committed to their work,
feel that their jobs are important, know that their opinions and
ideas have value, and
often go beyond their immediate job responsibilities for the good
of the organization.

14
15
Advantages of Workforce Engagement
 Replaces the adversarial mentality with trust and cooperation
 Develops the skills and leadership capability of individuals,
creating a sense of mission and fostering trust
 Increases employee morale and commitment to the organization
 Fosters creativity and innovation, the source of competitive
advantage
 Helps people understand quality principles and instills these
principles into the corporate culture
 Allows employees to solve problems at the source immediately
 Improves quality and productivity

16
Top Drivers of Workforce Engagement
1. Commitment to organizational values.
2. Knowing that customers are satisfied with products and services.
3. Belief that opinions count.
4. Clearly understanding work expectations.
5. Understanding of how personal contributions help meet
customer needs.
6. Being recognized and rewarded fairly.
7. Knowing that senior leaders value the workforce.
8. Being treated equally with respect.
9. Being able to concentrate on the job and work processes.
10. Alignment of personal work objectives to work plans.

17
Employee Involvement (EI)
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.
Example: employee suggestion system - a
management tool for the submission, evaluation, and
implementation of an employee’s idea to save cost,
increase quality, or improve other elements of work
such as safety.

18
Motivation
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)

19
20
Designing High-Performance Work Systems
Work and Job Design
Empowerment
Teamwork
Work Environment
Workforce Learning and Development
Compensation and Recognition
Performance Management

21
Work and Job Design
Work design refers to how employees
are organized in formal and informal
units, such as departments and teams.
Job design refers to responsibilities
and tasks assigned to individuals.

22
Hackman-Oldham Model
The model proposes that five core characteristics
of job design (task significance, task identity, skill
variety, autonomy, and feedback from the job)
influence three critical psychological states
(experienced meaningfulness, experienced
responsibility, and knowledge of results), which in
turn, drive work outcomes (employee motivation,
growth satisfaction, overall job satisfaction, and
work effectiveness).

23
Enhancing Work Design
Job enlargement – expanding workers’
jobs
Job rotation – having workers learn
several tasks and rotate among them
Job enrichment – granting more
authority, responsibility, and autonomy

24
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.”

25
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

26
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

27
Types of Teams
Management teams
Natural work teams
Self managed teams
Virtual teams
Quality circles
Problem solving teams
Project teams

28
29
Team Skill Requirements
Conflict management and resolution
Team management
Leadership skills
Decision making
Communication
Negotiation
Cross-cultural training

30
31
Life Cycle of Teams
 Forming takes place when the team is introduced, meets together,
and explores issues of their new assignment.
 Storming occurs when team members disagree on team roles and
challenge the way that the team will function.
 Norming takes place when the issues of the previous stage have
been worked out, and team members agree on roles, ground rules,
and acceptable behavior when doing the work of the team.
 Performing characterizes the productive phase of the life cycle
when team members cooperate to solve problems and complete
the goals of their assigned work.
 Adjourning is the phase in which the team wraps up the project,
satisfactorily completes its goals, and prepares to disband or move
on to another project.

32
Ingredients for Successful Teams
Clarity in team goals Well-defined decision
Improvement plan procedures
Clearly defined roles Balanced participation
Clear communication Established ground rules
Beneficial team Awareness of group
behaviors process
Use of the scientific
approach
33
Workplace Environment
Key factors:
Health
Safety
Overall well-being

34
Workforce Learning and Development
Research indicates that companies that spend heavily
on training their workers outperform companies that
spend considerably less, as measured on the basis of
overall stock market returns.
Focus on both what people need to know as well as
what things they need to know how to do.
Continual reinforcement of knowledge learned is
essential.

35
36
Compensation and Recognition
Compensation and recognition refer to all aspects of
pay and reward, including promotions, bonuses, and
recognition, either monetary and nonmonetary or
individual and group.
Compensation
Merit versus capability/performance based plans
Gainsharing
Recognition
Monetary or non-monetary
Formal or informal
Individual or group

37
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

38
Performance Management
How you are measured is how you perform!
Conventional performance 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

39
40
Assessing Workforce Effectiveness,
Satisfaction, and Engagement
Outcome Measures
number of teams, rate of growth, percentage of employees
involved, number of suggestions implemented, time taken
to respond to suggestions, employee turnover,
absenteeism, and grievances; perceptions of teamwork
and management effectiveness, engagement, satisfaction,
and empowerment.

41
Assessing Workforce Effectiveness
Satisfaction, and Engagement
Process Measures
number of suggestions that employees make, numbers of
participants in project teams, participation in educational
programs, average time it takes to complete a process
improvement project, whether teams are getting better,
smarter, and faster at performing improvements,
improvements in team selection and planning processes,
frequency of use of quality improvement tools, employee
understanding of problem-solving approaches, and senior
management involvement

42
Measuring Workforce Engagement
Gallup Q12 - 12 survey statements that Gallup found as
those that best form the foundation of strong feelings
of engagement. Factors include:
what is expected in one’s work
having the right materials and equipment to do the job
receiving recognition and feedback on progress and
development
having opinions that count
feeling of importance of the job
opportunities to learn grow and develop

43
Gallup Engagement Index Classification
1. Engaged employees who work with passion and feel a profound
connection to their company. They drive innovation and move the
organization forward.
2. Not-engaged employees who are essentially “checked out.” They
are sleepwalking through their workday. They are putting in time,
but not enough energy or passion into their work.
3. Actively disengaged employees who aren’t just unhappy at work;
they’re busy acting out their unhappiness. Every day, these workers
undermine what their engaged coworkers accomplish.

44
Sustaining High-Performance Work Systems
Regular assessment of
workforce capability and capacity needs;
hiring, training and retention of employees;
and
career progression and succession planning

45
Workforce Capability and Capacity
Workforce capability refers to an organization’s ability
to accomplish its work processes through the
knowledge, skills, abilities, and competencies of its
people.
Workforce capacity refers to an organization’s ability
to ensure sufficient staffing levels to accomplish its
work processes and successfully deliver products and
services to customers, including the ability to meet
seasonal or varying demand levels.

46
47
Effective Hiring Practices
Determine key employee skills and
competencies
Identify job candidates based on required skills
and competencies
Screen job candidates to predict suitability and
match to jobs

48
Succession Planning
Formal processes to identify, develop, and
position future leaders
Mentoring, coaching, and job rotation
Career paths and progression for all
employees

Succession planning is vital to long-

term organizational sustainability
49