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    HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT PRACTICES

    Winston Churchill once observed: the further that we look back the more we can see ahead

    . He was implying that events and information are best understood in the context of the past.

    Patterns and trends in data give meaning to our current circumstances.

    Over the past fifteen years CCH and AGSM have been gathering and analysing data about

    strategic level human resource activities. Our purpose has been three fold. First, to understand how

    managers integrate their people management practices with their strategic plans and processes.

    Second, to identify which practices and processes are linked to organisational performance. Third,

    to present the findings in a way that encourage the reader of this report to critically review practices

    and thinking in their own organisation and to take initiatives that enhance both the performance of

    their organisation and the engagement and well being of their people.

    In this report, which is based on survey replies from 669 respondents, we will first consider

    the level of strategic activity in Australia organisations. We will then turn our attention to the

    extent that managers formalise their strategic processes, the degree of alignment between how

    people are managed and the organisations strategic fundamentals, the dissemination of information

    about strategic issues, innovation in people management practices, and finally, links between these

    practices and organisational performance.

    Indicators of strategic activity

    Strategic management activity is often indicated to both employees and other stakeholders

    by activities such as the formulation, propagation, implementation and review of key statements.

    Organisational mission and vision, corporate and business level objectives and plans and business

    models all articulate the essence of an organisations identity, purpose and aspirations.

    Changes in these parameters reflect responses to developments in the environment and to

    organisational performance and aspiration. Our most general observation is that the march of

    change continues at a relentless pace. Specifically 61% of respondents have made significant

    changes to their organisational mission over the past five years; 21% made these changes over the

    past 12 months (cf 25% in 1998, 34% in 1993 and 36%in 1989). Over the past five years 70% of

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    respondents modified their statement of aspirations or vision of which 27% made these changes in

    the past year.

    Similarly 78% of respondents made significant changes to their organisations goals and

    objectives (cf 74% in 1998, 76% in 1993 and 73% in 1989). Eighty two percent of the sample

    made changes to their strategy over the past five years, 41% of the sample within the past year (cf

    49% in 1998, 46% in 1993 and 42% in 1989). Changes were also reported in respondent

    organisations corporate philosophy or values: 24% reported making these changes within the past

    year; 61% in total over the past five years.

    Given the nature and magnitude of these developments it was no surprise to observe that

    commensurate changes were made to the structure of these organisations. Eighty two percent of

    respondents (cf 84% in 1998) indicated that major changes had been introduced over the past five

    years; 44% reported that such changes had been introduced within the past year. As a result of or

    driving these developments, CEO turnover continues at a relatively high level. Table 1 reports the

    trends.

    Table 1

    Length of Tenure of CEO

    Expressed as percentages

    Length of Tenure 2003

    N=669

    1998

    N=386

    1993

    N=702

    1989

    N=427

    Less than 12 months

    1-2 years

    3-5 years

    6 years or more

    15

    23

    30

    32

    24

    21

    30

    25

    19

    22

    31

    28

    17

    25

    32

    26

    CEO tenure was found to be related to organisational performance. In organisations that

    reported significantly better performance over the past three years. CEO turnover was 34% during

    this period. In organisations with reduced performance CEO turnover was reported as 52%. Where

    performance was stable turnover was 37%.

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    We also considered relationship between an organisations performance over the past three

    years (significantly improved, stable, significantly lower) and the likelihood of the introduction of

    change. Lower performing organisations reported greater changes to their mission (50% cf 42%),

    vision (63% cf 50%), corporate goals and objectives (72% cf 62%), strategy (75% cf 66%) but not

    values (in lower and higher performing organisation 50% reported changes over the past three

    years).

    Given these trends it would be unfair to take Australian managers as either unresponsive or

    static in their approach to their environment. Changes in the strategic fundamentals of respondent

    organisations are pervasive and ongoing. Later in this report we will turn our attention to the

    crucial issues as to whether these changes are guided by a coherent logic and whether they are

    associated with improvements in organisational performance.

    Formalisation of strategic fundamentals

    The documentation of an organisations strategic fundamentals, mission vision goals

    strategy and values, usually represents the output of processes which develop and refine these

    important management agendas. Furthermore, such documentation can form the basis for planning,

    communication and review. For these reasons documentation has been linked to organisational

    performance (Pearce and David, 1987).

    Eighty eight percent of respondents reported that they had a formal (written) mission

    statement, (75% formalised their vision, 82% their corporate objectives and goals, 85% their

    corporate and business plans and 79% their corporate philosophy or values.

    This year we explored the documentation of strategy in more detail drawing on key

    dimensions developed by Hambrick and Fredrickson( 2002). Eighty percent formalised their

    strategic focus (eg geographic areas, market segments, product or service categories); 65%

    documented their specific plans to achieve growth (eg organic growth, acquisitions, joint ventures,

    franchising/licensing etc); 46% had specific plans that covered their speed of expansion or sequence

    of strategic initiatives; 60% specified how they sought to differentiate themselves from their

    competitors; and 53% had articulated the financial/economic logic of their business model.

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    Similarly we used Miles and Snows (1984) strategic orientation typology to explore

    differences in respondent organisations. Prospectors are organisation that made relatively frequent

    changes, especially additions to their sets of products and services. They consistently seek to

    pioneer by being first in new areas of market opportunity; they respond rapidly to signals of market

    need or opportunity. Twenty four percent of respondents described themselves asProspectors. In

    contrast,Defenders maintain a position in their industry by offering a relatively stable set of

    products and/or services and are rarely at the forefront of new developments. They tend to

    concentrate on doing the best job possible in their existing area. Thirteen percent of respondents

    self selected asDefenders. Analysers combine the attributes ofDefenders andProspectors. They

    maintain a relatively stable base of services and/or products at the same time as selectively moving

    to meet new opportunities and developments. They are seldom first in but carefully monitor to

    actions ofProspectors and follow with more cost-efficient or well-conceived initiatives. Analysers

    made up fifty percent of the sample. Finally, Miles and Snow describeReactors as lacking a

    consistent approach. Sometimes they lead; at other times they change only when external events

    force their hand. Reactors comprised 13% of respondents. This distribution has been relatively

    stable over the past 15 years.

    We also canvassed the extent to which respondents utilised their strategic documentation

    and found this to be beneficial and productive. Nineteen percent of the sample made very little use

    of their strategic documentation; 49% made extensive use. Forty percent of the sample considered

    the documentation to be highly beneficial while 23% found it to be not at all productive or

    beneficial.

    Organisations that reported significantly highly performance over the past three years not

    only made more use of their strategic documentation but also found it more productive than

    organisations that reported a significant lowering of their performance over the same period.

    We also explored the links between reported performance over the past three years and the

    formalisation of the organisations strategic fundamentals. Performance was found to be unrelated

    to the documentation of an organisations mission, vision or corporate goals. We did find a strong

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    positive relationship between the formulations of yearly corporate and/or business plans, longer

    planning horizons and corporate values and higher organisational performance.

    Dissemination of strategic information

    One of the beneficial HR practices identified by Jeffrey Pfeffer is the sharing of corporate

    information. Such dissemination contributes in at least two ways. First, it is a signal that people are

    trusted with high-level information about strategy and performance. Second, with such information

    people are better informed to enable them to make better decisions.

    Over the past five years we have noted an increase in the extent to which information is

    shared with all employees. Fifty six percent of current respondents (cf 46% in 1998) placed high

    emphasis on this activity. In contrast 19% still indicated that this aspect of their HR was given low

    priority (cf 26% in 1998).

    Exploration of the data indicated that CEOs and senior managers were becoming more

    active in this communication process. Presentations by CEOs were given heavy emphasis in 55%

    in respondent organisations (cf 49% in 1998) and by senior managers (52% in 2003 cf 48% in

    1998). It is noteworthy that reliance on each manager to brief her/his staff isstill relatively low and

    in decline (reducing from 70% in 1998 to 64% this year). There has been a similar drop in the

    emphasis placed on informal communication channels, for example, management walkarounds.

    On a more positive note CEO communication was clearly highest in organisations in which

    mission version strategy values and structure had changed. An associated finding was that the

    shorter the CEO tenure, the more emphasis the CEO placed on communicating their organisations

    strategic fundamentals. CEOs who were reported as being more heavily involved in people

    management issues generally were also found to be more active communicators of their

    organisations performance, future aspirations and plans.

    We then received the links between these communication patterns and prioritise and

    organisational performance. In the better performing organisations CEOs, senior and direct

    managers were significantly more active in communication. This finding is consistent with the

    Hewitt Associates Best Employers study. This research indicates that leaders in Best Employer

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    organisations take more time to communicate their goals and strategy, current performance and

    progress to plan. They also found that such leaders created more opportunities to talk informally

    with their people and to be personally accessible.

    HR practices and organisational performance

    Over the past decade researchers have produced compelling evidence for the causal link

    between how people are managed and led, and organisational performance. The current cross-

    sectional research methodology does not lend itself to robust causal analysis. However, our

    findings in this survey are remarkably consistent with the longitudinal findings and our own CCH-

    AGSM findings over the past eight years.

    Organisations in the current survey that reported their performance was significantly better

    than it was three years ago (54% of the sample of 669 organisations):

    Were expanding both their business activities and workforces;

    Were more likely to have retained the same strategy and structure over the past two years;

    Were more likely to have undertaken annual corporate and business planning with longer

    time horizons and translated these plans into formal strategic documentation;

    Were more likely to undertake formal and informal workforce planning and to cross

    reference this planning with their organisations corporate and business plans;

    Were more likely to offer induction training to recruits and to give this process higher

    priority;

    Engaged in more management training and development and held their managers to account

    for the training and development of their own people;

    Placed greater emphasis on performance management and required their managers to work

    with their people to both produce and review action plans derived from the performance

    review;

    Relied more heavily on the conduct of employee surveys and held their managers to account

    for both the provision of feedback and the survey results themselves;

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    Were more likely to monitor and seek to implement best HR practices as identified in

    applied research such as the Hewitt Best Employers Study or the Watson Wyatt Human

    Capital Index.

    Placed greater emphasis than organisations whose performance was stable or declining on

    all seven high performance work practices that Jeffrey Pfeffer ( 1998) identified as drivers

    of organisational performance . These practices were

    1. emphasis on employment security in both good and difficult times (providing people

    make effective contributions).

    2. emphasis on robust selection practices (eg attracting a large applicant pool, selection

    on attributes that are difficult to influence by training etc).

    3. emphasis on the devolution of decision making (eg through self managed teams or

    high delegations to key individuals).

    4. offering remuneration/rewards that are both comparatively high and contingent on

    organisational performance.

    5. heavy investment in training of their people relative to their industry or competitors.

    6. the removal of status differences that separate individuals and/or groups in their

    organisation.

    7. the active propagation of information among all staff about the organisations goals,

    strategies, plans and performance.

    In higher performing organisations the CEO was more directly involved in HR activities (eg

    induction and management training, succession planning).

    We also explored specific aspects of the strategy of respondent organisations. Our findings

    indicate that the high performing organisations were more likely to

    Specify how they plan to grow and achieve their objectives (eg organic growth, acquisitions,

    joint ventures);

    Specify the speed of their expansion and/or the sequence of their growth initiatives;

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    Specify how they will differentiate themselves from their competitors (eg image, price,

    product quality, styling, product innovation);

    Articulate the economic/financial logic of their business model; and

    Be prospecting for new opportunities, markets, products or services.

    We found no significant differences between organisations with higher, stable or lower

    performance in terms of their emphasis on strategic focus (eg geographic markets, market segments,

    or product/service categories).

    In summary, it was possible to identify clearly the features that distinguished high performing

    organisations from those whose performance was stable or in decline. The list of features contains

    no surprises; the features have been identified by earlier research. The real surprise is: if these high

    performance drivers have been recognised for so long, why do so many managers continue to

    ignore them at such peril?

    Dissemination of strategic information

    Our own findings over the past ten years and the findings of other studies, for example

    Pfeffer and Hewitt Associates, indicate clearly that workforces that are better informed with

    strategic information are more likely to be engaged, and in turn more likely to deliver superior

    performance.

    In our survey we explored the emphasis that organisations placed on communicating

    information to their people and the channels that they relied on to get this information through.

    Table 2 presents our findings of the relative importance placed on various communication channels.

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    TABLE 2

    RELATIVE EMPHASIS PLACED ON CHANNELS

    TO COMMUNICATE STRATEGIC INFORMATION(Relatively within channels expressed as percentages

    N=669)

    CHANNEL

    VERY

    LITTLE

    EMPHASIS

    MODERATE

    EMPHASIS

    HEAVY

    EMPHASIS

    Presentations by the CEO to employee forums, and conferences

    Presentations by senior management to forums and conferences

    Each manager to brief her/his staff

    Printed statements displayed on notice boards and/or in work areas

    Written documentations (manuals, booklets)

    Employee newsletters, magazines

    HR Intranets

    Videos screened to employees

    Induction programs

    Training programs

    Special employee communication workshops

    Informal processes (eg management workarounds)

    Our employee performance management system (eg accountabilitystatements, annual performance interviews)

    11

    9

    6

    19

    8

    17

    23

    62

    6

    12

    33

    22

    9

    63

    72

    63

    65

    68

    66

    56

    34

    62

    69

    61

    70

    68

    26

    19

    31

    16

    24

    17

    21

    4

    32

    19

    6

    8

    23

    As noted elsewhere in this report we found a strong link between organisational performance

    over the past three years and the emphasis placed on communicating information to all members

    about the organisations purpose, aspirations, strategy and performance. A finding of interest was

    that CEOs who were more directly involved in their organisations HR activities was not only

    more likely to be personally involved in communicating information about their strategic

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    fundamentals, but also their organisation placed greater emphasis on using multiple channels for

    such communication.

    The CEOs level of personal involvement was also found to be related to changes in the

    preceding two years in their organisations mission/purpose, aspiration, strategy, core values and

    structure: the greater the change the greater the involvement, particularly for those organisations

    that reported higher performance over the past three years. The length of the CEOs tenure did not

    influence the level of emphasis on personal communication; more recently appointed CEOs were no

    more personally involved than their longer tenured counterparts.

    Innovation in HR practices

    We again surveyed the approaches used by respondents to innovation in their people

    management practices, in part because we have established in earlier surveys that such innovation

    in linked to higher organisational performance, and also because it is through processes of

    innovation that organisations can evolve their current practices.

    Those organisations that developed qualitatively new practices were described as leaders.

    Early adopters usually incorporated new practices to stay ahead of other organisations. Followers

    adopted new HR practices when a consensus in their industry supported these practices. Late

    adopters incorporated new practices only after they were proven effective in other organisations.

    Table 3 presents the distribution of approaches to innovation for our 1998 and 2003 surveys.

    Table 3 Approaches to adopting new HR practices

    (expressed as percentages)

    2003

    N=669

    1998

    N=395

    HR leaders

    HR early adopters

    HR followers

    HR late adopters

    14

    32

    33

    21

    14

    36

    31

    19

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    Does innovation pay dividends?

    We can answer this with a qualified but confident yes. Early adopters reported the highest

    percentage of stronger performance over the past three years: 64% of early adopters were in the

    better performance category, 6% were in the lower performance group. The HR leaders were next:

    54% of HR leaders reported better performance over the past three years, 15% reported lower

    performance. The sequence then moves to HR followers and late adopters. These findings are in

    line with more general findings about the performance of first movers; they often deliver high

    performance but there are advantages to fast followers (early adopters) who monitor and quickly

    learn lessons from the initiatives and mistakes of prime movers.

    What insights do the survey findings provide into the dynamics of innovation in HR

    practices? Organisations that reported higher levels of innovation (HR leaders and early adopters)

    were driven by different agendas: their innovation was activated by demands from customers or the

    market place, by changes in workforce characteristics and by managers and/or members who

    wanted to develop better ways of managing people. In contrast, the slower innovators were more

    reactive reporting that their innovation was more likely to be driven by the need to reduce costs or

    by new legislation or changes in government policy.

    Similarly the more innovative organisations perceived different barriers to progress in

    innovation. The slower innovators identified difficulties in gaining the attention of top

    management, the costs of making changes, and a culture which doesnt emphasis the importance of

    people for success as barriers to innovation. In contrast the more innovative organisations indicated

    that the barriers that they experienced were difficulties in identifying what would be effective HR

    practices and workforce resistance to change.

    Across industry sectors there was evidence that indicated that the public sector and not for

    profits were less innovative than either the private sector or statutory authorities. Within industries,

    financial services reported the highest levels of innovation.

    In contrast to earlier surveys our current findings indicated that subsidiaries of overseas

    companies reported significantly higher levels of innovation than their locally owned counterparts.

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    One possible explanation for these findings is that innovation is passed down from overseas

    advances to be implemented locally. This is the first time over the past eight years that we have

    detected this trend.

    Not surprisingly we found that organisations that were growing either or both their activities

    and their workforces reported higher levels of HR innovation. Growing businesses are associated

    with experimentation with new processes and/or resources allocated to developmental activities. In

    contrast, poor performing organisations have less slack resources for experimentation and the

    reduction of workforce numbers is often associated with conservative employee behaviour: dont

    make mistakes, dont take risks! Thus high performance and growth can establish a virtuous circle

    of innovation and development, which in turn fuels further enhancement of both performance and

    growth.

    Finally, it is noteworthy that HR innovation was reported to be higher in organisations in

    which the CEO was more directly involved in HR activities and the communication of strategically

    important information to all members.

    Organisational alignment and realignment

    Australian organisations are experiencing and creating unabated change. Over the past

    twelve months 21% of our respondents made significant changes to their mission, 27% modified

    their aspirations, 36% made significant changes to their corporate goals/objectives, 24% modified

    their corporate values, 41% made changes to their strategy, 44% reported major changes in their

    structure, and 15% appointed a new CEO over the past year. Some of these changes have been

    made in response to unsatisfactory performance. Other changes have been made in preparation for

    the future and in order to sustain and enhance success.

    One critical feature of all these changes is their connectedness: are changes in structure for

    example a direct response to changes in objectives and/or strategy? The idea of fit or alignment

    is an important one because such alignment is a powerful explanatory factor in organisational

    performance. High performance is related to known configurations in strategy, technology,

    structure, culture, systems, processes, and workforce characteristics. For these reasons we would

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    expect that changes to goals and strategy would be followed by related modifications to the

    organisations structure, culture and HR practices and processes. In this section we will explore the

    evidence for such changes.

    Table 4 presents the linkages between changes in respondent organisations purpose/mission and

    strategy.

    Table 4

    Relationships between significant changes in mission

    and strategy in Australian organisations

    N=669

    (expressed as percentages)

    Significant changes in strategySignificant

    change in

    Mission/Purpose Over past 12months

    1-2 years 3-5 years Our strategy hasremained stable

    Over past 12

    months

    38 17 7 6

    1-2 years 21 36 5 10

    3-5 years 11 12 54 12

    Our

    mission/purpose

    has remained

    stable

    30 35 34 72

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    Table 5 reports the relationships that we found between changes to corporate mission and

    aspirations.

    Table 5

    Relationships between significant changes in mission/purposeand aspiration/vision

    N=669

    (expressed as percentages)

    Significant changes in aspiration/visionSignificant

    change to

    mission/purpose Over past 12

    months

    1-2 years 3-5 years Our aspirations

    have remained

    stable

    Over past 12months

    76 13 1 3

    1-2 years 14 60 1 0

    3-5 years 3 10 86 2

    Our

    mission/purpose

    has remained

    stable

    7 17 12 95

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    Table 6 reports the relationships between changes to mission and corporate objectives/goals

    Table 6

    Relationships between significant changes in mission

    and corporate objectives/goals

    N=669(expressed as percentages)

    Changes in corporate objectives/goalChanges in

    mission/purpose

    Over past 12

    months

    1-2 years 3-5 years Our

    objectives/goals

    have remained

    stable

    Over past 12

    months

    57 11 6 3

    1-2 years 18 49 0 5

    3-5 years 8 13 68 6

    Our

    mission/purpose

    has remained

    stable

    17 27 26 86

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    Table 7 reports the relationships between changes to organisational strategy and structure over the

    past five years.

    Table 7

    Relationships between significant changes to strategyand structure over the past five years

    N=669

    (expressed as percentages)

    Changes to structureChanges to

    strategy

    Over past 12

    months

    1-2 years 3-5 years Our

    organisations

    structure has

    remained stable

    Over past 12

    months

    63 24 25 23

    1-2 years 20 45 20 23

    3-5 years 7 20 44 10

    Our strategy has

    remained stable

    10 11 11 44

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    Table 8 reports our findings on the relationships between changes to mission/purpose and corporate

    values.

    Table 8

    Relationships between significant changes to mission/purpose

    and corporate values

    N=669(expressed as percentages)

    Significant changes to corporate valuesSignificant

    changes to

    mission/purpose Over past 12

    months

    1-2 years 3-5 years Our corporate

    values have

    remained stable

    Over past 12

    months

    59 18 4 10

    1-2 years 20 54 0 6

    3-5 years 7 13 77 14

    Our mission has

    remained stable

    14 15 19 70

    A review of Tables 4 to 8 reveals that managers have generally made changes in their

    organisational configurations that reflect the sequence: changes in structure and core values follow

    significant changes in mission, aspirations, objectives and strategy. The most interesting finding

    (from what may appear to readers as a mass of data!) is that response times in strategic change are

    shortening. Ten years ago there were significant lags in response to changes in mission aspiration

    goals and strategy; we are now witnessing evidence of greater attention to rapid structural and

    cultural change that can re-establish organisational alignment.

    A second dimension of organisational alignment is the extent to which HR practices and

    systems are integrated with strategic planning and systems. Our findings indicate that progress has

    come to a halt in this area. Seventy four percent of respondents who undertook formal corporate

    and/or business planning indicated that their corporate and/or business plan specifically covered HR

    issues (eg outsourcing, significantly downsizing, illume change interpose agreements, succession

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    planning); this compares with 73% five years ago. When asked if they used their corporate and/or

    business plans to formulate or review their workforce plans, 73 % indicated that they did undertake

    such an integration (down from 79% in 1998).

    Our findings did indicate that CEO involvement in the HR function explained most of the

    variance in our findings: CEOs who were more directly involved in HR issues and activities were

    more likely to lead organisations in which HR was more closely integrated with corporate and

    business strategy and planning. These findings and those reported earlier in this document indicate

    convincingly the high impact role that a CEO plays in the dynamics and performance of HR

    processes and systems in their organisation.

    Discussion and conclusions

    Several decades ago we discovered the phenomena of organisational change.

    Concurrently we witnessed the rise of strategic management. These two features of organisational

    life are now firmly embedded as distinctive and central challenges for Australian managers and

    corporate leaders. They also represent key agendas for those who seek to develop higher employee

    engagement and performance.

    Managerial responses have been comprehensive and systemic. Over the past five years

    more than two thirds of the 669 organisations surveyed had made significant changes to their

    organisations purpose, identity and aspirations. Furthermore, most organisational made

    configurational adjustments that realigned their purpose, strategy, structure and core values in their

    attempt to improve their performance. Fifty four percent of the sample reported that they lifted

    their performance significantly over the past three years.

    We identified a range of initiatives that were associated with improved organisational

    performance. For some it was the appointment of a new CEO and subsequent changes in their

    business model, in organisational design and functioning, and greater attention to their strategic

    fundamentals. Other improvements could be attributed to changes in people management practices.

    In organisations which improved their performance CEOs, senior and direct managers

    played a more active part in communicating their organisations purpose, aspirations and

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    performance against goals. In these organisations HR was more closely integrated with corporate

    and business planning. The CEO was more highly engaged in HR related activities. And the

    organisations placed greater emphasis on well identified HR processes: employee induction,

    management training and development, workforce planning that is integrated with business

    planning, performance management that requires greater managerial involvement and

    accountability, the effective use of employee surveys and scanning for better HR practices. As with

    our earlier surveys we found support for the impact of the seven high performance work practices

    identified by Jeffrey Pfeffer. We also identified links between improved organisational

    performance and the development of specific components of business level strategy. Finally, we

    found clear evidence that managers are re-aligning their organisations more quickly than they were

    five years ago. These are not break through findings. They confirm what others and we have

    identified over the past decade as distinctive drivers of organisational performance. The obvious

    question to which we as yet have no comprehensive answer is: if we know the initiatives that will

    enhance performance, why dont more managers undertake these initiatives?

    Our findings do provide several insights into this dilemma. First, reliance on HR systems

    and processes to improve performance generally needs to be led by the CEO and senior

    management. In particular CEO involvement appears to be especially important. Second, HRM

    needs to be closely integrated with corporate and business planning. Such alignment demands

    collaboration between executives and HR leaders. Third, managers can increase the likelihood of

    innovation in HR processes and systems by relying on key drivers of innovation: use demands from

    customers and the market place, explore changes in workforce characteristics and expectations, and

    engage the volunteers who express a desire to develop better ways of managing people. But be

    prepared for the likely barriers to progress: identifying the sources of better HR practice and

    employee (and management!) resistance to change.

    Our findings clearly identified the benefits of a virtuous circle of high performance: work on

    your strategic fundamentals, align your HR processes and systems, gain managerial commitment

    and skill in the application of well documented high performance work practices and critical HR

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    processes. The resultant performance fuels growth which in turn resources and demands more

    enhancement of people management practices.

    Finally, CCH Australia Ltd and the Australian Graduate School of Management wish to

    thank the 669 respondents to this important survey. We wish you well in your endeavours to

    continue to enhance the performance of your organisation, the well-being off your members and the

    consequent benefits to our communities.

    Authors Professor Roger Collins and Karen van Druten

    References

    Hambrick, D. C. and Frederickson, J. W. (2002Are you sure you have a strategy?Academy ofManagement Executive, 15(4), 48-59

    Pearce, J. A. and David, F. (1987) Corporate Mission Statements and the Bottom Line.Academy of

    Management Executive, 1(2), 109-116

    Pfeffer,J. ( 1998 ) The Human Equation, Boston : Harvard Business School Press.