1. Strategic Human Capital Leadership
Training Series—Session 3
Productive Work Environments: Creating a
High Performance Work Culture
2. Introduction
Jonathan H. Westover, Ph.D.
Visiting Fulbright Scholar
Belarusian State University
School of Business and Management of Technology MBA Program
Assistant Professor of Management, Woodbury School of Business
Email: jon.westover@gmail.com; jonathan.westover@uvu.edu
About Me: about.me/jonathan.h.westover
3. What we will Cover
This session will address proven best practices and principles of productive
work environments with a focus on creating a high performance work culture.
We will:
1. Define high-performance work systems and identify the elements of such
a system.
2. Summarize the outcomes of a high-performance work system.
3. Describe the conditions that create a high-performance work system.
4. Explain how human resource management can contribute to high
performance and the purposes of performance management systems.
5. Compare the major methods for measuring performance.
6. Explain how to provide performance feedback effectively and summarize
ways to produce improvement in unsatisfactory performance.
4. How Are We Doing?
–We are confident that:
1. We know where strategic improvements are needed
and we ARE making them.
2. We have a performance appraisal system that is both
accurate and fair.
3. When our best employees choose to leave, our exit
evaluation process identifies with great clarity why we
suffered this loss.
4. Our middle management supervisors possess the
skills required to develop the people entrusted to
them and have earned the trust of those they serve.
5. The Challenge of Utilizing Human
Capital
• How can I get the right people into
the right job?
• How can I reduce employee
turnover?
• How can I improve my
performance management
process?
• How can I create a high-
engagement work culture?
• How can I best tap the full
potential of my employees?
7. Performance Management
• Performance management: Stages of the Performance
the process through which Management Process
managers ensure that
employees’ activities and
outputs contribute to the
organization’s goals.
• This process requires:
– Knowing what activities and
outputs are desired
– Observing whether they occur
– Providing feedback to help
employees meet expectations
10. Types of Performance Measurement
Rating Errors
• Contrast errors: the rater compares an individual, not against an
objective standard, but against other employees.
• Distributional errors: the rater tends to use only one part of a
rating scale.
– Leniency: the reviewer rates everyone near the top
– Strictness: the rater favors lower rankings
– Central tendency: the rater puts everyone near the middle of the scale
• Rater bias: raters often let their opinion of one quality color
their opinion of others.
– Halo error: when the bias is in a favorable direction. This can mistakenly tell
employees they don’t need to improve in any area.
– Horns error: when the bias involves negative ratings. This can cause employees
to feel frustrated and defensive.
12. Progressive Discipline
Hot-Stove Rule Progressive Discipline
Principle of discipline that says A formal discipline process in
discipline should be like a hot which the consequences become
stove, giving clear warning and more serious if the employee
following up with consistent, repeats the offense.
objective, and immediate
consequences.
13. Giving Performance Feedback
• Scheduling Performance Feedback
– Performance feedback should be a
regular, expected management
activity.
– Annual feedback is not enough.
– Employees should receive feedback
so often that they know what the
manager will say during their annual
performance review.
• Preparing for a Feedback Session
– Managers should be prepared for
each formal feedback session.
14. Giving Performance Feedback—Cont.
• Conducting the Feedback Session
– During the feedback session, managers
can take any of three approaches:
1. “Tell-and-Sell” – managers tell
employees their ratings and then justify
those ratings.
2. “Tell-and-Listen” – managers tell
employees their ratings and then let the
employees explain their side of the
story.
3. “Problem-Solving” – managers and
employees work together to solve
performance problems.
16. High-Performance Work Systems
• High-performance work system – the right combination of people,
technology, and organizational structure that makes full use of the
organization’s resources and opportunities in achieving its goals.
• To function as a high-performance work system, each of these
elements must fit well with the others in a smoothly functioning
whole.
18. Key Features of Learning
Organizations
1. Continuous learning – each employee’s and each group’s ongoing
efforts to gather information and apply the information to their
decisions.
2. Knowledge is shared – one challenge is to shift the focus of training
away from teaching skills and toward a broader focus on generating
and sharing knowledge.
3. Critical, systemic thinking – is widespread and occurs when
employees are encouraged to see relationships among ideas and
think in new ways.
4. Learning culture – a culture in which learning is rewarded,
promoted, and supported by managers and organizational
objectives.
5. Employees are valued – the organization recognizes that employees
are the source of its knowledge. It therefore focuses on ensuring the
development and well-being of each employee.
19. The 10 Key Steps in Developing an Effective
Performance Management Strategy
1. Define what's driving the need for a performance management
solution
2. Determine your strategy for moving forward.
3. Align your business units with your strategy.
4. Agree on what kind of people you have in the company and what
kind of people you need
5. Evaluate employees on consistent criteria.
6. Close the loop and give workers a sense of how they fit into the
company's strategy, or don't.
7. Give employees an opportunity for career growth.
8. Link workers' skills to the job roles.
9. Encourage people to behave in a way that will carry the company's
goals forward.
10. Identify gaps and monitor these over time.
Source: www.sumtotalsystems.com
20. QUESTIONS?
Jonathan H. Westover, Ph.D.
Visiting Fulbright Scholar
Belarusian State University
School of Business and Management of Technology MBA Program
Assistant Professor of Management, Woodbury School of Business
Email: jon.westover@gmail.com; jonathan.westover@uvu.edu
About Me: about.me/jonathan.h.westover
