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Developments in humanresource management inmanufacturing in modernBritainMichael Poole & Glenville JenkinsPublished online: 18 Feb 2011.

To cite this article: Michael Poole & Glenville Jenkins (1997) Developmentsin human resource management in manufacturing in modern Britain, TheInternational Journal of Human Resource Management, 8:6, 841-856, DOI:10.1080/095851997341360

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Developments in human resourcemanagement in manufacturing in modernBritain

Michael Poole and Glenville Jenkins

Abstract In this paper, developments in human resource management in manufacturingin modern Britain based on a national sample are examined. The organization and role ofhuman resource management, employee involvement, training and development, workpractices and rewards are all targeted for an assessment of current practices. This is aprelude for a contrast between manufacturing and non-manufacturing. The conclusion isthat the similarities between manufacturing and non-manufacturing substantially out-weigh the differences. By inference, too, developments in human resource managementpractices are likely to re� ect changes in the broader environment of businesses (anddifferences between companies) rather than being speci� c to the main industrialsectors.

Keywords Human resource management, organization and role, employee involve-ment, training and development, work practices, rewards, manufacturing and non-manufacturing

Introduction

Does manufacturing really matter? In certain fundamental respects this is incontestablein that: (a) advanced successful economies arguably have strong tiers of supportingactivities (agriculture, manufacturing, services); (b) world trade is predominantlyin manufacturing; and (c) technological advances are particularly important in themanufacturing sector. However, in respect of employment relations, there remains abasic issue of whether general trends and patterns in given socio-political and eco-nomic contexts transcend differences between the main employment sectors. Moreover,in respect of the adoption of human resource management policies and practices inmodern Britain, our general conclusion, from an original database, is that thesimilarities between manufacturing and non-manufacturing (at least within the privatesector) are almost certainly substantially greater than the differences.

The aim of this paper, then, is to examine the patterns of adoption of human resourcemanagement policies and practices in Britain focusing on the manufacturing sector. Itsorigins may be traced to an interest in establishing the extent to which, in companies inBritain, various policies and practices in human resource management have beendeveloped. There have, of course, been an increasing number of empirical studies inBritain in which attempts have been made to draw out some of the main patterns (e.g.Storey, 1992; Purcell and Ahlstrand, 1994; Sisson, 1993); and these have beenaugmented by major international studies (e.g. the Price Waterhouse/Cran� eldEuropean researches and the world-wide future-oriented study conducted under theauspices of IBM and Towers Perrin). But there have been few genuinely national

The International Journal of Human Resource Management 8:6 December 1997

0985–5192 © Chapman & Hall 1997

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studies, in which the main issues involved here have been the focal points of theinvestigation.

The survey

The ‘methodological’ basis of this paper is a survey of fellows and members of theInstitute of Management conducted in 1994. Eight main categories of issue wereencompassed in the questionnaire:

1 The role of human resource management in the strategies of the � rm, thenomenclature, organization and recruitment of the personnel/human resource depart-ment and details on the human resource management role.

2 The adoption of human resource policies for gaining competitive advantage focusingon: corporate development, training and development, communications and participa-tion, employee welfare and rewards and performance.

3 Employee involvement concerning areas as diverse as communications and jointconsultation, collective bargaining and employee attitude surveys.

4 Training and development encompassing appraisal, management development and avariety of modern career, training and development approaches, including Investorsin People and National Vocational Quali� cations (NVQs).

5 Work practices such as job enrichment, broadly de� ned jobs and employeeresponsibility for quality control.

6 Human resource management approaches to rewards, including pro� t sharing, pro� t-related pay, payment for quality and equal pay for equal work.

7 The effects of the business environment on future developments in personnel/humanresource management, such as increasing competition, changing employee values andEuropean applications and developments.

8 Demographic and other information on such issues as respondents’ jobs, functions,their educational backgrounds and inter-� rm mobility.

Questionnaires were posted to a random sample of fellows and members of the Instituteof Management in January 1994 and, to increase the response, there was a secondposting in March 1994. From the original sample of 3,000 there were 909 usable returns(a response rate of 30.3 per cent). This is not untypical of postal surveys and, inabsolute terms, provides a substantial number of respondents upon which to base ourconclusions. In respect of manufacturing, 25 per cent of respondents indicated that theactivity of their organizations was manufacturing/production. But, if we con� ne ouranalysis to private manufacturing organizations, there were 218 valid cases in all.

Debates and � ndings

The original data presented in this paper are designed to amplify many of the centraldebates on actual human resource management practices in manufacturing in Britain.We begin by examining the nomenclature and structure of the personnel/humanresources department. Four main areas have then been targeted for more detailedanalysis: employee involvement; training and development; work practices andrewards. We examine � rst the patterns of adoption of various practices under each ofthese heads. This is a prelude to a more detailed analysis of the issue of whether themanufacturing and non-manufacturing sectors have different experiences in theserespects.

842 Michael Poole and Glenville Jenkins

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Human resource management: organization and role

A large number of conceptual models exist concerning the role of personnel/humanresource managers and these provide insights into its complex and fragmented nature.As Sisson (1989) informs us, the role may differ depending on business strategy,organizational structure, degree of centralization or de-centralization, ownership andage of organization, to name but a few. However, despite the level of complexityand fragmentation of the personnel role, three con� icting viewpoints can beidenti� ed.

The � rst is that, because of the decline in trade union power, the role of personnelmanagers is in terminal decline and is being replaced by the line management function.Linked into this view is that the primary function of personnel managers in the post-warperiod was that of industrial relations. The decline in trade union power has meant thatthis specialist role is becoming obsolete. This has had implications beyond the industrialrelations function and has led to a re-evaluation of the role and to the belief thatpersonnel/human resource managers should no longer have responsibility for such keyfunctions as recruitment and selection but that these should be devolved down theline.

The second view is that personnel/human resource managers should becomeintegrated into the management team and identify more closely with the overall aims ofthe organization. They should also adopt a more strategic focus on the managementof people and work closely with the line on operational issues. Central to this argumentis the involvement of the personnel specialist on the board of directors or his/herparticipation in strategic decision making at every level of the organization.

The third view is that of the status quo. As Legge (1989) has concluded, the aboveviews of the personnel/human resource management role are incompatible with existingUK industrial relations institutions and structures. A movement towards an integrativeor ‘HRM’ approach in terms of initiatives such as communication, involvement andtraining is not seen as feasible without changing the nature of industrial relationsmanagement fundamentally. A more signi� cant change towards HRM would beevidence which pointed to strategic integration of a form which confronted theindustrial relations institutions of the past, i.e. � exibility, job design and rewardsystems. However, where strategic integration can be identi� ed, limitations exist at thelevel of implementation because of existing industrial relations structures which inmanufacturing, arguably, have not altered so fundamentally.

First, then, we felt it important to inquire of the respondents whether the toppersonnel/human resource manager in their organizations had representation on the toppolicy committee, e.g. board of directors. Respondents reported a high incidence ofsuch representation (67.9 per cent).

Moreover, respondents were asked to identify the top personnel/human resourcemanager in their organization from a selection of traditional designated titles extractedfrom the titles of members of the Personnel Professional Lead Body. Table 1 shows thedesignated titles of the most senior personnel manager within their manufacturingorganizations. The importance of directorates in this role, and in particular, managingdirectors, should be noted. Interestingly, 17.9 per cent of manufacturing organizationsdid not have a traditional title for their head of personnel. When comparing those withpersonnel in the title with those with human resource, the most popular designation ispersonnel (47.9 per cent) and human resource managers remain in a minority (18.5 percent).

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Centralized headquarters was the major organizational unit responsible for setting strategicpersonnel/human resources direction and policy in 56 per cent of cases. Personneldepartments in manufacturing, whether centralized or not, were reported to be primarilyorganized on a � exible basis, i.e. around the work to be done (51.8 per cent) rather thana functional basis i.e. speci� c areas like recruitment (41.3 per cent). In the majority ofpersonnel departments (56 per cent), the ratio of human resources staff to the total work-force over the last five years has remained stable. None the less, a decrease was experiencedin 18.3 per cent of manufacturing organizations and an increase in only 11.9 per cent,perhaps indicating a decline in personnel staff overall.

Employee Involvement

Human resource management has, as one of its central tenets, the assumption thatemployees are the single most important asset of the organization. To the extent thatthis is the case, to facilitate greater employee in� uence or involvement is clearly basicto successful human resource practices in the � rm. As the Harvard group has noted inthe classic book Human Resource Management:

This policy area (employee in� uence) has to do with a key question that all managersmust ask: how much responsibility, authority, and power should the organizationvoluntarily delegate and to whom? If required by government legislation to bargain withunions or consult with worker councils, how should management enter into theseinstitutional relationships? Will they seek to minimise the power and in� uence of theselegislated mechanisms? Or will they share in� uence and work to create greatercongruencies of interests between management and the employee groups representedthrough these mechanisms? The managerial task here is to develop the organisation’spolicy regarding the amount of in� uence employee stakeholders have with respect tosuch diverse matters as business goals, pay, working conditions, career progression,employment security, or the task itself; and to attempt to implement these policies.Inevitably, decisions about employee in� uence affect traditional management decisionswhether they are made explicitly, or as is often the case, implicitly.

(Beer et al., 1985: 8)

Table 1 Designated title of the top personnel/human resource manager in manufacturingorganizations

TitleBase: all respondents %

Personnel Director 21.1Personnel Manager 12.4Managing Director 17.9Human Resources Director 6Director of Group Personnel 3.2Personnel Of� cer 3.2Chief Executive 2.3Head of Personnel Services 0.9Head of Personnel 2.3Director of Group Human Resources 6Human Resources Manager 4.6Head of Human Resources 1.4Other 17.9

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There are three principal routes to greater employee involvement. The � rst is bylegislated standards on employee participation (e.g. works councils, support foremployee � nancial participation). The second is the traditional union mode ofinvolvement linked with formal and informal collective bargaining. The third isinitiatives by management to support employee participation in the work itself and toprovide opportunities for employees to voice their views on developments andproblems. Typically British management has supported individualistic task-basedpractices, but has been more opposed to collectivist, trade union-based participation(see Poole and Mans� eld, 1993).

To try and establish how far these practices have been adopted in Britishmanufacturing organizations we asked respondents about the extent to which theirorganizations were involved in a variety of forms of employee involvement. The resultsare set out in Table 2. It will be seen that the communications forms of involvementwere particularly common. Thus, 59.1 per cent of respondents reported that theirorganizations were fully or considerably involved in regular meetings betweensupervisors and work groups/team brie� ng. Moreover, 44.6 per cent of respondentsindicated that their organizations made full or considerable use of organizationnewsletters.

But a common group of practices in manufacturing remains various trade union-based or consultative modes of employee involvement. Thus, 46.3 per cent ofrespondents reported either full or considerable involvement in the handling ofindividual grievances brought by union representatives. Also, the relevant � gures forjoint consultation with employees and for formal collective bargaining were 43.2 percent and 41.6 per cent respectively. Moreover, it is of interest to note the limitedinvolvement in quality circles, works councils and suggestions schemes. After all, in therhetoric of best practice in manufacturing, quality circles and suggestions schemes arefrequently stressed. This could be because Britain still lags behind world-wide bestpractice, but it may be that the adoption of these employee involvement practices hasbeen overstated.

About a quarter to a third of respondents reported that their manufacturing � rmsmade full or considerable use of suggestions schemes, job redesign, employee attitudesurveys, management committees and quality circles. Moreover, works councils andproductivity bargaining featured in roughly six in ten � rms in manufacturing.

Training and development

Turning to human resource development issues, recent debates on competitiveadvantage have focused increasingly on these matters. For instance, in the USA, Dunlop(1992) has argued that economic growth and improvement in productivity depend onfour basic factors: research and development, investment in plant and equipment,investment in infrastructure and investment in human resource development. In hisview, human resources development and the creation of a more productive, skilled andadaptable work-force in turn depends on six factors: (1) the educational system, (2)health care, (3) training and retraining, (4) family policy, (5) labour managementpolicies at the workplace and (6) the general health of public service in the country. Inaddition, in a major survey of Western European nations, human resource developmentwas found to be the most important personnel function in all the main countriescovered, and more important than, say, compensation, industrial relations or productiv-ity management (Hilb, 1992).

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Table 2 Extent of involvement in employee involvement practices (manufacturing organizations, n 5 218)

Employee involvement practicesBase: all respondents

Full involvement%

Considerableinvolvement %

Some involvement%

Little involvement%

No involvement%

Regular meetings between supervisors andworks groups/team brie� ng

27.0 32.1 26.0 10.2 4.7

Organization newsletters 26.5 18.1 21.9 11.2 22.3Handling individual grievances brought by

union representatives26.2 20.1 18.7 7.5 27.6

Formal collective bargaining 24.8 16.8 13.6 13.1 31.8Joint consultation with employees 18.1 25.1 30.7 16.7 9.3Works councils 14.5 11.2 17.3 14.0 43.0Quality circles 13.6 16.8 18.7 18.2 32.7Suggestion schemes 13.0 12.6 19.5 20.5 34.4Management committees where there is

employee or union representation11.3 19.2 16.9 9.9 42.7

New technology agreements 8.9 9.3 21.0 21.5 39.3Employee attitude surveys 8.4 14.9 20.0 14.4 42.3Productivity bargaining 8.4 12.6 19.1 16.3 43.7Informal collective bargaining 7.6 8.5 17.5 17.1 49.3Job redesign involving employees 7.5 20.1 28.0 25.7 18.7

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A wide range of practices have emerged in Britain in recent years in respect ofhuman resource development. Five main emergent trends may be isolated: (1) appraisal,(2) management development, (3) career development, (4) European issues and (5) themajor public initiatives covering areas such as Investors in People, National VocationalQuali� cations (NVQs) and credit accumulated learning. An Investor in People in theUK is a � rm which not only regularly reviews the training and development needs ofemployees but also takes action to train and develop individuals on recruitment andthroughout their employment. It also makes a public commitment from the top todevelop all employees to achieve business objectives. National Vocational Quali� ca-tions are based on standards set by industry and are designed to be � exible. They areplaced in a framework according to work and level (of which there are � ve withadvancing competencies). These various practices were analysed in our survey and theevidence is set out in Table 3 where it will be seen that appraisal featured as the mostpervasive of all the listed training and development practices in modern manufacturing.Indeed, 58 per cent of respondents indicated that, in their organizations, there was eitherfull involvement or considerable involvement in appraisal. Only 12.7 per cent ofrespondents said that there was no involvement in these practices.

Management development also appears to be well entrenched, with 41 per centindicating full or considerable involvement and only 12.7 per cent suggesting noinvolvement in this important practice in their organizations. Competence-basedtraining appears to be widespread, with 40.2 per cent indicating either full orconsiderable involvement and only 16.9 per cent indicating no involvement in thispractice in their organizations. And, with training needs analysis, 40.6 per cent ofrespondents reported full or considerable involvement, with only 17 per cent reportingno involvement.

As far as the important recent public initiatives in NVQs and Investors in People areconcerned, the involvement of British manufacturing organizations appears to be lesswell developed than in the case of the other practices which we have so far identi� ed.In respect of NVQs, 28 per cent of respondents reported full or considerableinvolvement, but a further 33.8 per cent indicated that their organizations were notinvolved at all. It was reported by 22 per cent of respondents that for the Investors inPeople Initiative there was either full or considerable involvement in their organiza-tions, but, at the other extreme, 40.7 per cent reported no involvement.

Three further training and development practices are at least reasonably common inBritish organizations. Thus 25.6 per cent of respondents reported either full orconsiderable involvement in coaching, counselling and mentoring, while continuousself-development and career path development were widespread in about a � fth oforganizations.

Several recently well-publicized practices in training and development do not appearto feature prominently in British manufacturing organizations. Over four in ten ofrespondents reported that their organizations had no involvement in open learning; andover a half reported no involvement in the assessment of prior learning. A further 60.8per cent indicated that there was no involvement in European issues in training anddevelopment and the respective percentages for credit accumulated learning andnegotiated learning programmes were 62.3 per cent and 68.7 per cent. There is clearly,therefore, a very uneven picture in respect of the adoption of these human resourcedevelopment practices, with some forms featuring strongly but others not being present(other than in super� cial ways) at all in modern manufacturing organizations.

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Table 3 Extent of involvement in training and development practices (manufacturing enterprises, n 5 218)

Training and developmentBase: all respondents

Full involvement%

Considerableinvolvement %

Some involvement%

Little involvement%

No involvement%

Appraisal 31.1 26.9 18.4 10.8 12.7Competence-based training 17.2 23.0 27.8 15.3 16.7Training needs analysis 15.6 25.0 25.5 17.0 17.0Management development 15.1 25.9 33.0 15.1 10.8Investors in People initiative 12.0 10.0 18.7 18.7 40.7National Vocational Quali� cations 10.8 16.2 22.1 17.2 33.8Coaching, counselling and mentoring 9.5 16.1 34.6 18.5 21.3Open learning 6.2 9.1 20.6 21.5 42.6Continuous self-development 5.7 16.2 24.8 32.4 21.0Career path development 5.7 12.8 24.2 25.6 31.8Assessment of prior learning 5.3 3.8 17.8 21.6 51.4Negotiated learning programme 4.9 2.9 7.8 15.5 68.9European issues on training and development 3.3 4.3 12.4 19.1 60.8Credit accumulated learning 2.4 1.9 8.7 24.6 62.3

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Work practices

Two major approaches dominate the analysis of work organization and practice:scienti� c management or Taylorism (Taylor, 1911; Littler, 1982) and the strategies of‘responsible autonomy’ and ‘� exible specialization’ (Trist, 1963; Sabel, 1982; Pioreand Sabel, 1984). The former has been associated with traditional models of personnelmanagement and its role in the development of more sophisticated work-designmethods involving more humane work practices under Taylorism – generally referred toas the quality of working life (QWL) movement. The latter, in contrast, has beenassociated with developments in strategic human resource management, functional� exibility and the encouragement of employee ‘responsibility’ and ‘commitment’.

Personnel policies in the area of work design were � rst concerned with aspects of jobrotation and enlargement. These were the � rst work-design techniques to be advocatedas an antidote to Tayloristic methods. For example, job enlargement involves therecombination of tasks previously separated by Taylorism. In periods of fullemployment they were viewed as simple ways of reducing the costs of turnover,absenteeism and con� ict generated by Taylorist methods.

Work-design methods based on theories of motivation in terms of composite roles orautonomous work groups and job enrichment were introduced in the 1960s and 1970s.Of these methods, job enrichment has been easily the more popular in practice. Itspopularity may have something to do with its goal of improving motivation andperformance of employees without increasing wages and leaving organizationalstructures and managerial authority intact. In contrast, autonomous work groups require,at least, a re-evaluation of managerial authority in the workplace and the delegation ofauthority to the employee. These work methods have had limited impact in the UK. AsBuchanan notes:

Work design has tended to be regarded and applied as an isolated management techniqueaimed at local organisational problems and at individual jobs and work groups, ratherthan realising that it must be part of the whole company philosophy, through all levels,if it is to be really successful.

(Buchanan, 1989: 92)

However, Buchanan identi� es three developments which may lead to a reassessment ofwork design in the 1990s: (1) increased competition for trade, both domestically andinternationally; (2) the impact of stress on work performance; (3) the newtechnology.

Two of these have a bearing on the second theme, namely, the strategy of � exiblespecialization. New technology and marketplace competitiveness are clearly transform-ing workplace relationships. In response to these developments, managers haveintroduced � exible working strategies and have also made use of the new technologiesto improve their competitive advantage, no where more so than in work design.

We asked respondents the extent to which their organizations were involved in anumber of work practices. As can be seen from Table 4, quality control and informingemployees of results (in terms of costs, yields, production, quality or customercomplaints) are common working practices of the 1990s. Indeed, 67.6 per cent ofrespondents indicated that their organizations had full or considerable involvement ingiving employees responsibility for quality control. Similarly, 53 per cent ofrespondents reported that feedback to employees on results was an important feature ofthe work practices in their organizations.

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Table 4 Extent of involvement in work practices in manufacturing in Britain (n 5 218)

Training and developmentBase: all respondents

Full involvement%

Considerableinvolvement %

Some involvement%

Little involvement%

No involvement%

Employee responsibility for quality control 28.2 39.4 19.7 8.5 4.2Feedback to employees on results 21.1 31.9 23.9 12.7 10.3Job design 12.8 22.3 25.6 19.9 19.4Employee responsibility for scheduling work 9.9 17.8 24.4 23.5 24.4Employee responsibility for budgeting 8.6 10.5 16.2 23.3 41.4Employee responsibility for inventory control 8.0 16.9 20.7 23.5 31.0Job enlargement 6.2 16.1 28.4 19.4 29.9Job enrichment 6.2 11.4 23.2 24.6 34.6Autonomous work groups 5.8 13.5 18.8 21.2 40.9Broadly de� ned jobs 4.3 26.1 27.1 20.8 21.7Combined tasks (composite roles) 3.3 18.7 22.5 20.1 35.4

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Job design, broadly de� ned jobs, employee responsibility for scheduling work andemployee responsibility for inventory control were also found to be common practicesin manufacturing in Britain. Thus, the percentages of respondents reporting full orconsiderable involvement in these four work practices were 35.1 30.4, 27.7 and 24.9respectively. Job enlargement (22.3 per cent) and combined tasks (composite roles) (22per cent) also appear to be quite commonly well developed, with full or considerableinvolvement. Other working practices have not been widely adopted. Thus, thepercentages of respondents reporting either full or considerable involvement inautonomous work groups was 19.3 per cent; employee responsibility for budgeting,19.1 per cent; and job enrichment, 17.6 per cent.

The introduction of some modern aspects of work organization is more limited thanone would anticipate and many innovative practices seem to have had only a partialimpact on work organization in Britain. However, what is clear is that quality controland communicating to employees the results of their endeavours are central to workingpractices today.

Rewards

Another key feature of modern approaches to human resource management, withinmanufacturing and elsewhere, is the system of rewards. According to Armstrong andMurlis, ‘reward management strategies and policies are driven by corporate and humanresource management strategies’ (1991:18). A number of pay strategies are available tomanagement in the 1990s, including production-based pay, skill-based pay andknowledge-based pay. First, production-based pay or job-based pay is associated withTaylorist methods of mass production and incorporates such systems as job evaluationand price rates. Associated with this tradition too is the ‘rate for the job’ and notions ofequality expressed now in UK public policy in the Equal Pay Act. More recently, outputor production rather than the job has become the central focus with performance-relatedschemes dominating British practice. Second, skill-based pay allocates differentials inpay based on differences in skills or competencies of non-managerial employees. Theemployee’s skill, not the outcome of the job, forms the basis of pay. Finally,knowledge-based pay is a form of skill-based pay but typically applies to managerialand professional employees. Pay is determined by the acquisition of knowledge, e.g. interms of the depth of knowledge needed in a particular area (Lawler, 1990).

However, reward strategies not only involve remuneration but also non-monetaryrewards. And generally the structure of the reward package is related to the job, theexpectations of the employee and labour-market conditions. Moreover, one of thesalient features of the 1980s and 1990s has been government intervention in themanagement of remuneration in terms of tax incentives for pro� t sharing and pro� t-related schemes. Their promotion in the 1980s (see Poole, 1989; Poole and Jenkins,1990) led to an upsurge in the take-up of such schemes. Growth has also been noted inharmonization policies, particularly in Green� eld sites which attempting to break awayfrom the incentive-led strategies of the post-war period.

We asked respondents the extent to which their organizations were involved in avariety of reward practices. Table 5 shows the diversity of approaches operating in therespondents’ organizations. The most common reward practices in manufacturing(using the full and considerable involvement responses) are: (1) equal pay for equalwork (49.1 per cent); (2) skill-based pay (32.4 per cent); (3) executive share schemes(26.5 per cent); (4) save as you earn schemes (25.8 per cent); (5) payment by results/

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Table 5 Extent of involvement in reward practices in manufacturing in Britain (n 5 218)

RewardsBase: all respondents

Full involvement%

Considerableinvolvement %

Some involvement%

Little involvement%

No involvement%

Equal pay for equal work 30.5 18.6 16.7 7.1 27.1Executive share schemes 18.8 7.7 12.5 4.3 56.7Save as you earn share schemes 18.3 7.5 10.8 6.1 57.3Plant-wide bonus schemes 13.9 9.6 11.5 4.3 60.8Skill-based pay 11.9 20.5 24.3 14.8 28.6Individual bonus schemes 11.7 9.7 16.5 3.4 58.7Fringe bene� ts 11.4 13.3 27.6 16.2 31.4Pro� t-related pay 10.9 5.7 10.9 7.6 64.9Pro� t sharing (with cash awards) 10.3 9.4 11.3 4.7 64.3Payment by results/performance related pay 10.0 14.8 17.1 7.6 50.5Pro� t sharing (with shares in the

organization)9.9 4.7 8.0 4.2 73.1

Production-based pay 8.7 12.6 14.5 6.8 57.5Knowledge-based pay 3.4 16.8 18.3 18.3 43.3Payment for quality 1.9 5.8 10.6 9.6 72.1

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performance-related pay (24.8 per cent); (6) fringe bene� ts (24.7 per cent); (7) plant-wide bonuses (23.5 per cent); (8) production-based pay (21.3 per cent); (9) individualbonus schemes (21.4 per cent); (10) knowledge-based pay (20.2 per cent).

Clearly equal pay for equal work has become a signi� cant feature of paymentsystems in the 1990s, with skilled-based pay, executive share schemes and save as youearn schemes being consequential approaches. Moreover, the importance of fringebene� ts and plant-wide bonuses has not obviously waned. Given the importance ofemployee responsibility for quality initiatives in changes in work practices, reward forquality plays an insigni� cant role in reward management. And, in general, it is arguablethat many distinctively human resource-style reward systems have not been adopted asstrongly as might have been expected in manufacturing in modern Britain.

Manufacturing and non-manufacturing

So far, then, we have examined the organization of the personnel/human resource roleand the adoption of various human resource management practices in manufacturingenterprises in Britain. We now turn, more speci� cally, to our second theme: that is, can� rms in the manufacturing sector be regarded as markedly different from other privatenon-manufacturing enterprises in Britain?

Taking � rst the organization of the personnel/human resource management role, innone of the instances examined is there signi� cant difference to be observed. Thisapplies to place on policy committee, title of personnel/human resources manager,whether the organizational unit responsible for personnel issues is at centralizedheadquarters, whether the role is organized on a functional or � exible basis and whetherthe personnel staff in the organization is likely to increase, decrease or remain thesame.

However, in respect of employee involvement, a rather different and more complexpattern is evident. Using chi-squared values in respect of manufacturing/non-manufacturing companies, based on each employee involvement item identi� ed in ourstudy, signi� cant differences were observable for suggestions schemes (p , 0.03),works councils (p , 0.001), productivity bargaining (p , 0.001), new technologyagreements (p , 0.05), formal collective bargaining (p , 0.001), informal collectivebargaining (p , 0.05), management committees with employee or union representation(p , 0.001), and individual grievances brought by union representatives (p , 0.001). Inall these respects, manufacturing enterprises were more likely than non-manufacturingenterprises to have these various forms of employee involvement.

However, the central explanation is almost certainly the higher degree of trade unionrecognition, organization and activity in manufacturing rather than non-manufacturingenterprises. Indeed, other types of employee involvement are neither more nor lesslikely to be present in manufacturing as opposed to non-manufacturing enterprises.Hence, it is not that manufacturing enterprises are more likely to have various forms ofemployee involvement as a consequence of favourable management initiatives; butrather, because of greater union activity, union-based forms of employee involvementare far more common in manufacturing concerns. Moreover, the � ndings reinforce thearguments presented earlier that the adoption of quality circles and suggestions schemeshas been overstated in the literature. In addition, the likelihood of an associationbetween union presence and certain forms of employee involvement reinforces the viewof writers such as Sisson (1993) that, if anything, human resource managementpractices are enhanced by trade union activity.

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Training and development practices in Britain are typically similar for bothmanufacturing and non-manufacturing concerns. There are slight differences in thatcontinuous self-development (p , 0.001) and career path development (p , 0.005) aremore common in non-manufacturing organizations as are accumulated learningprogrammes (p , 0.03) and coaching and mentoring (p , 0.06). But for the vastmajority of training and development practices identi� ed in this study, there are nosigni� cant differences between manufacturing and non-manufacturing sectors.

Among work practices, a similar argument applies. There is a greater propensity fornon-manufacturing concerns to have employee responsibility for budgeting (p , 0.001)and for scheduling (p , 0 009) and there are smaller differences (in the same direction)for job design (p , 0.03) and broadly de� ned jobs (p , 0.05), whereas autonomouswork groups are more likely to be present in manufacturing concerns (p , 0.03).However, given that so many of the work practices identi� ed here are particularlyassociated with manufacturing, what is surprising is how similar are the patterns ofadoption of work practices in � rms across the different employment sectors.

In respect of rewards, too, the similarities between the manufacturing and non-manufacturing concerns outweigh the differences. Plant-wide bonuses (p , 0.001) andskill-based pay (p , 0.001) are more common practices in manufacturing. Meanwhile,performance-related pay (p , 0.001), individual bonuses (p , 0.003) and pro� t sharingthrough cash awards (p , 0.06) are more likely to have been adopted as rewardpractices in non-manufacturing. But the differences are not dramatic and are again bestexplained by the more common use of collective forms of remuneration in manufactur-ing and individual forms of remuneration in non-manufacturing enterprises.

Conclusions

Our overall conclusion must be, therefore, that as far as the adoption of various humanresource management practices is concerned, manufacturing per se does not greatlymatter. In both manufacturing and non-manufacturing concerns there is likely to be:

1 participation at board level by the senior personnel of� cer;2 the predominant title deployed to be personnel rather than human resources;3 the personnel/human resources role to be organized � exibly and to be located at

central headquarters;4 stable employment in the personnel department but for cases in which there is a

decline in staff to outweigh those where employment is increasing.

Most training and development practices are just as likely or unlikely to be adopted inmanufacturing as in non-manufacturing concerns. And, typically, the same argumentcan be applied to work practices and most forms of rewards. However, what is radicallydifferent is the continued use of trade union-based forms of employee involvement inmanufacturing concerns coupled with the use of collective rather than individual rewardsystems. This may mean that the adoption of individual patterns of involvement andreward has proved to be more dif� cult to accomplish in manufacturing than non-manufacturing enterprises. But our view must be that, although there are interestingpatterns of development in human resource management practices in modern Britain,these are typically common across the main employment sectors rather than beingpredominantly associated with manufacturing or non-manufacturing industriesthemselves.

These � ndings have broader implications for a range of debates in the literature.MacDuf� e (1995), in particular, was able to demonstrate the link between ‘bundles’ of

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innovative human resource practice and economic performance measured in termsof productivity and quality in automotive assembly plants. In this respect, theinvolvement of employees in such work practices as quality control discovered in thecurrent study is interesting. But, on the basis of our data, the differences withinmanufacturing and services respectively appear to be far greater than the inter-sectordifferences. This may also reinforce the case that considerable differences still remainin the adoption of the most advanced human resource management practices inmanufacturing internationally as well (Womack, Jones and Roos, 1990).

Further debates about manufacturing have targeted such issues as manufacturingfailure, post-Fordism, � exible specialization and globalization (see for example, Storey,1994). These issues cannot be addressed at length in our conclusions but, in so far as theadoption of advanced human resource techniques, coupled with the abandonment ofTayloristic production management arrangements, is critical to competitive success, it isclear that a transformation to ‘new wave’ manufacturing techniques has been onlypartially accomplished in the UK. Indeed, the movement towards greater � exibility maynot in any event be consistent with advanced human resource management techniques,but rather with more numerical and � nancial � exibility as is evidenced by the greateruse of part-time labour and � xed term contracts at the expense of the growth of corework-forces with multiple skills and competencies. Moreover, Tayloristic methods ofwork organization not only appear to continue to persist in many parts of manufacturingbut arguably have spread to the services sector as well. This, in turn, may have helpedto ensure the remarkable degree of comparability between these two sectors in respectof human resource management practices. Certainly this is our most central singleconclusion from the evidence presented in this paper.

Michael PooleCardiff Business School

Glenville JenkinsSwansea Business School

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