Asia Pacific Journal of Human Resources

http://apj.sagepub.com/ Employee voice on human resource management

Fiona Edgar and Alan J. Geare Asia Pacific Journal of Human Resources 2005 43: 361 DOI: 10.1177/1038411105058707 The online version of this article can be found at: http://apj.sagepub.com/content/43/3/361

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Employee voice on human resource management Fiona Edgar and Alan J. Geare University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand

Empirical research on human resource management (HRM) practice has mainly assessed and evaluated the activity from an employers perspective. Concern has been expressed about the lack of empirical analysis conducted from the employees perspective. This exploratory study begins to fill this gap in the literature by examining the current views that 626 New Zealand employees have about HRM in their organisations. It identified those aspects of HRM that are important to an employee in the employment relationship today, and highlighted a number of shared concerns about practices in their organisations. This study found that, from an employees perspective, training and development is becoming an increasingly important issue. Employer investment in this area may have the greatest potential to contribute beneficially to organisational performance. These findings suggest that not all HRM practices are equally beneficial in terms of the outcomes they produce, and practitioners may need to identify and implement those practices that have the most usefulness. The results also provide insights for academics and practitioners to use as they seek to develop new policies and practices that are aimed at maximising the potential of people in the workplace.
Keywords: employees, human resource management, New Zealand

Most research in the area of human resource management (HRM) has been conducted from a managerial or academic perspective, and, apart from some rare exceptions (Guest 1999; Cully, Woodland, OReilly and Dix 1999), the employee voice has been afforded very little attention. This situation developed even though employees are considered to be an organisations most important asset and most models of HRM identify them as being an important stakeholder in the employment relationship. This paper builds the employee

Correspondence to: Dr Fiona Edgar, Department of Management, University of Otago, PO Box 56, Dunedin, New Zealand; fax: +643 479 8173; e-mail: fedgar@business.otago.ac.nz
Asia Pacific Journal of Human Resources. Published by Sage Publications (London, Thousand Oaks, CA and New Delhi; www.sagepublications.com) on behalf of the Australian Human Resources Institute. Copyright 2005 Australian Human Resources Institute. Volume 43(3): 361380. [1038-4111] DOI: 10.1177/1038411105058707.

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viewpoint into HRM by exploring their views on HRM practice and identifying what it is about HRM they consider important. In doing so some of the ways incorporating the employee voice into studies on HRM can benefit the field are highlighted. Models of HRM All variants of HRM are ultimately concerned with the effective management of people so that organisations achieve their objectives and goals. However, at least according to the British literature (Keenoy 1990), the two principal models of HRM that came from the United States in the 1980s differ significantly. There is the strategic model of HRM (Fombrun, Tichy and Devanna 1984), characterised as hard, and the Harvard variant (Beer, Spector, Lawrence, Quinn-Mills and Walton 1984; Walton 1985) characterised as soft. Under the hard model, the effectiveness of HRM is measured using some sort of criteria that reflects organisational performance (for example, profitability, productivity levels, absenteeism, and turnover rates see Edwards 1995; Becker and Gerhart 1996; Huselid 1995). Here the outcomes from the effective utilisation of human resources for the organisation are of paramount importance, whereas outcomes for employees do not enter into the equation thus with this model employees are largely considered a means to an end. Under the soft model of HRM, business performance is still the primary objective, but importance is also attached to employee well-being and employee commitment. Employee well-being is an end in itself, and can be used as a measure of effectiveness of HRM (Guest 1999). It is also a means to employee commitment, which in turn is a means to improved business performance. From an ethical viewpoint this balancing of the needs and interests of the organisation with those of individuals is widely supported and seen as a necessary obligation on the part of employers (Payne and Wayland 1999). Securing employee commitment has come to be seen as pivotal to the success of HRM. For example, Guest (1999, 6) claims only by winning the commitment of employees is it possible to achieve corporate goals and furthermore suggests (Guest 1998, 42): The concept of organisational commitment lies at the heart of any analysis of HRM. Indeed, the whole rationale for introducing HRM policies is to increase levels of worker commitment so that other positive outcomes can ensue. Underpinning this relationship is the view that employee attitudes and behaviours can be affected by human resource policies and practices and it is this perspective which has been adopted by most HRM researchers (Whitener 2001; Arthur 1994). However, it is likely some practitioners face some very real dilemmas as they try to reconcile the rhetoric of soft HRM with its emphasis on developing employee commitment, when for many employees the employment relationship is no longer based on permanence (Mallon 1998; Fournier
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1997). The adoption of flatter organisational structures may compound this problem by reducing the potential for employees to move upward within an organisation. While progression can be achieved through the promotion of lateral development and realistic job previews (as opposed to hierarchal progression), and Fournier (1997, 366) reports these to be consistent with the literature on the new career model, it is not always achievable. Indeed, it has been argued that some organisations utilise this new concept of career, with its emphasis on individuality, as a means of controlling employee behaviour in the workplace (Dyer and Humphries 2002; Fournier 1997). The new workplace culture, which is built around the promotion of individualism (evidenced by the increasing emphasis and adoption of practices such as performance-based pay), must surely conflict with the implementation of practices such as team-working and quality circles that are collective ways of working. Similarly, equal employment opportunity (EEO) practices have been shown to most useful when they are operated within a collective model and do not fit comfortably where the emphasis is on the individual (Whitehouse 1992). Hendry and Jenkins point out that where employers attempt to maintain the rhetoric of organisational commitment yet implement changes such as those mentioned above, a situation is created whereby an agenda is produced for practitioners that is long on intentions and short on deliverables and inevitably results in a lack of coherence in employment policies (1997, 41). The popular press has tried to reconceptualise the construct of commitment in light of the changing nature of employment (Stum 1999), but this redefining process does not necessarily facilitate the development of new policies and practices to meet the needs of employees today. The need for employee voice There are a number of logical reasons why employee voice is needed. First, if it is accepted that employees are important stakeholders, then exploring their views on HRM makes empirically testing of some of the assumptions and relationships in HRM more accurate. For example, while there is some support available to suggest soft HRM does indeed achieve its aim of improving employee well-being (Tsui, Pearce, Porter and Tripoli 1997; Guest 1999; Wood and Albanese 1995; Wood 1995; Ogilvie 1986), some researchers, however, remain unconvinced (Legge 1995; Keenoy 1990; Iles, Mabey and Robertson 1990). For example, Iles, Mabey and Robertson (1990, 151) comment:
as is often the case with much of the HRM literature, the data are almost entirely gathered through interviews with a small number of managers, rather than through more systematic measurement: they may therefore simply reflect managerial rhetoric or managerial beliefs about what has happened or what should happen.

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This mismatch between managerial rhetoric and reality is a major problem that is continually raised in the HRM literature (Edwards 1995; Guest 1995). While most managers claim to use practices associated with soft HRM, the reality is found to be different. This difference is referred to as a rhetoricreality gap. Recently, some attempt has been made to highlight this problem by incorporating the employee viewpoint into HRM studies (Guest 1999; Cully, Woodland, OReilly and Dix 1999). Also if soft HRM is to realise its full potential, then the practices engendered by it must be those that are believed to be important to the employee (Koys 1988). But what is important to the employee with respect to the employment relationship today is a question that has received little empirical attention. So obtaining employee views about HRM allows us to explore some of these relationships by providing insights into how effective employees consider current HRM policy and practice to be. Hard HRM, on the other hand, focuses primarily on the attainment of organisational goals. But even if we are only concerned with outcomes such as profitability, getting employee views is still important, given that, if employees are dissatisfied in the workplace, then high levels of dissatisfaction in the long term is likely to impact on profitability. A further reason for including the employee perspective in HRM research relates to the benefits that come from encouraging researchers to adopt a multi-constituency approach to data collection. To date, information on the effectiveness of HRM has been obtained primarily from managers/employers, with little else to confirm or deny its accuracy. Since employers are reporting on their own HRM practices, this increases the likelihood of social response bias. Furthermore, as Guest (2001) observes, the employer reports on the effectiveness of their HRM policies and practices from their perspective as a manager, not from their experience of the actual practices they are not the consumers of HRM, the employee is. So collecting data from employees as well as employers and other relevant stakeholders is likely to enhance the reliability of findings reported in studies on HRM. Finally and perhaps the most important reason is that HRM is fundamentally built around the view that employees are the organisations greatest asset, and therefore should be afforded some voice in research into HRM. Research objectives This paper examines aspects of the soft HRM model. Its research objectives are, first, to examine the strength of employees views as to whether HRM practice is taking place in their organisations. Second, it gives the employees evaluations of HRM functions. The paper also reports on employees self-evaluations of their levels of commitment and their levels of well-being. The rela-

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tionships between employee commitment, employee well-being and employee views on HRM practice are then explored. Studies in HRM have identified that HRM professionals need to respond more effectively to employee needs (Armstrong 2001). Moreover, it has been suggested that HRM practices are one means by which organisations can demonstrate their support for, or commitment to, their employees and, in turn, foster a reciprocal attachment by employees (Meyer and Smith 2000, 327). Thus it is suggested that the usefulness of some HRM practices are likely to be thwarted if the perspectives of academics and practitioners about what constitutes soft HRM and hence which HRM practices are important are not congruent with the views of employees. So a final objective of this paper is to identify which aspects of HRM, employees currently consider important. This paper makes a contribution to the literature in that most research on HRM practice has relied solely on employer reports (Cully et al. 1999) and ignored employees views. The more informed employers and academics are with regards to employees views about the importance and value of HRM practices, the greater the probability that initiatives in introducing HRM practices will be effective. Approach This study involves an examination of employee attitudes towards a number of HRM initiatives. Perceptual evaluations related to employer performance and the importance of HRM are investigated across ten functional areas. As data presented here were originally collected to assess the impact of government legislation on HRM, the four functional areas of HRM covered by the legislation (i.e. health and safety; training and development; EEO; and recruitment and selection) are studied in depth. While a limitation, the use of specific HRM domains in research examining HRM practice has been the approach most commonly adopted in prior studies (Meyer and Smith 2000). This study first explores HRM practice in the workplace. To examine this employees are asked to indicate the extent they consider a range of soft HRM initiatives across those four functional areas mentioned above have been operationalised in their workplace. Second, an overall evaluative rating of employer performance across a broader range of functional HRM areas (ten in total) is obtained. An examination of the relationship between employee assessments of operationalised HRM practice, along with employee evaluations of employer performance and employee work-related attitudes is then undertaken. Finally, the analysis identifies those areas of HRM employees consider to be most important in order to establish which HRM practices are most likely to have the potential to elicit desirable employee outcomes, and thus contribute positively to organisational performance.

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Method Participants for this study were secured by firstly writing to all those employers in the Wellington and Christchurch regions, listed in the New Zealand business whos who, with 50 or more employees. In total 234 organisations were contacted, with reminder letters being sent to those who had not responded one month after the initial contact was made. Of these 234, a total of 52 agreed to participate (22%). Twelve of these 52 subsequently withdrew their consent, leaving a total sample of 40 organisations. This low response is not uncommon at the organisational level and research by Tomaskovic-Devey, Leiter and Thompson (1994) has found that organisational non-response is predominantly the result of organisations either not wanting to divulge confidential information or an unwillingness to expend the time involved. Participation was voluntary, confidentiality was guaranteed, and the company fully endorsed their participation. The targeted population of employees consisted of a total of 1075 full- and part-time workers. A total of 626 employees responded (a response rate of 58%) by completing the questionnaire and returning it in the reply-paid envelope provided. This response rate compares very favourably for survey research in this area (Scandura and Williams 2000). Employers were requested to distribute the surveys to a representative sample of their workforce, in terms of occupational classification, ethnicity and gender. The number of employees in each organisational sample was based on organisation size, with 10 per cent (a minimum of 20 and a maximum of 50) of employees from each organisation being requested to participate. The data were analysed using SPSS 10.1, a statistical analysis program specifically designed for use in the social sciences. The results reported here primarily involve the analysis and reporting of descriptive and frequency data, along with correlation analyses aimed at assessing the relationships between the variables. The survey administered to employees included a section requesting a range of demographic information, such as ethnicity, gender, occupation and age. The strength of soft HRM practice is measured using a 20-item perceptual scale (a = 0.9256), comprising five items for each of the four areas examined. Participants are asked to indicate the extent to which they agreed (using a 5-point Likert scale ranging from strongly disagree = 1 to strongly agree = 5) with each of these statements (for example: EEO is promoted within this organisation). The five items for each functional area were later collapsed, enabling the relationship between assessments about the strength of HRM practice and levels of employee commitment and employee well-being to be explored. Three additional HRM-focused questions tapping the employees overall impression of their employer were also included. Employee commitment is measured using a shortened version of the
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Mowday, Steers and Porter (1979) 15-item survey instrument (Organisational Commitment Questionnaire (OCQ)), which has been proven to have sound psychometric properties. The measure has six items (a = 0.8535), with respondents again being asked to indicate the extent to which they agreed with each of the statements using a 5-point Likert scale ranging from 1 = strongly disagree to 5 = strongly agree. Two employee attitudes are used to measure employee well-being (organisational fairness and job satisfaction). A brief discussion on their selection is warranted. The systems, policies and procedures that are operating in an organisation can impact on an individuals perceptions of bias and fairness (Kurland and Egan 1999). Fairness has also been linked to several dimensions of organisational citizenship, including courtesy, sportsmanship, and conscientiousness (Schappe 1998, 279). If an organisation is perceived by its employees to perform HRM practice well, then it is likely that employees will report high levels of organisational fairness. This study measures the construct using an adapted and shortened version of the scale used by Moorman (1991) which has been reported as being a reliable and valid measure. The measure has six items (a = 0.9160), with respondents being asked to indicate the extent to which they agreed with each of the statements using a 5-point Likert scale ranging from 1 = strongly disagree to 5 = strongly agree. A multitude of measures are available for measuring job satisfaction (Warr, Cook and Wall 1979; Weiss, Dawis, England and Lofquist 1967). This study used an adapted and shortened form of the Minnesota Satisfaction Questionnaire (MSQ) (short form) (Hirschfeld 2000). This scale broadly conceptualises job satisfaction as being the extent to which an individuals requirements are fulfilled by the organisation (Schappe 1998, 282). This measure has been widely used in management research, and has been reported as being suitable for a range of research applications (Rentsch and Steel 1992). This measure has been proven to be psychometrically acceptable, simple in format and short in length (Schappe 1998). The scale has six items (a = 0.8554) tapping both the intrinsic (how people feel about the nature of their job tasks themselves) and extrinsic (how people feel about aspects of the work situation that are external to the job or work itself) dimensions of job satisfaction (Hirschfeld 2000, 256), and specifically addresses the effectiveness of organisational policies. Respondents were asked to indicate how satisfied they were with respect to each of the statements, and a 5-point Likert scale ranging from 1 = very dissatisfied to 5 = very satisfied was used. Three additional questions were included. The first question asked employees to rate the overall performance of their employer across a broader range of ten functional areas of HRM practice. They were then asked to identify, from this list of ten practices, the four they considered were the most important and to indicate how important they considered each of the four HRM functions comprising the focus of this study to be. Provision was also
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made for employees to make any additional comments about HRM practices in their organisation should they wish to do so. The sample An analysis of the demographic data obtained from participants is presented in table 1. The sample is skewed in terms of occupational classification. Some 53 per cent of participants classified themselves as belonging to the professional occupational grouping. However, this groups representation in the actual labour force is considerably lower. The remaining variables are reasonably representative of these groups respective representation rates in the New Zealand labor force. Results Employees were first asked to assess the strength of current operationalised HRM practice in their organisations as well as provide an overall impression of their employer by indicating the extent to which they agreed with each statement (see table 2). The results show employees tended to agree or moderately agree with all of the statements on soft HRM practice. This suggests that all of the HRM practices in those areas examined are indeed used in their organisations. Participants were then asked to provide an evaluative rating of their employers current performance for a range of HRM areas (see table 3). Ratings of employer performance across these functions reveal some differences of sizeable magnitude. While the functions of health and safety, sexual harassment and EEO appear to be performed relatively well, others, notably

Table 1

Demographics of employee sample (N = 626) Demographic variable Length of service Less than 1 year 15 years 6 years plus Occupation Professional Semi-professional Clerical/administration Trades Labourer Other Sector Public Private

Demographic variable Gender Males Females Age Under 20 2050 Over 50 Ethnicity European Maori Polynesian Chinese Other

Percentage (%)

Percentage (%)

46 54 2 78 20 78 7 5 5 5

16 47 37 53 13 24 3 3 4 55 45

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Table 2 No. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23

Employees assessments* of current operationalised HRM practice (N = 626) Area H&S H&S H&S H&S H&S R&S R&S R&S R&S R&S EEO EEO EEO EEO EEO T&D T&D T&D T&D T&D Statement of HRM practice Working conditions are good Employer addresses health issues Employer addresses safety issues Employer addresses worker well-being Money is spent on health & safety Operate impartial recruitment & selection process Favouritism not evident Interview panels used Organisation pays attention to recruitment processes All appointments based on merit Spends enough money on EEO Supports workfamily life balance Supports cultural difference Men & women have the same opportunities Promotes EEO Encourages staff to extend abilities Provides training opportunities Discusses training & development requirements Pays for work-related training Committed to training and developing employees Organisation is a good place to work Employer is a good employer HRM practices are good Mean score (SD) 4.18 (.924) 3.95 (1.147) 4.21 (.958) 4.02 (1.053) 3.88 (1.048) 3.72 (1.076) 3.57 (1.179) 3.93 (1.152) 3.10 (1.237) 3.48 (1.225) 3.37 (1.037) 3.85 (1.064) 3.82 (.996) 3.86 (1.155) 3.69 (1.047) 3.91 (1.091) 3.86 (1.137) 3.84 (1.176) 3.89 (1.117) 3.88 (1.048) 4.16 (.951) 4.09 (.989) 3.87 (1.055)

Overall Overall Overall

* 1 = Employee strongly disagrees this practice occurs in their workplace, 5 = Employee strongly agrees this practice occurs in their workplace

performance appraisal, discipline / discharge and promotion, are considered not to be performed well at all. The former three areas are to differing degrees covered by legislation in New Zealand, and it may be that compliance with legislation improves performance. On the other hand, with the possible exception of discipline and discharge, the poor performing areas are those where employers have more discretion in how they deal with their employees. Increased managerial prerogative in certain HRM areas may either create an impression, or reflect a reality, that policies and practices are unfairly or inconsistently applied. Alternatively, it may simply be that those employees participating in this study have been denied promotion or have experienced performance problems. However, this seems an unlikely explanation given most employees considered performance in these areas to be poor.
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Table 3

Employee ratings of employer performance across HRM functions (N = 626) Mean Std dev. 3.86 3.75 3.63 3.37 3.36 .91 .96 1.04 1.03 1.09 Area of HRM practice Benefits and entitlements Salary and wages Performance appraisal Discipline and discharge Promotion Mean 3.31 3.30 3.11 3.11 2.93 Std dev. 1.05 .99 1.10 1.05 1.00

Area of HRM practice Health and safety Sexual harassment EEO Recruitment and selection Training and development

Scale: 1 = very bad and 5 = very good

Ratings of employer performance and assessments of the strength of HRM for the four functions were then correlated. The results of this relationship are presented in table 4. (For simplicity, correlations among the HRM variables are not included in the table.) While it is found the mean performance ratings for all four functions are somewhat lower than the mean assessments of practice, these assessments are nonetheless found to be statistically significantly (albeit weakly) correlated to performance ratings. So contrary to inferences drawn in previous studies on HRM which have relied on numbers of HRM practices to measure effectiveness (Guest 1999; Cully et al. 1999), these findings suggest that the operationalisation of a range of HRM practices does not necessarily result in effective HRM practice, at least not from the employees perspective. The relationship between HRM practice and employee commitment and employee well-being was then examined. The mean scores and standard deviations for the three attitudes examined in this study are presented in table 5. All three work-related attitudes recorded moderate scores, with very little difference evident between the scales. The data about the strength of HRM practice were collapsed and aggregated to produce a mean score for each function. This score was then correlated with employees aggregated mean scores for the three employee attitudes.
Table 4 Relationship between employee assessments of HRM practice and employee performance ratings of HRM practice Assessments of current operationalised practice Performance ratings 1. Health and safety 2. Recruitment and selection 3. Training and development 4. EEO
* Statistically significant at the .001 level (Spearmans rho)

1 .505*

2 .607*

.648* .588*

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Table 5 Item

Employees work-related attitudes (N = 626) Mean 3.73 3.70 3.72 Std dev. .783 .865 .797

Organisational commitment (OC) Organisational fairness (OF) Job satisfaction (JS)

These results (see table 6) showed that employee assessments of current HRM practice were all highly and statistically significantly correlated with both employee commitment and employee well-being. Job satisfaction was most strongly correlated with training and development, and health and safety, with recruitment and selection, on the other hand, being the strongest correlate of organisational fairness. EEO had the weakest correlation with all three employee work-related attitudes. The scale measuring an employees overall impression of their employer and HRM practice in their organisation was the largest correlate with respect of employee attitudes. This supports those findings obtained in prior studies that also find a relationship between HRM practice and employee attitudes, and furthermore suggests that these four areas of practice have the potential to elicit desirable organisational benefits. However, caution is required here in drawing any firm conclusions as these results do not tell us anything about causality between the variables in question, nor has the possibility been addressed that these findings are contaminated by problems associated with common method variance, i.e. an artificial correlation across questions due to mood or other contaminants (Fiorito 2002, 217). If we accept that soft HRM practice is probably going to produce beneficial outcomes for the organisation and the employee, then are there some areas of practice that are more likely to contribute positively to this end than others?

Table 6

Relationship between employee assessments of HRM practice and employee work-related attitudes Employee attitudes

Assessment of current practice Health and safety Recruitment and selection Training and development EEO Overall impression of employer

OC .593* .541* .595* .520* .721*

OF .620* .649* .592* .553* .762*

JS .625* .570* .631* .495* .746*

* Statistically significant at the .001 level using Spearmans rho

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Table 7

Percentage of employees who considered HRM function to be very important (N = 620*) Total employees 508 442 316 316 246 232 177 124 37 23 Percentage 81 70 52 51 40 37 28 20 6 4

Area of HRM Training and development Salary/wages Performance appraisal Health and safety Benefits and entitlements EEO Promotion Recruitment and selection Discipline/discharge Sexual harassment

* Some respondents did not complete this section of the survey therefore the N of the sample was reduced from 626 to 620.

To answer this question, participants were asked to identify from a list of ten functional HRM areas, the four they consider to be most important. It is likely employees will attribute most importance to those HRM functions which best help them meet their needs. The results in table 7 reveal a high degree of consensus among employees that the opportunity for training and development is of paramount importance. A slightly lower level of consensus is evident for salary and wage entitlements, with a moderate level of agreement being found for the areas of health and safety, and performance appraisal systems On the other hand, the areas of EEO and recruitment and selection are considered to be important for around only 37 per cent and 20 per cent of employees respectively. Arguably, this is not surprising as participants have already gained entry into the organisation. The group who are most likely to see this matter differently are those who have applied for a position within the organisation and have subsequently been declined. This therefore highlights the importance and need to collect data in HRM studies from a wider group of stakeholders. The importance employees appear to place on training and development and the need for employers to provide more opportunities for this reflects the growing body of literature that suggests the notion of a job for life has gone and employees need to take some responsibility for their own career management. Some time ago, human resource practitioners wrote about this change in direction (Tornow 1988, 97 and 99):
Paternalism and job security are out these days. Taking responsibility for your own career is in The need for lifelong learning is also becoming

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more apparent. To participate in the job market, workers must also avoid skills obsolescence

The logic for employers providing their employees with training is that it enables them to do their jobs better. The logic behind development is that it enables employees to do future tasks better, possibly as a result of promotion, job expansion or job change. Investment in these areas supposedly equips the organisation with a high performing workforce, providing it with flexibility should it be required (Pfeffer and Veiga 1999). The benefits to the employee are that they enhance their employability and foster the development of lifelong learning skills. These benefits are seen as desirable in a time when job security is no longer an attainable goal for many employees. To some extent training and development may be seen as a risky investment by employers as workers may leave the organisation and take the acquired skills elsewhere. However, if training and development is valued by employees the provision of this benefit is likely to positively impact on employee retention. Finally, for verification purposes and also to enable a more accurate insight about the actual level of importance attached to various HRM functions to be obtained, employees were asked to indicate, using a 5-point Likert scale, the extent they considered the four areas of HRM practice that comprised the focus of this research to be important. These results are presented in table 8, and are reasonably consistent with the results presented in table 7. While all areas received relatively high ratings, EEO was again afforded relatively less importance. Recruitment and selection, on the other hand, rated much higher than when respondents had 10 function areas to choose from. Clearly the type of measures used affects the results obtained and this shows why more supporting data, preferably of a qualitative nature, are required about the relative importance of various HRM functions before any inferences can be made about what really counts for employees. In this study, this requirement was in some part addressed by the provision of the open-ended question. When employees were provided with

Table 8 Item

Level of importance attached to HRM function by employees (N = 626) Mean 4.83 4.67 4.03 4.80 Std dev. .43 .75 .83 .57

Health and safety Recruitment and selection EEO Training and development
Scale: 1 = very unimportant and 5 = very important

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the opportunity to comment on HRM practice in their organisation, a total of 326 employees responded (60%) chose to do so. The grouping of these comments into specific content areas highlighted that there was significant agreement among employees on a number of issues, namely training and development, EEO and communication. A number of employees (n = 76) commented on the need for more or better training and development opportunities. This suggests training and development now assumes a high priority in the employment relationship and is viewed as an area of great importance for employees. These comments support the findings of the survey that 81 per cent of respondents rank training and development as an important area of HRM practices (see table 7). In a period when employees cannot be assured job security, they must assume some responsibility for their own career management, so ensuring one is marketable in employment becomes an important objective. This can be achieved by being provided with opportunities for training and development. The second area that elicited a large number of responses was EEO. The following excerpts show that, of the groups commonly targeted by EEO policies and practices, those that have a focus on ethnicity were the subject of a lot of negative feedback. For example:
should stop differentiating between Maori and everyone else. It is divisive and the back lash against the favoured Maori is growing stronger. Irrespective of the Treaty, we are all New Zealanders and we should all be treated the same in employment terms, not by quota. Maori should not be treated any differently to other minority groups or European groups.

EEO is generally considered to be an aspect of soft HRM practice, but employees attached less importance to this practice as compared to the other practices examined in this study (see table 8). Surprisingly, this finding still held when only data from EEO beneficiaries was used in the analysis. Possibly a heightened awareness about the individualised nature of employment relationships today (Muller 1999) may explain the relatively lower level of importance afforded to this area by employees. Related to EEO is the balancing of work and family life. The need for more family-friendly working environments is also a recurrent theme for employees. A number of responses relate to work overload and stress, and the inability to satisfactorily mesh the demands of work and family life. The gap between the rhetoric of policy and its impact on practice is clearly exemplified in the following quote:
Family friendly policies, e.g.: sick leave to care for dependent relatives. I have ten days annual sick leave. If my children are sick, I have to use

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this leave. 10 days doesnt go far over a year. An employer can appear exemplary in terms of its stated policies on HRM practices. However, it is how these policies are applied (or not applied) that is important. My employer looks good in terms of its stated policies, but I have some concerns at how they are applied by some managers.

On the other hand, there is evidence to suggest that some organisations have got it right and their policies are working well: I work 60% of full time [24 hrs/wk] and am able to balance work and family without undue pressure and continue to be paid commensurate with my full time co-workers. It is of interest that so many employees made comments about the lack of consistency or the presence of unfair practices in their workplace. It is widely accepted that common law in New Zealand has addressed the issue of fair and proper treatment of employees, yet one-third of employees who made comments reported that HRM practices in their organisation were either unfair or lacked consistency in their application. It is possible that these perceptions have grown out of the employee dissatisfaction noted earlier in relation to EEO initiatives that are seen to overtly favour some target groups. Poor communication and a lack of participation in decision-making were also identified by a large number of employees as major problems. Communication in the workplace relates to the process of information sharing, and is an aspect of employment practice that is under managements control (Wimalasiri 1995). Research shows that it is positively correlated with employees work-related attitudes, and thus is crucial to effective organisational functioning (Wimalasiri 1995). Some 117 employees made reference to communication problems in their workplace. A few examples of the types of issues raised by employees are as follows:
Overall very good place to work, though I feel management lacks certain communication skills with staff and makes a pretence to listen to what staff want but make there own decisions with what seems to be little consideration for staff views.

Better communication of what is going on. An attempt is being made but more needs to be done. Only a small proportion of employees made comments about their wages/salaries (43 in total). This small number is surprising given that this area of HRM practice was rated as being highly important by 78 per cent of all employees. Possible explanations are that most employees participating in this study were relatively satisfied with their current income, or they simply felt more strongly about other issues. A total of 80 employees chose to make a general observation or comment about management in their workplace. More than two-thirds of these were
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negative criticisms of management or leadership style, with the remaining third complementing on the good job being done by management. Discussion/conclusions This exploratory study has shown employees report they are reasonably satisfied with most areas of HRM practice in their organisation and generally hold the view their employer is a good employer. Some concerns were expressed by employees, however, and these concerns may be signalling a need for change in certain areas of HRM practice. The main recurring themes emerging from this study suggest that more opportunities for training and development, along with an approach to EEO that fosters equal employment opportunities for all are practices that would be positively embraced by employees in the workplace today. As discussed in the introduction to this paper the primary objective of soft HRM is to help both the organisation and the employee achieve their objectives. Hence, practices are designed and developed with the specific aim of encouraging employees to willingly go the extra mile for the organisation. In effect this means eliciting high levels of commitment among employees. Two types of worker commitment have been identified in the literature (Mowday, Steers and Porter 1979). Continuance which reflects an employees willingness to stay in the organisation; and affective/attitudinal reflecting both a willingness on the part of the employee to exert high levels of effort; and also their belief in, and acceptance of the values and goals of the organisation (Singh and Vinnicombe 1998, 231). Clearly soft HRM, with its emphasis on forging a link between organisational and employee goals, appears to be primarily concerned with promoting affective/attitudinal commitment among the workforce. The results of this study suggest the continuance dimension may no longer be relevant. Employees seem to now be cognisant of the role they play in managing their own careers, as is evidenced by their willingness to engage in ongoing training and development. Therefore, it is possible that current measures of organisational commitment may be describing a past world and are now outdated. In the area of EEO, the mean evaluative scores for current practice and employer performance suggested employers could do more in this area, yet the employee comments when viewed in isolation from the survey data provided a somewhat different picture of the problems that may be surfacing in this area. The employee comments hinted that it was possibly the philosophy behind EEO practice in their organisation that was giving rise to employee dissatisfaction, and not a perception that employers were not performing the function well. Indeed, comments made by employees about HRM practice elicited a commonly held perception that EEO should benefit all groups in the

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workplace equally, and current approaches which are premised on notions of equity appear to evoke a strong negative reaction. The current study has some limitations that need addressing, and there are also a number of potential directions for future research that have been identified in light of these findings. First, the view from only one stakeholder in the employment relationship, namely the employee, is reported in this paper. Future studies in HRM need to explore the potential benefits that will come from using a multi-constituency approach to data collection. Also, along with the use of a single stakeholder, the evaluative nature of the questions used introduces the possibility of common method variance. However, it should be noted in this study the standard deviations for all measures were relatively small. Second, only four areas of HRM practice were specifically addressed in this study. The use of specific HRM domains can complicate the interpretation of data (Meyer and Smith 2000), so further research exploring other areas of practice, particularly those that were identified by employees as being important, is required. This study was conducted for exploratory purposes, and hence the types of analyses used are limited. The causal nature of the relationship between HRM practice and employee commitment and employee well-being requires thorough investigation. Although the findings of this study suggest employee commitment may be linked to HRM, we must view these results with caution because, as Whitener (2001) has highlighted, the specific relationship between human resource practices and organisational commitment has not, as yet, been empirically investigated in isolation. This type of assessment would be best undertaken by employing a case study method. However, research using more sophisticated statistical techniques such as regressions and path analysis to explore the predictive value of specific HRM functional areas and practices on employee attitudes and vice versa would also be useful. Finally, as far as the HRM practitioner is concerned, this studys findings suggest a good employer, at least from one employees perspective, could be defined as one who:
communicates well, applies policies and processes fairly and consistently, recognises good work and rewards both in pecuniary terms and with praise and encouragement, and acknowledges the importance of employability by providing all employees with opportunities for training and development.

Furthermore, HRM initiatives implemented by practitioners should be those most appropriate to meet the needs of their employees, and these practices should also be performed well, as it would appear it is the quality of the HRM practice that counts rather than the quantity.

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Fiona Edgar (PhD) did her PhD on a Foundation for Research, Science and Technology Fellowship, and currently works as a lecturer in the Department of Management at the University of Otago. Her current research interests include examining the relationship between HRM practice and its impact on employees, along with the relationship between workplace ideology and HRM practice. Alan J. Geare (PhD) has been professor of management, University of Otago, since 1987. He is author of a number of books and many articles in industrial relations, industrial law and HRM. He has worked as a consultant to companies and unions and has been a government-appointed mediator and adjudicator.

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