Purpose and content of the article
The purpose of the article by Jeffrey Pfeffer titled “Producing Sustainable Competitive Advantage Through Effective Management of People” is to enlighten the fact that the competitive success of a company depends upon the management of its workforce a lot among many other factors. The author has emphasized on the fact the pillars of any company are its workforce, its employees; they can take a company to the way to its success amidst small or large crisis when handled sympathetically and provided with rewards when deserved but if the workforce is neglected as a contributing factor in the competitive success in front of other factors, the result might be disastrous for a company (Senge 2006).
Jeffrey Pfeffer has stated examples of five successful firms or companies from 1972 to 1992 treating their employees as their pillars compassionately in front of technology, patent or strategic position from a wide variety of fields along with companies doing the opposite and having contrasting results in their performances. He has provided lucid statistics supporting all his examples. Jeffrey Pfeffer has stated about thirteen principles of managing workforce in the article. He has not forgot to mention that though these are the ways which yield positive results regarding the performance of a company, it might not yield the same result for all the companies (Pfeffer 2005).
Strengths and weaknesses of the article
If the article is looked at from outside it would appear a long and complicated one. But as and when it is read though the strategic presentation along with excellent strong statistics becomes increasingly mind capturing. The author, Jeffrey Pfeffer has discussed in so minute details the link between rewarding employees and the competitive success of a company supported by examples and solid figures that it reflects his deep knowledge in to the subject (Thomas and Velthouse 2007).
Jeffrey Pfeffer has cited the examples of companies or industries from varied, actually totally unrelated fields (Shen 2009). That has supported his point to a great extent that, whatever the field of industry is, whatever the product is and whatever the working principles of the companies are, valuing and rewarding the workforce or the manpower is utmost important, no matter which way the rewarding is done (Spitzer 2007). Pfeffer has contrasted the examples of the successful companies with the declining progress story of the companies once doing better but loosing the way in the middle due to the mistake of taking the employees as granted or making them work under the pressure or fear of loosing job (Stephen and Roithmayr 2006). This comparison has made his point stronger by showing the reader the contrast in the results of the competitive success graph of both the types. This has prevented the article from falling flat. The reader can get motivated by the fact that the attainment of success and outperforming the competitors by the stated companies have not been an easy process; each of them had their own problems, and they came out in flying colors because of the committed efficient workforce created by them (Spector 2006). But Jeffrey Pfeffer has not forgot to mention that the workforce is only one, though the most important, contributing factors leading to a company’s success. If a company has a good manpower and defect in any other policies, it may lead to the opposite direction as well (Shah 2007).
The most important feature of the article which makes it one of its types is the summarization of the method of managing workforce into thirteen points by the author. He has stated the thirteen points according to the order of importance which cover the way a company should treat and manage its employees as well as what a company can expect from its employees (Shingo and Sallach 2007).
The thirteen ways that Jeffrey Pfeffer has mentioned are Employment Security, Selectivity in Recruiting, High Wages, Incentive Pay, Employee Ownership, Information Sharing, Participation and Empowerment, Self-Managed Teams, Training and Skill Development, Cross-utilization and Cross-Training, Symbolic Egalitarianism, Wage Compression, Promotion from Within, Taking the Long View, Measurement of the Practices and Overarching Philosophy. These points have covered all the probable questions along with their answers regarding man management (Pfeffer 2005).
Among them points like wage compression, promotion from within, taking the long view and measurement of the practices have been detailed more than the other points, which could have been done in a compact way also (Prajogo 2008). Pfeffer has given the proof of his sense of responsibility by cautioning the readers also about the probability of failure of a company to implement all those practices together, whereas it is not impossible either. Application of these principles for managing workforce can’t hide the failure of any other weak side of the company. Pfeffer said that the mentality of the employee is very important as an employee who is concerned for the reward only but lacks commitment or team spirit can never result in good growth (Greve 2006).
Though Pfeffer has succeeded in making the article appeal both the ways, namely the employer and the employee rather than emphasizing one way on the duties of the employer only, a little more about the responsibilities of the employees would help a reader to know what a compassionate employer can expect from his employees.
Links between performance and rewards
Jeffrey Pfeffer has stated examples of top industries from varied fields like airlines, retailer chain, poultry producer etc. He has stated all the challenges these companies faced to fight through to proceed in the way to success. This article is obviously a part of the debate concerning the links between performance and rewards as all the stated examples are from different fields but they have in common only one thing that is the superb recognition and management of their man power (Petty 2008). All the companies the author stated have different products, different ways of working and different ways of rewarding their manpower. In each and every case, whatever the way of rewarding the workforce, the company has flourished (Morgan 2006).
They had problems to deal with, but those problems were overpowered with the committed employees. Jeffrey Pfeffer has strategically shown that rewarding the manpower in one form or other has proved to the sign of long sightedness as employees could work with commitment without any fear; whereas the companies which did not take rewarding the employees as the primary investment flourished in short run but perished in long run as fear as an employee driving force proves to be short lived always. Jeffrey Pfeffer has talked about mistakes made by companies which had good growth once using some or the other policies except handling manpower efficiently and getting defunct later (Svernssen 2006). The paradigms of competitive success have changed, so according to Pfeffer, instead of cutting the expense after the workforce it is important to reward them in a way suitable to the company.
The summary is that the article covers everything related to the way of rewarding the workforce and getting competitive success against neglecting the manpower and lagging behind in the competition. At any point, if any question is debated for or against the link between performance and rewards, the article has the answer in it. So, it must be a part of the debate concerning the links between performance and rewards (Nerkar 2008).
References
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