The Evolving Nature of High Performance Workplace Practices in the United States

Using a unique longitudinal survey of employers in the United States during the 1990s, this chapter examines the trends and factors associated with how businesses have invested in high performance workplace practices. The specific workplace practices examined include shared rewards, job rotation, workforce training, employee involvement in problem solving, and self-managed employee teams. The incidence and diffusion of innovative workplace practices such as these varies over time but not in a unidirectional way. Employers with a more external focus and broader networks to learn about best practices are more likely to have extensively invested in these types of workplace practices. The educational quality of the workforce and investments in physical capital, especially information technology, appear to be complementary with a range of workplace practices. However, the association between unionization and workplace practices is mixed. Unionized establishments are more likely to train their employees but nonunionized establishments are more likely to have engaged a higher fraction of their nonmanagerial workers in problem solving. Finally, for employers in the manufacturing sector, past profits tend to be positively associated with more extensive investments in high performance workplace practices.