High-Performance Works Systems Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

High-Performance Works Systems - Essay Example The paper intends to look at the discussion regarding high high-performance systems vis-à  -vis that of human resource strategy to be able to gain the better understanding of SHRM and HPWS in context. Applying principles learned from lean production, contemporary organizations have created paradigms with which employee involvement and participation has been considered as an integral factor in the achievement of the organization's goals and objectives. Being such, there is a continuous effort to come up with structures that will support global competitiveness and sustainability of competitive advantage among organizations in the business environment. In lieu of this, one phenomenal approach comes up – high performance works systems. The term high performance works systems (HPWS) is â€Å"often used to loosely describe a set of work innovations that include autonomous work teams, socio-technical systems, open systems planning, new plant designs and other similar innovations† (Farias & Varma, 1998: 50) It is synonymous with the terms â€Å"high-involvement or high commitment management.† (Tsai 2006: 1513) For, HPWS is technically a â€Å"configuration of structures, practices, and processes† (Gephart & Van Buren, 1996: 6) as organizations sustain their competitiveness in the global market. Another way of looking at HPWS is that it is the â€Å"alignment† (Gephart & Van Buren 1996) of all the units of the organization towards the achievement of the goals and objectives of the organization. And this is made feasible if the individuals in the organization see the objectives, goals, and vision of the organization as congruent and similar with theirs. This is attained when employees are giv en the chance to improve their skills, knowledge of their own field as well as other related fields, and when employees are motivated. While the managers become â€Å"coaches, facilitators and integrators and they share responsibility for decision making and results with employees.†