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Company Practices of Productivity

In: Business and Management

Submitted By ar13
Words 831
Pages 4
In the article, The Impact of Human Resource and Operational Management Practices on Company Productivity: A Longitudinal Study, authors Kamal Birdi, Chris Clegg, Malcolm Patterson, Andrew Robinson, Chris B. Stride, Toby D. Wall, and Stephen J. Wood address the use of practices that enhance organizational performance and sustain competitive advantage. The article investigates the practice of strategic human resources management (SHRM) through a study of 308 companies over a 22 year timeline. Employee based practices such as empowerment, training and teamwork have been the focus for years on how to better organizational effectiveness. However now, seven managerial practices have been introduced to be used in conjunction with the previous three. The seven practices to be evaluated throughout this article are empowerment, training, teamwork, total quality management, just- in- time, advanced manufacturing technology, and supply- chain monitoring.
Practices such as empowerment, training and teamwork are linked to having increase employee knowledge, which in return allows them to develop and utilize it. Empowerment is spreading the power of decision making amongst operational management and individuals/ teams. This type of initiative encourages employees, allows for flexibility, requires less supervision and ultimately envisions organizational gains. Training is fundamental in terms of teaching employees skills that not only prepare them for their job, but also enriching them with knowledge that gives way to future innovations and a competitive advantage for the organization. Lastly, teamwork instills employees to share their knowledge and complete interdependent tasks, which eventually leads to increased performance.
Total quality management ensures that quality control is vital in production and not to be neglected by operators as a secondary function. This not only

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