-50%
Solution
High Performance Work Practices; Importance to Organisations
In different published literature, high performance work practices (HPWP) is defined as holistic state of mental, emotional and physical health (Tuzovic & Kabadayi, 2021; Pradhan & Hati, 2022; and Yan et al., 2020). In supporting these definitions, CIPD (2023b) factsheet identified the HPWP as assisting in increasing resilience level, appropriate staff engagement, lowering sickness absenteeism, high performance and productivity. This is achieved since HPWP is integrated in organisation purpose of championing better working and working lives. The outcome of this include delivering mutual benefits to individuals, organisations, economies and communities. The benefit of this include what Rasool et al. (2021) identify as creation of an environment that harness a state of contentment and mutual benefit to employees and organisations. For example, in Saudi Aramco, Post COVID-19 pandemic, multiple HPWP initiatives were implemented. The outcome of this was reduced number of employees absenteeism, burnouts and overall engagement levels in their assigned roles. As supported by CIPD (2023c) report, these have been achieved by the organisation being in a position of using a range of approaches including the employees assistance programs, mental health first aid training, wellbeing champions and promotion of flexible working options.
HPWP strategies; benefit to stakeholders (Employers and Employees)
There is no one-size-fits-all strategy of enhancing the HPWP. Nevertheless, the selected strategy should be influenced by the uniqueness of needs to be met and characteristics of the organisation and its workforce (CIPD, 2023b). The examples of applicable strategies include;
Flexible Working Hours and Employee Assistance Programs
Adopting the definition of CIPD (2023d), flexible working is a form of work arrangement which offer employees with a substantial scope of flexibility in terms of how long, where, when and what times they are involved in working. Currently, an upward of 51% or more than half of the employees note that flexible working arrangement is appropriate in their role with the numbers increasing. In past 6 months, more than third of organisations at 40% have recorded an increase in requests made for flexible working.
Adopting the definition of CIPD HR-Inform (2023), the Employee Assistance Programs (EAPs) are a set of initiatives which are set for assisting staff with individualised, work-linked, concerns and issues which impact their job performance/wellbeing. In Shalton (2023) report focusing on global EAP, it hypothesis that as of 2022, the sector was worth $7,000 and projected to increase with 5.5.3% by 2023 to be approximately $9,500 million by 2027. In Saudi Aramco, through EAP, a healthy working environment is developed with a capacity for attracting and retaining best and talented people. This is since as noted in AIHR (2023) a successful EAP lead to improved empathy, support system, understanding hence an increase in workplace morale and positive overall working environment.
Considering an organisation such as Saudi Aramco, to identify the impact of this strategy on stakeholders, Mendelow Matrix can be used to analyse the stakeholders.
Figure 1:Mendelow Matrix Analysis of Stakeholders
In category A, Saudi Aramco an employer’s end-users of their services can be classified here. In terms of the flexible working and EAP as HPWP strategies, they have a limited power of influencing organisation strategy for HPWP. Nevertheless, employers benefits indirectly as Gallup (2023) hypothesis that with employees feeling HPWP is harnessed, they improve in terms of customers engagement. Also, Gallup (2022) noted that with through flexible working and EAPs,
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