SUSTAINING HIGH-PERFORMANCE IN BAD TIMES

Downsizing and high performance-two seemingly contradictory states-can coexit. In fact, an organization's performance can improve, and even soar during periods of downsizing. It all depends on how a downsizing is managed and whether a company has high-performance work systems in place. Bassi and Van Buren, two of the American Society for Training a nd Development's senior researchers, conducted a survey of more than 2 00 companies in four industry groups: manufacturing; transportation, c ommunications, and public utilities; finance, insurance, and real esta te; and services. The 1996 ASTD Human Resource and Performance Managem ent Survey examined high performance work systems and downsizing: thei r prevalence, their interrelationship, and their effect on performance . Surprisingly, downsizing does not have to undermine overall performa nce or the effectiveness of high-performance work systems. The survey discovers how organizations, whether small or large, can downsize and still experience improved performance by using recommended downsizing practices. The article describes 13 HRD and work practices used by the surveyed companies to different degrees. It also tells how downsized companies used those best practices to maintain high performances on s uch qualitative measures as quality of products and services, quality of work life, and employees satisfaction-which, in turn, affect financ ial performance. A company's decision on which practices to use depend s on the type of performance outcome it wants to maintain.