the meaning of ‘employee engagement’

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The meaning of employee engagementfor the values and roles of the HRMfunctionJ. Arrowsmitha & J. Parkeraa School of Management, Massey University, Auckland, NewZealandPublished online: 05 Mar 2013.

To cite this article: J. Arrowsmith & J. Parker (2013) The meaning of employee engagementfor the values and roles of the HRM function, The International Journal of Human ResourceManagement, 24:14, 2692-2712, DOI: 10.1080/09585192.2013.763842

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The meaning of employee engagement for the values and roles of theHRM function

J. Arrowsmith* and J. Parker

School of Management, Massey University, Auckland, New Zealand

Employee engagement has become a dominant part of the vocabulary of humanresource management (HRM), yet there has been little investigation of the implicationsof this for HRM in organisations. This article analyses a case study of an initiative atNew Zealand Post designed to improve the engagement and performance of supervisorystaff. It makes two important contributions to the development of the nascent literature.First, it suggests that effective engagement initiatives require political astuteness andcommitment on the part of HR. This is because they require a clear business casefocused on performance, not merely engagement itself, and an evidence-basedapproach to design and implementation. This potential appears to be furthered by thecommonly observed restructuring of HRM into a business partner role. Second, apurposive approach to employee engagement involves HR interrogating theemployment relationship to address fundamental issues of employee voice, workdesign and management agency. This can introduce complications, and resistance, intothe partnership with management, but it also offers a means to reconcile soft(employee-centred) HRM values to hard (performance) concerns around specificchange management initiatives. Employee engagement thus need not constituteunitarist subterfuge, but rather something of a neo-pluralist turn in the values andactivities of HRM.

Keywords: business partner; employee engagement; human resource management;neo-pluralism; pluralism; strategic HRM; unitarism

Introduction

Employee engagement (EE) is now a vital and everyday part of the vocabulary of human

resource management (HRM), used to articulate its core goals and activities to both the

workforce and to senior management. Yet, there is very little empirical research into how

HR managers understand EE; how they develop and implement EE strategies; and what

implications all of these might have for the HR function itself. This paper makes a

contribution to the development of this nascent literature through a case study of one such

initiative at New Zealand (NZ) Post. It does this in two ways that are new. First, it explores

the potential implications of EE for HR values. It argues that the meaningful pursuit of EE

involves an approach predicated on an understanding of the problematic nature of the

employment relationship and an emphasis on the articulation of worker voice. In this way,

HR is not simply following a unitarist agenda to win hearts and minds in pursuit of

management goals around performance (though, of course, this superficial approach might

well be the case in other contexts). Rather, the study suggests that HR activities around EE

might involve a certain degree of advocacy for employees who can challenge

assumptions and practices around work organisation and management agency. The pursuit

q 2013 Taylor & Francis

*Corresponding author. Email: [email protected]

The International Journal of Human Resource Management, 2013

Vol. 24, No. 14, 26922712, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09585192.2013.763842

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of EE may thus combine elements of hard (performance-oriented) and soft (employee-

oriented) HRM, which we interpret as a form of neo-pluralism. Second, the case study is

used to explore the nature of EE in terms of HRM roles. Here, it is argued that the

commonly observed restructuring of the HR function into a business partner relationship

with management provides HR professionals with greater scope to devise and implement

relevant EE strategies through the business. This is best served by an evidence-based

approach in which EE is articulated to management as a means to improve cost, revenue

and/or quality as well as an important goal in its own right. It is also observed that though

significant change initiatives are likely to encounter resistance at various levels, successful

outcomes further the credibility of HR as a strategic partner.

The term employee engagement now routinely pervades the discourse of HRM

across the English-speaking world, yet it was virtually unheard of a decade or so ago. The

explosion of professional interest reflects HRs important but largely intuitive notion that

organisational success depends on effective people management, and by implication, HR

strategies and practices, and that staff perceptions are valuable indicators of this.

Furthermore, EE data, which can be related to other measures such as labour productivity,

appraisals, absence and retention, form part of the growing portfolio of HR metrics. This

is linked to the utilisation of increasingly sophisticated HR technologies to better market

functional relevance and internal credibility. From without the organisation too, EE has

been vigorously promoted by local and international HR consultancies, such as Gallup,

Towers Perrin, Deloitte, Mercer and Hewitt.

The measurement of engagement usually rests on employee attitude surveys, and as

such is sometimes used as a novel, catchy label that covers traditional concepts, such as

satisfaction and commitment (Bakker and Leiter 2010, p. 182). Certainly, as Mike Emmott

(2010, p. 40) of the UK Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD)

observes, the recent upsurge of interest in employee engagement . . . on the face of it

owes little to academic research or thinking. The common practitioner understanding is

that EE involves employee enthusiasm for the organisation and the job beyond what might

normally be expected. Engaged employees possess a high degree of cognitive and

affective commitment, which manifests itself in desired behavioural outcomes in short,

they go the extra mile in exercising discretionary effort (Daniels 2011). It is also

recognised in the practical HR literature that EE is a collective activity (focusing on work

groups not just individuals) and a two-way street (employees must feel valued if they are

to add value). This is because EE is essentially a product not just of personal traits but also

of context employee perceptions of the organisation, their working conditions and the

quality of management (Craig and Silverstone 2010).

Understandably, much of the practitioner focus is on the drivers of EE. According to

the CIPD, the key factors are job autonomy, support and coaching, feedback, opportunities

to learn and develop, task variety and responsibility, which contribute to a culture of trust

and respect (Daniels 2011). These dynamics basically concern job quality and good

leadership (JRA 2007). The former relates to intrinsic motivators, such as the work offering

a sense of achievement, as well as decent pay and benefits. The latter depends on good line

management that is, supportive supervision, two-way communication, effective

performance management that sets clear goals and recognises contribution, and employee

coaching and development (MacLeod and Clarke 2009).

This conception of EE has attracted growing interest in recent years from academic

psychologists concerned with employee motivation and well-being (Jeung 2011). A

growing consensus has emerged, as in the practitioner literature, that EE offers

something new in integrating satisfaction and commitment with behaviour (Saks 2006;

The International Journal of Human Resource Management 2693

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Robertson-Smith and Markwick 2009). For example, Nohria, Groysberg and Lee (2008,

p. 80) see EE as the energy, effort, and initiative employees bring to their jobs, which is

differentiated from, whilst related to, satisfaction (the extent to which they feel that the

company meets their expectations at work and satisfies its implicit and explicit

contracts) and commitment (the extent to which employees engage in corporate

citizenship). In short, an employee may feel well satisfied in his or her job and be well

disposed to the organisation, without necessarily translating this into levels of effort and

performance that surpass typical expectations.

In contrast to this attention from psychologists, and notwithstanding the active concern

of HR professionals, there remains very little interest or research on EE from HR and

employee relations scholars (Robinson, Perryman and Hayday 2004). This is not to say

that the themes of EE are unexplored within analyses of, say, the psychological contract

(Guest and Conway 2004), high-performance or high-commitment work systems

(Wood 1999; Appelbaum, Bailey, Berg and Kalleberg 2000), but an explicit focus on EE is

rare. For example, of a recent clutch of authoritative collections in the field (Storey 2007;

Blyton, Bacon, Fiorito and Heery 2008; Boxall, Purcell and Wright 2008; Storey, Ulrich,

Welbourne and Wright 2009; Wilkinson, Bacon, Redman and Snell 2010), only the latter

addresses EE specifically and the others make no reference to the term at all. There is,

therefore, an absence of research concerning important issues, such as (1) HR

understanding of EE, (2) the formulation and implementation of EE strategies by HR and

(3) how these are received and with what effects by actors, such as senior and local line

management and trade unions, as well as employees, within organisations. Given the

widespread utilisation of EE concepts and discourse by HR, this is a major research gap.

This paper explores these issues by examining an HR initiative at NZ Post. The explicit

objective of the HR project was to improve the engagement and leadership ability of the

organisations supervisors, and thereby (hopefully) the engagement and performance of

the workforce. The case study examines how the HR function defined its approach to EE,

which drew on practitioner and academic literatures, and developed and implemented its

strategy. The results have two sets of implications that are likely to be of wider relevance.

First, effective EE initiatives can involve a significant degree of workplace transformation,

which implies that they are most likely to succeed when Brockbank and Ulrichs (2009)

three conditions for strategic HRM (SHRM) are met, namely business knowledge, change-

management capability, and well-designed and delivered HR basics. In contrast to the

expectations of some of the literature (see below), this may be facilitated by a business

partner role where HR has a collaborative relationship with management.

Second, and more fundamentally, in problematising EE even, indeed especially, in

lower-skill work HR may be driven to critically examine the employment relationship,

thus refocusing beyond immediate functional concerns to address wider issues of work

design and management agency. Hence, it is argued that the pursuit of EE may represent

something of a neo-pluralist turn by HR because, taken seriously, it involves seeking and

utilising employee perspectives to effect change in the management and organisation of

their work. This involves much more than simply offering technical services to

management in pursuit of a unitarist agenda, even if the process is largely predicated

(or internally marketed) around mutual gains.

In the next section (HRM and employee engagement), we briefly review literature to

locate the potential relevance and implications of EE in the concept and practice of HRM.

Section three (Methods and context) outlines the research methods and contextualises the

case. This is followed by the results, a discussion section which sets out key issues for

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future research, and conclusions, which draw out the wider implications for HR and its

relationship with management.

HRM and employee engagement

As noted above, EE is of growing interest to academic psychologists, largely stimulated by

debate over how it should be defined and differentiated from conventional measures. The

term was fairly unknown until Kahn (1990) used it specifically to describe workers who

were highly absorbed in the performance of their work. It gained traction when Maslach

and Leiter (1997) referred to engagement as the polar opposite of burnout, a term which

also, incidentally, crossed over from the popular to academic psychological literature. The

influential Utrecht team also define and operationalise engagement in this way (Schaufeli,

Salanova, Gonzalez-Roma and Bakker 2002; Schaufeli and Bakker 2010). Others see it as

the converse of alienation or apathy and detachment from work (e.g. May, Gilson and

Harter 2004). Common to these approaches, however, is the importance of job demands

and job resources, not just personal characteristics, in shaping attitudes and behaviours at

work. Still, the novelty of engagement, and conflation with a range of well-established

constructs, such as organisational commitment, job satisfaction, involvement, work flow,

and extra role and organisational citizenship behaviours, means that it remains an

ambiguous and contentious concept. As Macey and Schneider explain

The notion of employee engagement is a relatively new one . . . engagement is a concept witha sparse and diverse theoretical and empirically demonstrated nomological net therelationships among potential antecedents and consequences of engagement as well as thecomponents of engagement have not been rigorously conceptualized, much less studied.(2008, pp. 34)

Of course, such conceptual concerns do not readily trouble HR. The fundamental appeal of

EE for HR managers is its behavioural as well as attitudinal focus on performance. What

distinguishes engagement from concepts such as satisfaction and commitment is its

grounding in performance outcomes, and it is a (people-centred) concern with business

performance that largely distinguishes HRM from its previous incarnation as personnel

management (Guest 1989). Whereas personnel management was largely seen as a support

function providing administrative, employee welfare and conflict resolution services to

management, HRM is keen to market its value-added and strategic contribution in pursuit

of goals such as employee commitment, flexibility and quality. EE offers both a concept

and a set of metrics for HR to utilise to this end.

We might infer that the implications of this will vary according to HR values and

structure, as well as of course organisational context and business strategy. In terms of

values, this can be informed by the long-standing distinctions between soft and hard

HRM, and unitarist and pluralist approaches. Simply put, a hard approach to HRM

serving an unitarist agenda might be expected to adopt a very different take on EE than

one in which employee concerns are viewed as a legitimate priority in their own right.

Structure refers to the positioning of the function within the organisation. Most relevant

here is the increasing reorganisation of HRM into business partner arrangements and

what this means for its role and focus. These two sets of issues are now briefly considered

in turn.

HRM values

The term unitarism, as originally used by Fox (1974, p. 135), refers to employer

strategies of trade union avoidance based on and justified by an ideology of a unity of


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interests between employers and employees (with one source of authority and leadership

but one focus of loyalty). The contemporary notion of managerialism refers more

broadly to the assertion of managerial rights, goals and prerogatives without the need for

meaningful employee involvement (Clarke and Newman 1997). In contrast to these

conceptions, a pluralist management approach sees the organisation as a coalition of

interest groups over which management presides in an authoritative but not authoritarian

manner, recognising employee rights (Fox 1974, p. 10).

For academics, it was almost axiomatic that unitarism was one of the defining features

of HRM as it emerged in the 1980s when a seismic shift was taking place between labour

and capital (Mueller and Carter 2005, p. 369). As Janssens and Steyaert put it

HRM is impregnated by a unitarist approach to managing the employment relationship. HRMseems to take for granted that employees well-being and organizational goals can always bealigned and that managers, employees, and HR professionals will all work collaborativelytowards a common goal of efficiency and high performance levels. (2009, p. 145)

A similar charge is often levelled at the academic study of HRM too. According to

Delbridge and Keenoy, mainstream HRM research is heavily dominated by a

managerialist agenda geared towards best practice prescription:

the fundamental shift involved the replacement of a pluralist framing of the issues inwhich the employment relationship is understood to involve and articulate differentialinterests with a unitary framing of the issues in which all members of an organisationare assumed to have mutual interests. (2010, p. 802)

In contrast, a more critical approach to HRM and the management of labour focuses on

the structured antagonism inherent in the employment relationship (Edwards 1986). This

acknowledges that whilst there is a mutual dependency between employer and workers,

employment is also characterised by conflicting goals and interests and is fundamentally

based on unequal power relations. Unlike in the unitarist or managerialist view, both

motivation and control, and cooperation and conflict, are normal features of employment

in the critical or pluralist approach.

As it happens, this idea is certainly not foreign to HR practitioners, who continually

contend with the organisational paradoxes and contradictions of managing commitment

and insecurity, empowerment and control (Legge 2007, pp. 115116). Empirical

research also shows that HR managers are well aware of the realities of different interests

and contests in the organisation, not just between management and labour but also

between different levels and functions of management. To take one example, Vickers and

Fox (2010, p. 899) note how HR practice is a highly political management process that is

not always wholly congruent with the immediate objectives and values of the business.

Related to the distinction between managerialism and pluralism is the idea of hard or

soft HRM (Truss, Gratton, Hope-Hailey, McGovern and Stiles 1997). The centrality of

the employee in engagement suggests that it might naturally be informed by the latter, and

its themes of employee commitment and mutual gains can be traced back to the human

relations school in the 1930s (Godard and Delaney 2000). However, at another level, EE

may be seen as a conflation of hard and soft HRM, emphasising both the human and the

resource dimensions. First, in terms of outcomes, HR initiatives are focused on

performance and on demonstrating the HR contribution to the business. There is,

therefore, some resemblance to Legges (1995, p. 35) characterisation of utilitarian

instrumentalism in terms of goals. Yet, in terms of process, EE necessitates a focus on

employee commitment and capabilities, drawing on a developmental humanism that

emphasises the importance of respect, trust and voice at work. EE thus may be seen as an


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instance of what Watson (2004, p. 455) refers to as hardsoft HRM, in which employee

concerns are to a certain extent recognised and addressed to further broader and longer-

term corporate goals.

From this, we can hypothesise that EE may be perceived by HR in two ways. In the

unitarist vision, it is largely unproblematic, involving the identification and resolution of

obstacles to the natural order of harmony in the workplace. This might involve careful

attention to recruitment and selection and interventions around reward schemes,

management training and the like. For those of a more pluralist disposition, the pursuit of

EE is much more complex and dynamic, and the outcome uncertain. It involves a

commitment to better understanding and managing the employment relationship within

specific contexts, with a premium on analysis and action around employee concerns

(Purcell 2012).

HRM role

One of the most remarkable developments in HRM practice in recent years is the

separation of advisory and strategy roles from its operational and administrative

dimensions (CIPD 2003). This largely involved the development of business partner

arrangements that may take the form of internal consultancies (Wright 2008). Though the

effects of this have not been fully researched, two alternative outcomes for EE might be

anticipated. First, the new structures marginalise employee-focused activities as HR

becomes fragmented and dedicated to a business-driven agenda of competitive advantage

(van Buren, Greenwood and Sheehan 2011). In this view, the business facing facets of

HRM discursively swamp other concerns, notably about employee well-being and HRs

role in and responsibility for securing it (Keegan and Francis 2010, p. 874). Alternatively,

employee focus or advocacy may be complemented by the increased status and influence

introduced by business partnership, even if its discourse may not find a ready audience

with management (Ulrich and Brockbank 2005). In this scenario, HR has to be more

sophisticated and politically astute in how they address employee concerns, or more

precisely, how they reconcile this to the competitiveness agenda. Roche and Teague

(2013, p. 1354) recently found that even in recession HR managers were at ease blending

a business partner role with a more traditional employee advocacy role. However, it

remains unclear how far and under what conditions the restructuring of the HR function

along business partner lines serves to restrict or permit the pursuit of EE-related

initiatives.

There is thus a clear need for research into the politics of EE in organisations. The

research questions for this study are specifically concerned with how the HR function

conceives of EE, and how its strategies and policies are developed and implemented in

practice. It is also concerned with the implications of this for our understanding of HR

values and structure in practice.

Methods and context

The research is based on a case study of a HR change initiative at NZ Post. Case studies are

well established as an important tool for exploratory research, contributing insights or

hypotheses to an emerging research agenda (Hartley 1994). Similarly, in summarising and

looking forward from a recent edited collection of EE research, Bakker and Leiter (2010,

p. 193) note that management intervention studies hold the greatest potential for theory,

research and practice. This is because a focus on interrelationships and processes can


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provide a conceptual richness that cross-sectional surveys cannot deliver. With this in

mind, this research investigates the dynamics of developing, implementing and evaluating

a particular HR initiative focusing on EE and performance (the management intervention)

in a case study setting the delivery business of NZ Post, and in particular, its most

important pilot implementation site.

The research was conducted between 2009 and 2011 and was mainly based on 12 face-

to-face interviews and a review of relevant documentation. The interviews included HR

and line managers who were involved in the design and roll out of the programme (two

with the relevant Head Office HR manager, one with a regional HR manager and two with

branch managers at the case study site). Interviews were also conducted with six team

leaders (TLs) at the pilot site, and we were also able to informally talk to employees on two

workplace visits. The management interviews lasted between one hour and two and half

hours, and the employee interviews lasted for around 45 minutes each on average. All but

the first two (gatekeeper) interviews were recorded and professionally transcribed. In

addition, managers responded to supplementary queries by email and telephone. The

documentary data included a post-implementation review of the initiative prepared by the

group HR and business managers; work organisation templates; role descriptions;

implementation and accreditation guideline documents; and research evidence from

internal surveys and interviews of TLs and shop floor staff.

The generation and analysis of the data involved a process of triangulation in which

each of the constituent elements spoke to each other. For example, the initial informal

interviews with senior management led to the provision of documentation that helped

refine the research agenda and in particular the development of the management interview

schedules. These two sets of data also helped form the basis for subsequent interviews with

employees from which we could compare the two sets of accounts. Remote contact with

managers also helped to clarify details arising from the interviews and documentation.

Because the research used a relatively small set of respondents and was based on semi-

structured interview schedules, it was possible to manually code and analyse the interview

notes and transcripts, and to reconcile these with the other data sources.

In case study research, which makes claims for analytical rather than statistical

generalisation, it is important to clearly establish the context for the research problem

under consideration (Yin 2009). As in most developed nations, the NZ postal service is one

of the countrys oldest, largest and most familiar institutions. It dates back to the 1840s,

and was run as a government department until becoming a state-owned enterprise (SOE)

in 1987. The State-Owned Enterprises Act 1986 obliges SOEs to act both commercially,

as a successful business . . . as profitable and efficient as comparable businesses that are

not owned by the Crown, and as a good employer, with personnel policies and practices

necessary for the fair and proper treatment of employees in all aspects of their

employment. NZ Post is currently one of NZs largest commercial organisations, with

more than 11,000 employees and a further 7000 employed in affiliated operations.

The company has been profitable since its incorporation as an SOE, during which time

it has returned more than NZ$1 billion to the state in taxes and dividends. A significant

part of its success owed much to early restructuring, on becoming an SOE, to improve the

efficiency and culture of the organisation, accompanied by investment in new mail centres

and technology (Toime 1997). Also important was a consistent policy of cooperation with

the union that achieved significant change through negotiation (Pfeffer 1998, p. 243;

Elcano, Reisner, German and Cernshaw 2002). A recent major example of negotiated

change is the introduction of a radical new pay model for postal workers, based on

delivered mail volume rather than hours worked, in the most recent collective agreement


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(to June 2013). This was developed by a joint managementunion working party and

recommended by the unions after successful trials at seven delivery branches. The

company recognises two unions: the Postal Workers Union of Aotearoa (PWU) and the

Engineering Printing and Manufacturing union (EPMU). The EPMU is a large general

union that claims to represent 4500 NZ Post workers, including 2500 delivery and sorting

staff, and it has long maintained a formal partnership relationship with the company. The

PWU is smaller, with an estimated 900 members in the delivery business, and markets

itself as more militant or member-driven. Collective bargaining is conducted separately

for the two unions on a two-year cycle.

The delivery business employs 4500 people, with around 2300 postal workers

(posties) employed at 120 urban sites around the country. It has faced mounting

challenges in recent years. First, the deregulation of the postal market in 1998 intensified

competitive pressures on a company that remained obliged to operate a universal service.

Second, the Internet transformed the business landscape, not only reducing domestic and

international mail traffic because of substitution by email and digital transfer, but also

recomposing it with delivery of items purchased online and increased direct marketing.

The number of items processed each year remains high but volumes are in steep decline,

from 1.1 billion in 2002 to 829 million in 2012. These items are also heavier, bulkier and

more diverse, which means they are more difficult and expensive to deliver. Third, an

increase in delivery points, a corollary to demographic and social change, also brought

pressures on productivity and costs. Compared to 1999, the company now delivers a fifth

less volume to a third more addresses. The annual decline in volume is predicted to

proceed at 4.5% per annum over the next decade, culminating in half current loads. (In

fact, mail volumes fell 6.4% in the 2011/2012 financial year, leading to a $10 million loss

on postal services that prompted the company to seek a revision to its Deed of

Understanding obliging it to deliver six days per week.) All of this has major implications

for employment, since the processing and delivery of domestic mail is a labour-intensive

operation with high fixed cost, of which around 70% is employment related.

One important response was to upgrade mail processing systems and equipment. A

revised national postcode scheme was introduced in 2006, accompanied by investment in

sorting machinery in the six primary conurbations. Processing capacity and productivity

was also improved through a series of branch amalgamations and modernisation of

facilities. On the software side, HR introduced a new strategy called Creating a High

Performance Culture that involved creating a world class operational environment,

developing high-performing leaders, building a highly engaged workforce and

redesigning work and pay systems to meet the changing needs of the business. The HR

leadership within the operations business believed employee engagement and

performance to be mutually reinforcing, and saw the challenges faced by the business

as an opportunity to contribute concrete initiatives under its overall framework.

The EE-performance initiative

Frontline leadership was identified as the key issue, according to the group HR manager,

because it was seen as crucial to delivering consistent results, workplace change and

employee engagement. The role of the 180 TLs employed in the delivery business

involves matching staffing resources to fluctuating mail volumes, dealing with employee

relations issues and managing workforce performance. The changing nature of the

business meant that the work was increasingly challenging. The TLs had to deal with

increasing complexity resulting from the variation in mail types and volumes, and they


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also had to have the people skills to manage and motivate an increasingly diverse and often

pressured workforce. This could be a difficult balancing act. In particular, the job and

finish system, whereby posties are free to go home after completion of their round, places

a premium on effective work planning and performance management. Too little work

means paying posties whilst at home, and too much incurs overtime pay together, this

was costed at NZ$8 million in 2008. At the same time, supervisors want to avoid allocating

too many cut ups, which is supplementing a run with work from other rounds. This was

intensely disliked by staff due to unfamiliarity as one TL told us, as soon as the postie

sees the word cut up on the board, everyone gets angry, they hate it.

For HR, evidence of the problem came from a number of sources. First, the balanced

scorecard (BSC) data revealed significant inconsistencies across branches in terms of

operational performance and in the level and management of employee grievances and

disciplinary cases. Succession planning analysis also suggested that few in the TL roles

were considered to have the potential to develop further. Second, the trade unions were

concerned that the company could do more to help the TLs, both to develop their own

careers and to make them more effective managers. The issue was explicitly raised in the

2002 negotiating round, especially by the EPMU which has a TL membership, and again

in 2004. Third, the Gallup-based EE survey revealed that TLs were increasingly uncertain

and apprehensive in the changing work environment. Some felt they were not fully

accepted as managers by the company, whereas others had difficulties differentiating

themselves from the team even though they were generally perceived as management by

staff. In the words of the Head Office HR manager, many felt themselves in no-mans

land or as the meat in the sandwich rather than as credible leaders in their own right.

Given this context, HR felt that the conventional approach of investing in training was,

by itself, inadequate. The company had long offered a range of management development

programmes to TLs, including in performance management, coaching, communicating

and relationship management, but these had evidently not delivered generalised and

enduring results. It was understood that the mutually reinforcing problem of deteriorating

engagement and performance required a more fundamental approach, based on an analysis

of the job pressures and resources involved in the existing roles. A successful bid was

made for resourcing to support a small (1.5 full-time equivalent) corporate-based project

team with a remit to review branch management practices and develop a framework for a

best-practice delivery operation. For political reasons, this was led by a sympathetic

senior line manager (a regional delivery business leader), working in conjunction with a

senior HR manager. The project was labelled Great Operations and Leadership (GOAL).

Conceptual and research foundations

The GOAL team started from the premise that employee engagement and effectiveness

were iteratively related; EE was a consequence as well as a driver of a high-performance

work environment. Improvements to the operational system and the capabilities of the

frontline leadership would sustain higher performance both directly (by enhancing

competencies) and by generating greater enthusiasm for the job. This in turn was expected

to have performance- and engagement-enhancing effects for their staff reports. The

argument was developed and presented to senior line management using what has been

called the AMO theory, derived from high-performance work surveys in the 1990s

(Boxall and Purcell 2003). In this approach, high performance is viewed as a product of

employee ability (e.g. education and skills); motivation (a product of e.g. job security,

information sharing, development opportunities, fair pay and incentives); and opportunity


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to participate (related to e.g. job discretion, team-working and direct involvement). At NZ

Post, a fourth dimension direction was added, reflecting the perceived importance of

leadership to all aspects of performance. The four components were presented in broad

terms in the documentation:

. ability embraces knowledge, skills, mental and physical capability, and emotionalintelligence;

. motivation refers to values, attitude, incentives, the confidence to do the job andwhether the job was seen as worthwhile;

. opportunity encompasses features of the organisational environment, such as time,equipment, budget, job design, support systems and the physical environment; and

. direction includes the elaboration and communication of expectations, relevantperformance measures, feedback, coaching and understanding and application of

consequences.

The project team argued that this provided an analytical framework to explore

performance issues from different perspectives; the idea is that problems reflect a

weakness in one or more of these components. For example, a TL might have the ability

and motivation to lead his or her people really well, but if the design of the role meant that

he or she spent much of their time on administration or assisting workers in carrying out

their own tasks, then he or she would lack the opportunity to perform a leadership role

effectively.

The GOAL team then conducted research through TL interviews, focus groups and an

anonymous survey. The exercise identified potential weaknesses in each of the areas

relating to what was styled as AMOD (i.e. ability, motivation, opportunity and

direction). In terms of ability, there were problems of communication skills and modelling

appropriate behaviour; effective operation of the performance management system; and in

work planning and technical knowledge. Many TLs had low educational attainment (40%

had no qualifications and 20% school certificate only) and had not entered the position

from any succession planning process. Most were motivated to perform well in their role,

but saw their job in negative terms as difficult, stressful and not valued as part of the

overall management team. This in turn reflected problems relating to opportunity, such as

a wide range of accountabilities, unclear reporting lines and large team size, and direction,

with insufficiently focused performance measures and an apparent lack of consequences

for those consistently failing to meet objectives.

The project team was also keen to involve managers in the development of the analysis

and proposals. A series of workshops was held with managers at all levels of the business

to develop a vision of what a high-performance team might look like. The resultant model

set out a number of expectations for posties and TLs. These concerned the working

environment, operating processes and customer focus, employee performance manage-

ment, consultation and participation and employee relations. It also referred to a range of

outcome measures such as complaints, absenteeism, turnover, injuries, overtime, unit

costs and team Gallup results. Within this template, employee engagement and

performance were viewed as clearly reinforcing and virtually synonymous. The best-

practice team was characterised as a model of workplace engagement, marked by

outstanding business results but also a positive energy and attitude and a balance of

work and fun.

The research led to a number of proposals concerning job redesign, skills development

and performance management for frontline leaders, organised under the AMOD

framework. To address ability, individual development plans were to be introduced


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(based on the Lominger competency framework) delivered through a modular framework

involving 70% structured learning on the job, 20% coaching and 10% from formal training

resources such as workshops and written material. The training programme was developed

by a working group that involved operational managers as well as learning and

development specialists. Motivation was to be addressed by implementing a new

recruitment strategy aimed to attract high performers to the roles as well as to re-motivate

existing frontline leaders by significant job redesign. Roles and structures were redefined

to provide more time for leadership activities, and a new support role was proposed to

assist TLs. Clearer direction was also provided via new job descriptions and performance

measures.

The central part of the change programme was the introduction of redefined and new

roles, which included granting greater budgetary responsibility to TLs. The role

restructuring was intended to free leaders from operational activities to devote more time

to people, planning and business management. This is indicated by Table 1 that records

and estimates the time dedicated to these three sets of responsibilities in the existing and

new roles (based on daily diary records for existing post holders and estimates for the new

roles). Typically, under the new structure, a delivery TL (DTL) would manage between 14

and 20 posties, plus 1 delivery support worker. The latter was a new position designed to

relieve the TL of basic operational and administrative work. The leadership

responsibilities of DTLs include selecting, inducting, training and developing team

members, conducting quarterly individual performance and development discussions

and regular team briefings and managing discipline. They were also encouraged to have

daily personal contact with each member of their team, who are only present in the branch

for a couple of hours per day. Several DTLs report to a delivery group leader (DGL) who

may have responsibilities across one or more locations depending on the branch size.

Implementation

Following the research phase, a report was delivered to the senior management detailing

the findings and proposed initiatives. However, strong concerns were raised that the

project would cost time and money to implement without providing a direct business (i.e.

financial) benefit, at a time when other changes were being implemented. The BSC had

only recently been introduced, and further HR-related changes were planned for incentive

pay and in upgrading the work measurement system. At the same time, many branches

were affected by the introduction of new technology and branch amalgamations. The

report was also criticised as having no measure of progress or completion. According to

Table 1. Actual and estimated time dedicated to job activities.

Activity time (%)

People Planning and business management Operations

Established rolesDelivery branch leader (large) 65 12 23Delivery branch leader (medium) 40 10 50Delivery team leader 22 7 71New rolesDelivery group leader 60 35 5Delivery team leader 75 15 10Delivery support 5 5 90


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senior HR management, some in the business were passionate supporters, some were

against and there were a lot in the middle waiting to see who won the battle. A major

objection concerned the financial implications of introducing the new supporting roles and

recognising the increased responsibilities of TLs by higher grading. As reported by HR, a

senior delivery managers response was yeah, well, show me the money. All I can see is

that youre changing the structure, youre adding in cost. The comment of another

regarding the emphasis on the need to improve EE was simply, you cant bank

engagement!.

The response of the GOAL team was to propose a pilot exercise and an accreditation

framework designed to measure and evaluate progress through various stages of

completion, and this was agreed by the senior management. Piloting GOAL involved a

process, tailored to the implementation site, of reviewing and revising job descriptions,

objectives and measures; recruiting to new roles and inducting successful applicants;

providing close on-the-ground support to incumbents for their first six months, with eight

workshops for group and TLs (five for delivery support) and a range of supporting

documentation. Accreditation involved the observation of actual practice, interviewing

staff at all levels and a review of relevant evidence (e.g. meeting notes, planning

documents, individual performance-planning documents and development plans). An

interim review was conducted after 12 months, followed by a formal audit of practice

against defined criteria in six key areas. These were: leadership (including communication,

team meetings); planning (goal setting and action plans); customer focus (communication

and use of customer data); information and resources (e.g. analysis of performance data);

HR focus (e.g. job design, recruitment, induction and succession planning, performance

management, training and development, safety and well-being, and employee

engagement); and process management (management control and risk frameworks).

The first pilot site was Christchurch City branch, and a GOAL programme manager

was deployed to work alongside the regional and site leaders to implement the initiative.

One of the early learning points of this exercise was the difficulty of undertaking a

significant culture change programme in a live business environment. Operational

pressures diverted attention from implementation, and many staff were suspicious or

resistant to change. Whilst this strengthened the case for the dedicated commitment of

resources, in fact progress was stalled by a company-wide restructuring. This meant that

existing HR projects were terminated, handed over to business units or transferred to a new

business improvement division. It was decided that GOAL should be absorbed by the

delivery business, and the initiative lost its programme manager.

Christchurch City was successfully accredited, with positive outcomes reported

around communication, teamwork and TL motivation. However, given the lack of

dedicated resources, subsequent implementation sites had to be especially carefully

chosen. Key considerations for HR were that regional business leaders had to be

supportive, and that they as a function were able to provide local managers with a high

level of support. It was also felt that a successful pilot in Auckland, the largest city in NZ

with a third of the nations population, would provide a boost for the project as a whole. By

the end of 2008, two more delivery branches had implemented GOAL: North City

(Porirua, Wellington) and Marua Road in Auckland. The latter is generally seen as a best

practice operation and, given that it began life as one of the most problematic sites, its

success eventually convinced the senior management to adopt a form of GOAL standards

nationwide.


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The Marua Road pilot

The Auckland delivery office based at Marua Road was opened in October 2006 as the

largest branch in the country with 120 posties working in five district teams. It was formed

from an amalgamation of five small branches. According to the Head Office HR manager:

there was quite a bit of soul searching went on about whether it was worth taking on trying toput the Goal Programme into this branch when it was already enough of a challengeamalgamating five branches. But I think there was a sense that if youre going to operate onthe patient, you may as well fix everything while youve got them open before you . . .

As feared, the project did not have an auspicious start. The amalgamation brought together

staff from branches with different cultures and leadership and performance expectations,

and there were early power plays between TLs and different union representatives. As one

TL put it, some branches had had a more relaxed approach to permitting overtime or

leaving work until the next day, a practice not permitted under the new system. Of the five

branches, only two teams maintained the same staff and posties found it difficult to get

used to new systems and work colleagues. Equally, some of the TLs had more difficulty

than others in adapting to the standardisation and new performance management

responsibilities associated with GOAL.

The implementation process proceeded with a consultation exercise to draw up new

job descriptions for the TL role. These placed a strong emphasis on the performance

management of staff. The TLs then commenced their GOAL training. They reported that

they found the first six months particularly hard as they had to combine the training (nine

workshops for DGLs and DTLs, 5 for delivery supports plus 19 information booklets and

other materials) with new responsibilities, such as the continuous recording of data

(extending to details of the required daily conversations with each staff member), mainly

for the purposes of the eventual GOAL audit. The TLs also had to draw up development

plans for each postie and undertake a formal one-to-one appraisal each quarter. The TLs

themselves were appraised on a monthly basis and were also involved in regular

management meetings where business results and progress against plans were discussed

against the BSC. All of this amounted to an entirely new way of working for most of the

TLs, at a time when they still had to run a busy operation. The inaugural branch manager

went so far as to describe the early atmosphere as toxic, and the HR manager assigned to

assist her with GOAL said

it was fair to say the levels of engagement were quite low . . . people were coming in, learningnew rounds; the structure had changed the people that they were used to reporting to someof them had left. And the team leaders . . . used to run their own branches and now theyactually have to report through to someone.

Given the operational importance of the site and its significance for GOAL, senior HR

management allowed one of its HR consultants to spend four months almost full-time at

the branch to assist with implementation. As part of this role, she conducted weekly focus

groups with staff to identify and resolve concerns as well as hold regular meetings with the

union reps:

I guess, for me, it was about getting them understanding that I was actually there to help themas opposed to coming in (each week) as the HR consultant, raking them up, leaving. I reallyhad to get to understand the business. I went through all of the reports, I sat down with teamleaders, I spoke to posties . . . I think they actually saw that I was wanting to see the branchactually succeed.

In the event, three of the TLs decided to leave within the first three months (two after

receiving letters of expectation) which, whilst having a positive impact in the long run,


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was a challenging time for everyone in terms of workload and stress (branch manager).

Their replacements were recruited from the existing workforce, and they said they were

attracted by the emphasis on teamwork, communication and development under GOAL

compared to other branches.

Also fortuitous was the departure for Australia of the regional official of the PWU,

which generally markets itself as fighting for members compared with the partnership

approach of the larger union (branch-level density was estimated at a third for each).

Management at the branch were able to build a better relationship with his replacement,

who was said to be more sympathetic to the rationale of the initiative. According to

interviewees, the workplace postie union reps adopted a neutral position towards GOAL

(as it was a TL initiative), whilst waiting to assess any impact on their members. The TLs

reported an increasingly oppositional stance in the early stages, though less so from the

EPMU (Ive got the EPMU delegate in my team and hes been pretty much okay with it

the whole way). This reflected the workload implications of, for example, additional

training and more regular one-on-ones; a reduction in overtime for some as routes

became managed more effectively; plus recourse to disciplinary procedures for a number

of staff as standards around issues such as non-delivery of mail, un-notified absence, and

health and safety were more strictly enforced. However, after the transition stage, the

unions became much more positive, as posties began to see better leadership and support

from their TLs, and a more consistent approach to managing performance. It was also felt

that subsequent changes to the branch management team provided a further opportunity

for the union reps to rebuild relations.

The branch achieved GOAL accreditation in September 2008 and this was renewed in

September 2010. A business impact review found significant improvements over the first

year of implementation. Overall, the branch achieved a favourable budget variance of

4.3% (i.e. a saving for the year of NZ$205,000) within a challenging budget for

2007/2008, and came in at between 5% and 7% under budget in successive years. This

reflected improvements in productivity, with the unit costs measure (cents per letter

equivalent unit, LEU) improving by nearly 12% against an upward national trend. The

postie productivity measure also steadily improved throughout the GOAL period (98.52%

from 84.79%) and there was also a 50% reduction in overtime. The overall measure of

hours used for the mail volume processed showed steady improvement over the year, from

31.17% to 15.06%. There was also a steady decline in customer complaints, which halved

from 23.28 per million LEUs to 12.08 by February 2008. In addition, the lost time injury

frequency rate (number of lost time injuries per 200,000 work hours) fell from 15.49 to

4.97 over the same period. This was also reflected in reduced employee absence and

turnover; absenteeism fell from 4.36% to 1.80% over the 12 months and, though turnover

remained high in what was a buoyant labour market, the figure of 34.34% compared well

to the 43.72% in other Auckland branches. Following this review, six sigma reporting

mechanisms were also used to report back positive results and convince top management

of the value of the project. The regional delivery business leader involved in the project

team concluded that

GOAL has been instrumental in taking Marua Road from a dysfunctional amalgamation offive poorly performing delivery branches to a cohesive, best practice site where staff at alllevels are engaged and performing effectively.

There was also positive feedback from the posties and TLs themselves. The company

operates the Gallup 12-question EE survey that explores perceptions of growth

opportunities, teamwork, management support and basic work needs utilising five-point


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Likert scales. The mean score rose from 3.6 in March 2007 to 4.1 in March 2008,

representing the largest improvement in the country. Qualitative comments indicated that

posties appreciated having more time to talk with their TL and also the transparency and

consistency of the performance expectations according to HR, around a fifth of the

comments submitted to the EE survey tend to be complaints about management not doing

anything about the posties mucking about or pulling sickies. An additional survey of

posties also showed a positive perception of the Marua Road workplace, not just in terms

of improvement over the year but when compared to previous branches. Staff rated the

branch especially highly in terms of communication, approachability of TLs and

individual support (Table 2).

Interviews with the TLs indicated that they too were more satisfied in their roles,

largely because they enjoyed better relations with staff but also as they became more

comfortable in managing poor performance and applying appropriate coaching and

disciplinary interventions:

GOAL has made a huge difference with communication. Team briefs are more regular, andmore structured. One on ones and daily walkabouts has made the gap between the TeamLeader and Posties smaller . . . The improvement in communication has meant that Postiesand other staff are more likely to seek support when needed. Management is more aware of theneeds of staff.

I think (GOAL) is more about the people management being accessible, being available toyour people and engaging with them all the time . . . and they know Im there to support themand help them, not Im just there to crack the whip.

Branch management also reported that communication was transformed, with discussion

of performance (productivity and resourcing) now the norm on the shop floor. Managers

became enthusiastic communicators, for example, bringing in the people responsible for

round sizing to explain the system (no-one had ever had that conversation with them

before. They just knew they had to work at BS75). Both the branch managers interviewed

said that GOAL enabled them more time for business planning and for the development of

TLs rather than day-to-day operational management. The employee relations climate was

also described in positive terms. Managers have been able to address and resolve difficult

issues (such as bonus targets) constructively both through union channels and directly,

utilising focus groups of employees, and TLs said they were not so much consumed with

fire fighting as they would be in other large delivery sites.

Following the Marua Road pilot, GOAL was adopted in a more streamlined form

with less documentation and recording, and less intensive training in the set up period

and rolled out through the Auckland region. However, later interviews with the Marua

Road TLs suggest that though they still saw the initiative in positive terms, there were

Table 2. Postie survey results (%).

How does Marua compare with previous branches? Same Better

Communication 27 73Teamwork 33 40Development opportunities 73 14Awareness of business results 20 80Individual support 27 67Access to team leader 47 53As a place to work 33 40Access to information 60 40


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some signs of frustration. This was because some of the people-management aspects of

their role were being crowded out by the effects of a national recruitment freeze and the

transfer of registered mail processing from the Couriers business to help replace declining

volume:

we really need someone doing that for all of us but theyre not going to pay for anotherperson so its really GOAL that suffers basically . . . its a shame because it definitely doesaffect GOAL . . . GOALs a really good aspect you know, it really is but we need moreinside staff.

your time at the computer was meant to be an hour a day, out of your day and the rest of it wasreally with your people and having the time to manage them properly and give them the timethat they needed to be as good as they could be as well. And thats kind of getting sucked awayfrom us which is unfortunate because we got to a really good point with the teams, thedynamics of the team were great and the atmosphere was great. I dont think thats eroded butwere not probably putting as much effort into that as we were.

Discussion

This case study research has limitations, being based on a single initiative in one

organisation and more specifically focusing on one workplace. Several of the management

interviews also deal retrospectively with the issue. However, it responds to a significant

gap in the literature concerning how the HR function might perceive and address employee

engagement and how it deals with encountered difficulties. It also explores how the

initiative was experienced by the target employee group (the TLs) and also, less directly,

how this impacted on their reports. There are two main sets of issues arising from the

results that might inform a future research agenda.

First, what is the HR conception of EE and how does it go about developing and

implementing relevant initiatives? In this case, the initial problem was clearly identified in

terms of employee engagement, both by the trade union and by HRs own research into TL

attitudes and behaviours. The term itself was widely used by HR, but defined less in

precise psychosocial terms than in the broad sense of motivations that lead to desired

behaviours. It was also seen as a very important goal, partly as a humanistic end in itself

but most specifically because, in the AMO framework, it was seen to underpin the

various performance interventions (recruitment, training, work design and management

support) relating to ability and opportunity. The key practices introduced under GOAL

(e.g. providing a support worker for TLs) were designed to improve performance directly,

but crucially were seen to be responding to employee concerns around role motivation. In

this sense, the initiative is not an engagement initiative per se, but an engagement and

performance initiative since for HR both were inextricably linked.

This conceptual conflation of engagement and performance is also driven by a political

dimension. Selling proposals to senior line management required a hard focus on

productivity-related outcomes because however much HR might problematise the issue in

terms of engagement, the focus for the delivery business was performance numeric.

Hence, though HR clearly conceptualised (through the AMOD framework) and articulated

the importance of EE (including to the unions and employees as well as local and regional

management), this was less emphasised in the documents seeking senior business approval

for resources.

Second, what are the implications of EE for the HR function itself? The evidence from

this case at least is that HR requires high-level competencies if it is to design, sell and

implement significant change proposals relating to EE. The prerequisite is a thorough


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understanding of the business and the ability and confidence to generate ideas and take

responsibility for change management, which in turn implies an acceptance by different

management levels of its business partner status (Brockbank and Ulrich 2009). At the

same time, HR in this case came to adopt an incremental, evidence-based approach in

response to management caution and scepticism.

More fundamentally, the case suggests that effective engagement with engagement

means that HR assumes what Ulrich and Brockbank (2005) refer to as employee

advocacy. This is because it is concerned with identifying issues of concern to employees

what is frustrating them in their work and what improvements might be made and acting

upon them. In this initiative, HR emphasised employee voice and questioned existing work

arrangements to generate an integrated set of change proposals around areas such as work

design, skills development and leadership support. This approach represents something

different from both the classic pluralism of personnel management (as arbitrator) and the

conventional characterisation of HRM as essentially unitarist (management agent). The

hard-soft nature of HRs position on EE suggests something else, in that it seeks to

reconcile the business need to focus on performance outcomes with the acknowledgement

and representation of employee interests. In this sense, it might be seen as a form of what

Ackers (2002), referring more broadly to the disciplinary field of industrial relations, terms

neo-pluralism. The emphasis is on performance and mutual gains in terms of goals, not

simply in an avowedly managerialist way but by prioritising the recognition and addressing

of employee concerns.

Also relevant in this case is that HR worked in partnership with the trade unions in

pursuit of its goals. The initiative was to a significant degree prompted by EPMU

representations (with which the company has what HR referred to as a strategic

partnership) at national level, and HR worked hard to involve and reassure local union

representatives about the scheme. Exploring and comparing HR approaches to EE in non-

unionised as well as unionised organisations would be a useful programme for future

research, mapping the nature of, and limits to, such neo-pluralism in less collectivised (and

perhaps commercially more aggressive) environments. This could extend recent research

into the nature and effectiveness of employee involvement through collective information

and consultation in different organisational settings (Hall, Hutchinson, Purcell, Terry and

Parker 2010).

A final consideration is the need for research on how far EE initiatives may be

considered strategic. There is a case, somewhat supported by this research, that EE

potentially operationalises SHRM along its three key dimensions. First, as Guest (1987)

originally observed, the strategic intent of HRM is defined by its focus on employee

performance and commitment. These were seen as self-reinforcing objectives in this case

and pursued through an integrated set of practices embracing new ways of working; new

recruitment and selection criteria to better match people to jobs; communication and

performance management; and training, development and succession planning. Second,

SHRM prioritises the recruitment and development of managers, recognising that they are

crucial to the everyday administration of the employment relationship and to the delivery of

HR practices (Hutchinson and Purcell 2003). As Alfes, Truss, Soane, Rees and Gatenby

conclude from their investigation of EE initiatives in eight UK organisations, HR needs to

pay close attention to the selection, development and performance management of line

managers to ensure they maximise their potential to be engaging leaders (2010, p. 3). TLs

were the focus of the GOAL initiative at NZ Post; it was recognised that TLs needed clear

role definition and support to be engaged, and that in turn they are more likely to effectively

lead their own teams when they themselves are provided with the required resources,


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development and leadership. Third, SHRM extends its interest in people management to

matters of work organisation (Boxall and Purcell 2008). At NZ Post, job redesign was a

fundamental component of the GOAL initiative.

Conclusions

Employee engagement has become a major focus for HR practitioners in recent years but,

whilst academic psychologists wrestle with its meaning and measurement, there has been

little investigation as to how HR might operationalise EE in practice, nor with what effect

(Welbourne 2011). This case study analyses one such initiative focused primarily on

supervisory employees. The GOAL project at NZ Post was designed to improve the

engagement and performance of TLs (and their reports) by providing them more support to

better discharge their people management responsibilities. The case raises a number of

implications. From a professional HR perspective, it suggests that the business partner

model might offer scope for HR to develop strategies around engagement geared towards

performance results. However, EE initiatives are likely to meet with scepticism or

opposition from business leaders, especially where they involve significant cost or change.

Workers too might not all be enthusiastic about job enlargement or more challenging work

where they are used to different ways of doing things. For HR, this places a premium on

effective marshalling of evidence. It also stresses the importance of HR basics, such as

better recruitment practices, in addition to development and support, to better match

workers and their managers to job roles.

More fundamentally, the case also responds to two common criticisms made of HRM.

The first is that it is based on simplistic and uncritical foundations. The second is that it is a

relatively powerless function, limited in its ability to lead change (Guest and King 2004).

Both perspectives are qualified to some degree in this case. First, the focus on employee

engagement and performance in the GOAL initiative proceeded through the application of

an analytical approach that acknowledged the problematic nature of the employment

relationship. Issues to do with job demands, resources and management style were

investigated using the AMOD framework and, moreover, involved a bottom-up process

of extensive consultation and research into what employees, as well as managers, thought

about their job. Indeed, as Sparrow and Balain (2010, p. 294) argue, effective engagement

strategies require HR to ask the harder questions. Why dont employees believe

management messages? Why are they frustrated in their work? Why is there not

supportive leadership? The HR goals of employee commitment and performance need not

preclude a critical and pluralistic understanding of work and management.

Second, though HR is fundamentally a dependent function virtually everything of

significance that it does has to be endorsed by and implemented through the line this

does not mean that it cannot act in a change agent capacity (Alfes, Truss and Gill 2010).

In this case, HR proceeded by building alliances with sympathetic business leaders and

using an evidence-based approach to win wider support within the senior management

team. It resembled an instance of what Storey (1992) labelled a changemaker role, or

what Legge (1978) termed deviant innovation, where the function is prepared to think

and act independently and, if necessary, challenge management assumptions and practice.

Both models, incidentally, were at that stage rarely observed in practice.

To end on a much more cautious note, the question remains as to the sustainability of

EE initiatives, especially in an increasingly challenging operating environment. The

GOAL initiative at NZ Post raised TL expectations that they would have the time and

administrative support to communicate with and manage their teams effectively, but this


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was subsequently undermined to some degree by resource constraints. The implication is

that, ultimately, EE is an ongoing process that commits HR to continuous interrogation of

the workplace. Unfortunately, the constraints on this are great and perhaps, as Hyman

observed, such labour strategies are generally destined to be routes to partial failure

(1987, p. 30). Yet, at the same time, EE does offer HR the potential to more systematically

engage with both its core constituencies in the pursuit of a more coherent contribution to

workplace motivation and performance.

Acknowledgements

Sincere thanks to Amanda Shantz and Katie Truss for constructive advice on positioning this paper,and to the anonymous referees for their useful suggestions. We are also very grateful to the managersand staff at NZ Post who gave their time and thoughts freely and who made this research possible.

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