High Performance Work Systems

Recently, Citigroup was undergoing massive reorganization due to the competitive forces sweeping the financial services industry. The company was also involved in ongoing mergers and acquisitions. During recent consolidations after merger activities, one of their internal Information Systems divisions had significant job cuts and layoffs. One large department of 150 people in this division experienced a twenty five percent reduction in workforce. Department management reorganized the remaining employees into a "work team" structure, and focused the teams on key internal business matters. However, there were serious performance concerns.

There was very low morale among the remaining employees, also known as "the survivors". Trust levels between staff and management were very low, as well as trust levels between all staff employees - who were a mix of the original companies. Though they were encouraged to be "high performance work teams", there was almost no teamwork. There were disorganized approaches to servicing the businesses customers. The extremely high cost of work management computers and software also made it very costly to train employees on new systems. Due to the layoffs and job cuts, there was fear and mistrust of management, and even some co-workers. A consulting company met with department management and the Chief Information Officer. Using the Transformation Project approach, they designed the following solution over a six-month period (Crossman, 2007).

They first encouraged management to organize a small leadership team, called the "Guidance Team", to help define and guide the effort. Then they developed an integrated curriculum of Self Change, Team Change, and Business Change programs, which was delivered through a three day program. This training was to be supplemented by four one-day training sessions to accelerate the "turn-around" process, both from a human resources and business operations point of view (Bohlander, Snell 2007).

Management outlined the project's measurement system. This involved examining twelve key behavioral measures of individual and team performance, as well as three key business measures that were considered important. The project was to create a reduction in software development time, an increase in mainframe system up-time and an increase in work team productivity. Also, working with the direction of the "Guidance Team", the consultants were to provide targeted coaching on an as-needed basis through the six-month period. It was predicted that issues might arise like resolving deep-seated conflict between key people, stress mastery and life balance coaching for some employees, identifying and resolving key customer concerns and process improvement activities on two key processes. The response was overwhelmingly positive, and they implemented the balance of the game plan in the following six months (Crossman, 2007).

Within that time the department experienced a dramatic change in performance, both internally and with their business unit customers. They also created a work place "community", where people now spent time together outside of work on social outings and projects like inner city Habitat for Humanity home reconstructions.

The culture of the entire department had begun to radically shift away from "we are survivors" to "we can make things happen". (Lalendle, 2000)

Over the six month period the behavioral changes were impressive: 76% increase in trust levels, 32% - 85% increases in various measures of team effectiveness (problem solving, team communication, risk-taking, team accountability, conflict resolution, team support, customer focus) a 48% increase in open, honest communication, a 75% increase in personal power / ability to respond to change, a 68% increase in personal emotional mastery, 65% reduction in stress and a 75% increase in commitment to the organization (Lalendle, 2000).

Also, because of the low morale and "survivor" attitudes that existed before the project, they took measures on the amount of fun people were having at work. This measure had gone up 82%. Equally impressive were the changes in business results. There was a 75% reduction in cycle time for software development, an increase in mainframe system up-time from 92% to 99% and a 33% - 50% increase in work team productivity. All of these were gains on the precise performance issues affecting the department. Also, the department had resolved over 30 quality and productivity issues affecting customer service levels in the six-month period. The business unit customers were so happy with these newly inspired employees; they awarded the department with a company-wide service award Citigroup is also in the middle of a major shift in its approach to high-performance computing, moving from clustered servers to a large-scale grid. They have built a service-oriented approach that delivers high-performance computing based on the revenue potential of a job. Guidance teams and computing are two examples of how the company is trying to get more efficient about how it delivers the methods that have become critical to the industry.

Works Cited
Bohlander, G & Snell, S (2007) Managing Human Resources (14^th ed.)

Mason OH: Thompson Higher learning.

Crossman, P (2007) Wall Street & Technology; InformationWeek With high- performance computing strategic and costly, companies push efficiency

Original Date April 16, 2007 Retrieved March 2, 2009 from http://www.informationweek.com/news/software/enterpriseapps/showArticle.jhtm

Lalendle, L (2000) High Performance Work Systems; Performance Development systems.

Original date April 18, 2000 Retrieved March 1, 2009 from https://www.msu.edu/~lalendle/HPWS.htm