Hr strategies Key concepts and terms

General HR strategies
General strategies describe the overall system or bundle of complementary HR practices that 
the organization proposes to adopt or puts into effect in order to improve organizational per-
formance. The three main approaches are summarized below.
1. High-performance management
High-performance management or high-performance working aims to make an impact on 
the performance of the organization in such areas as productivity, quality, levels of customer 
service, growth and profi ts. High-performance management practices include rigorous recruit-
ment and selection procedures, extensive and relevant training and management development 
activities, incentive pay systems and performance management processes.
These practices are often called ‘high-performance work systems’ (HPWS) which, as defi ned 
by Appelbaum et al (2000), comprise practices that can facilitate employee involvement, skill 
enhancement and motivation. Thompson and Heron (2005) refer to them as ‘high-perform-
ance work organization practices’ which, they say, ‘consist of work practices that invest in the 
skills and abilities of employees, design work in ways that enable employee collaboration in 
problem solving and provide incentives to motivate workers to use their discretionary effort’. 
This term is more frequently used than either high-commitment management or high-involve-
ment management, although there is a degree of overlap between these approaches and an 
HPWS and the terms ‘high performance’ and ‘high commitment’ are sometimes used 
interchangeably.
2. High-commitment management
One of the defi ning characteristics of HRM is its emphasis on the importance of enhancing 
mutual commitment (Walton, 1985b). High-commitment management has been described by 
Wood (1996) as: ‘A form of management which is aimed at eliciting a commitment so that 
behaviour is primarily self-regulated rather than controlled by sanctions and pressures exter-
nal to the individual, and relations within the organization are based on high levels of trust.’
The following defi nitions expand these statements.

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