“High performance work system”: challenges and good practices of organizations around the world

Abstract

The desire to ensure high productivity of each employee in each organization is characteristic of the entire modern world. However, there is no single term used for this, even within an English-speaking (or Russian-speaking) environment, just as there is no common understanding of the factors that can lead to high productivity of each employee. In Russia statistics are collected and programs are being developed that contribute to the growth in the number “High Productivity Jobs” (at the state level). In English-speaking practice, similar approaches are indicated by the abbreviations HPO, HPHRP, HPWP and HPWS. However, similar to the difficulties encountered in the implementation of the concept of “Decent Work” in the world, problems are also experienced by companies trying to apply “high-performance work organization practices”. The published results of the analysis of world publications over the past 30 years show the connection of “high-performance work systems” a) with a variety of personnel management practices (slightly less than in half of the publications); b) with an intermediary factor in the form of staff satisfaction and their sense of subjective well-being (according to some data, most discussed in publications on “high-performance systems”); c) with the effectiveness and productivity of the organization as a whole, and d) with different, not always explicit, attitudes and expectations of employees (allocated to a separate group). Nevertheless, studies periodically show not only successes, but also unpredictable deterioration of indicators that are significant for organizations. The “emotional burnout” of employees and the “imbalance of work and the rest of life” increase attention to the “psychological contract” as ensuring compliance with the complex of mutual expectations of employers and employees. Part of these expectations is related to the currently developing format of hybrid work for some categories of specialists.