The 8 values of Highly Productive Companies: Creating Wealth from a New Employment Relationship

Citation

Bensiali, K. (2010), "The 8 values of Highly Productive Companies: Creating Wealth from a New Employment Relationship", Leadership & Organization Development Journal, Vol. 31 No. 4, pp. 373-375. https://doi.org/10.1108/01437731011043384

The book is about the traditional and a new employment relationship. It is presented in three parts: presenting the workplace in three chapters, describing the proposed new employment relationship model in nine chapters and the last part with two chapters on applying the new model. With an easy to read style, the author Tim Baker, presents the case of the traditional employment relationship and makes a case for the necessity of a new approach and a new model for a new relationship.

Chapters are structured and each comprises a range of examples to describe, compare and contrast the traditional approaches of the human resource development and the proposed model for a new employment relationship. Each chapter presents a useful layout, with a distinctive box, a case study, a graphics, with a metaphor or scale, on corporate culture, to illustrate ways of how organisations work and need to accommodate for and adjust in a changing world of work. Besides these attractive presentations, the author presents a concluding summary as a set of reflective questions meant for managers and ten key points as essential lessons from each chapter. The last four pages give a good list of references for each of the 13 chapters. The last chapter, titled, “the Roadmap”, offers practical guidance to managers on how to navigate the process of transformation from a traditional to a new employment relationship in a company.

Following the first three introductory chapters, Tim Baker presents his new employment relationship model, stating that the precondition for its successful and sustainable application in an organisation depends on changing the culture of that organisation. Many figures, throughout the book, illustrate the new model, which focuses, unlike traditional approaches, on change from both perspectives of the individual and of the organisation. Throughout, the book illustrates how employer and employee should relate to each other based on a set of eight values proposed in the model namely flexible deployment, customer focus, performance focus, project based work, human spirit and work, learning and development, commitment and finally open information.

From previous works and his current research, the author addresses many topics such as the difference between job and work, comparing and contrasting the traditional values and the new ones, the importance of considering the expectations of both employer and employee to prevent conflict in the workplace.

Throughout, the book highlights the human dimension and shifts the emphasis back on it instead of the previous tendency of focusing mainly on the technical resources. The author makes a variety of presentations to make the case for the importance of people in the new work and employment relationship. He states that it is the human capital organisations should care for and leaders are compelled to find new ways for its use more effectively rather than focusing on traditional issues such as loyalty. Instead the author emphasises the issues that matter, in his new employment model, namely positive working relationship, reconciling employee and organisational values, employee engagement, commitment, learning and development. Many issues that contribute to conflicts in the workplace are addressed such as overcoming the initiative paradox and managing the employee initiative boundary and managerial responsibilities.

In the chapter before last, Baker describes how to apply the new employment relationship model. He describes an eight‐step methodology, the corporate culture change cycle (4Cs), which he used in his doctoral research project and appraised as a vehicle for transforming the culture of an organisation. It looks at how people in the three levels of an organisation (top, middle management and workers) perceive the eight values in the proposed new employment relationship model. This methodology enables to appraise how closely the individual and organisation entities are aligned to the new model and a snapshot on the psychological contract between the two entities before and after any change with this bottom‐up approach.

The last chapter concludes with a roadmap that guides the reader on how to use the new model in the change process, describing the interdependencies of the eight values in the change process from the traditional to the new employment relationship. It highlights the importance of the study of each value on its own and makes the case about the interconnection of and interrelation between the eight values within the complexity of a workplace. It shows in some detail, and for each value, the accountability and responsibility of both parties in this psychological contract namely employee and organisation.

The book explains clearly the importance of the new employment relationship, the usefulness of the proposed model and how it can be used to reduce conflict in the workplace, align aspirations and objectives, encourage innovations, enterprise, learning, discipline, commitment and respect. Many examples are given on the requirements that both employees and organisation leaders need to work on and adjust to bring about harmony, success through better productivity and the creation of wealth in an increasingly competitive world. An excellent read and a distinctive addition on the internal discourse and thinking that should be bravely initiated within organisations. Irrespective of the outcome on the use of the model, the prerequisites for success can not be ignored; the onus is on all for the employment relationship to be carefully monitored.