It's the system that matters

摘要

The most important asset of an organization is not its people, nor its technology or even its managers. When the Department of Labor, Office of the American Workplace surveyed the effectiveness of "high performance work practices," some of the most convincing research highlighted the importance of work systems. A detailed study of the steel industry found that they were much more productive when there was a work system that included components like problem-solving teams, gain sharing, training and employment security. Using work systems that included these components ran as scheduled 98 percent of the time (US Department of Labor, Office of the American Workplace, 1993, pp. ⅰ-ⅱ).