CIPD urge managers to put people first

According to a report by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) much ‘management progress’ has been at the expense of employees.

A recent report argues that the production line, office bureaucracy, hierarchy, top down control, compliance culture and downsizing have combined to hold employees back and hinder the contribution of people to advancing business goals.

The result of such practices, claim the CIPD, is low productivity, poor morale and lackluster organisational performance.

The report, “Performance through people: the new people management” demonstrates that effective people management boosts both individual productivity and organisational performance.

Simon Caulkin, the report’s author said: “The findings of a series of reports commissioned and coordinated by the CIPD signal not a new fashion, but a historic shift – from task management to knowledge management; from the old business model of competing by minimising labour costs to the new one of competing by developing people assets.”

The CIPD said that the research demonstrates that “far-sighted, progressive people management practices – such as careful recruitment, job security, teamworking, decentralisation, communication, commitment to learning and effective leadership – enhance the bottom line”.

The report further reveals that how a company manages its people is a better predictor of performance than strategy, technology or R&D.

Geoff Armstrong, Director General, CIPD said: “The evidence is now compelling. I believe that every manager needs to assess its relevance to the strategic needs of their organisations and translate it into a dynamic plan of action.

“Managers can now demonstrate with conviction that properly thought-through, integrated and appropriately applied people management strategies, customised to individual organisations, are the most powerful driver of sustainable success.”

The report argues that the understanding of the value of well-led people sharing their knowledge of what it takes to meet customers’ ever-escalating needs is still in its infancy, and a business model that emphasises only physical inputs and outputs is still common in the UK. (SP)