Dear Jeeven,

I agree with your submissions . High performance systems do improve organizational productivity. However, the soft approach HR policies also play significant roles. They affect employee Productive Work Behavior (PWBs) like performance, trust, job satisfaction and organizational commitment, and Organizational Citizenship Behavior (OCBs) which increase HR productivity and organizational effectiveness. Counterproductive Work Behavior (CWBs) like absenteeism and withdrawal, emotional exhaustion, job stress and burnout, fear, distrust, job dissatisfaction which ultimately lower performance, employee productivity and organizational effectiveness are easily driven out.

Organizations are structured social entities, with defined membership( employees), having coordinated activities and goal directed systems. Organizational strategies are worked out for creating sustainable competitive advantage in a changing business environment. Human resources, being important organizational resources, are  required to be manged strategically in consonance with organizational strategies, in order to fulfill all the stakeholders' expectations, including that of employees. Therefore people oriented organizational strategies lead to the realization of organizational objectives through employee commitment. Sustainable high performance culture is created through ethics, transparency, empowerment, participation and employee commitment, which enhance employees' morale and productivity.

You might be interested in the followin paper. Is core competence soft?

Do people friendly strategies yield better result than performance based strategies?

I'm not sure better perhaps some empirical studies can be conducted.  But I do think "people friendly strategies" can contribute to performance outcomes indirectly or directly just like the "performance based strategies",  Reason being "people friendly strategies" not only can satisfy people's need to bring up their individual performance but also can bring up team performance through team interaction, team trust, team satisfaction, team cohesion (but not to the extreme of group think), team effectiveness etc. i.e. synergy > 1 + 1.  People are social entities / open systems that need to socialize & interact with their surroundings / people surrounding whereby a by product can be collective team performance outcomes.

People friendly strategies or performance based strategies alone may or may not give you the desired results but a judicious combination of two ('Hearts and Mind" Approach) is highly likely to give better results.

Both people friendly and performance based strategies are necessary in the workplace. However, since people are motivated by different factors, the management has to understand the work situation and the psychology of the workers to determine which of the strategies to reinforce more to realize the required level of productivity using contingency/ contextual approach.

I agree with most of the above discussions. However, It is important to introduce in this equation the type of work and the context. For instance, in a highly technological process, motivation is necessary but cannot replace technology-based performance strategies. I recall when I visited a Nissan plant for cars next to Tokyo, I have been strongly impressed by the degree of robotization and computerization of the work. Most workers were like robots. In such a strong technological context motivation is less powerful than any intelligent process strategy. On the other hand, if one thinks at the type of work performed at Google then it will be clear that creativity can be stimulated by so called friendly strategies, where motivation and satisfaction play an essential role in generating new ideas and in disruptive innovation.

Performance based strategies are generally tied up with dangling carrots of financial gains such as incentives, bonuses, promotions,  one time cash kind rewards. On ce the performance is achieved, it is not necessary that the same level would be achieved, unless there is a higher incentive for continuation. People friendly strategies on the other hand bring about a cultural change, what is usually termed as 'employee centricity' in business excellence models or 'involvement', empowerment',  'engagement', 'ownership' in classical HR theories. 'Employee centricity' creates an emotional bond between the employee and the organization, aligning the goals of the institution and the employee as can be seen in family bonds. This brings better and  lasting results.

G D Sardana   

See the attached paper on management and leadership.

Jeevan mam. Namaskar. I agree with your proposition. Pro-people  strategies yield better result than performance based strategies; as they contribute to the betterment of performance, trust, job satisfaction and organizational commitment, and Organizational Citizenship Behavior (OCBs) which, in turn, raise HR productivity and organizational effectiveness. Congrats, mam, for picking up a relevant question.