Front-line managers as agents in the HRM-performance causal chain: theory, analysis and evidence

Front-line managers as agents in the HRM-

performance causal chain: theory, analysis

and evidence

John Purcell and Sue Hutchinson1, University of BathHuman Resource Management Journal, Vol 17, no 1, 2007, pages 3–20

Research on the link between HRM and organisational performance has neglectedthe role of front-line managers, yet it is these managers who are increasinglycharged with the implementation of many HR practices. Using an employee surveyin 12 ‘excellent’ companies we explore the extent to which employee commitmenttowards their employer and their job are influenced by the quality of leadershipbehaviour and by satisfaction with HR practices. Both have a strong effect onemployee attitudes. The article concludes with a case study of a planned effort toimprove front-line managers’ skills in people management.Contact: John Purcell, School of Management, University of Bath, Bath BA27AY. Email: [email protected]

The substantial volume of research on the link between HRM andorganisational performance in the last 15 years has paid little attention to thecausal chain linking policy inputs to performance outcomes (Boselie et al.,

2005). In this ‘HRM black box’ the critical link is how HR practices influenceemployee attitudes and improve worker performance in ways which are beneficialto the employing organisation. This requires research using surveys of employees, orother methods, focusing on their perceptions of HR practices and establishingcorrelations with their commitment to the organisation and their job satisfaction.This is then related in the causal model to employee discretionary behaviour,sometimes referred to as organisational citizenship behaviour (OCB), and thence tomeasures of organisational or employment unit performance. The HR practicesperceived or experienced by employees will, to a growing extent, be those deliveredor enacted by line managers, especially front-line managers (FLMs) with directsupervisory responsibility. It is often observed that there is a gap between whatis formally required in HR policy and what is actually delivered by FLMs. Theway FLMs undertake their HR duties of selecting, appraising, developing,communicating, involving, etc., is inextricably linked to a wider set of what areincreasingly called leadership behaviours, which aim to influence employee attitudesand behaviour and give direction. These two aspects of FLMs’ roles can be broughttogether in the term ‘people management’.

The twin aspects of FLMs’ people management activities, leadership behaviourand the application of HR practices, imply a symbiotic relationship between them.FLMs need well designed HR practices to use in their people management activitiesin order to help motivate and reward employees and deal with performance issues

HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT JOURNAL, VOL 17 NO 1, 2007 3

© 2007 The Authors.

Journal compilation © 2007 Blackwell Publishing Ltd., 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford, OX4

2DQ, UK and 350 Main St, Malden, MA, 02148, USA.

mailto:[email protected]

and worker needs. The way FLMs enact these practices will be influenced by theirleadership behaviour and that of senior management in establishing an appropriateorganisational climate (Bowen and Ostroff, 2004). Employees are likely to beinfluenced both by the HR practices they experience and by their managers’leadership behaviour. Such responses can be positive or negative. Poorly designed orinadequate policies can be ‘rescued’ by good management behaviour in much thesame way as ‘good’ HR practices can be negated by poor FLM behaviour or weakleadership.

The central purpose of this article is to examine the extent to which leadershipbehaviour and the enactment of HR practices can be seen as two separate factorswhich need to be taken into account in the casual chain if an adequate explanationof the people management links to organisational performance is to be made. Twopropositions are tested. The first is that FLM leadership behaviour, independent ofHR practices in use, influences organisational commitment and job experiences. Thesecond is that, independent of FLM leadership behaviour, the HR practices asperceived by the employees will be related to organisational commitment and jobexperiences, and that the outcome effect on employee attitudes will be greater whenboth are positive. If these propositions are confirmed these will have importantimplications for practitioners in the way they seek to ensure successfulimplementation of HR practices and enhance FLMs’ leadership behaviour. Thesepropositions will also have important implications for the way HRM isconceptualised. Is it a set of mutually reinforcing policies relating to critical featuresof employee resourcing, performance management and employment relations(sometimes described as the ‘HR bundle’), or is there a need to broaden the remit tocover the whole of people management, including leadership behaviour andorganisational climate (Purcell and Kinnie, 2006)?

This article uses data collected in the period 2000–2003 from studies in 12organisations as part of the Chartered Institute for Personnel and Development(CIPD) sponsored programme of research inquiring into the ‘impact of peoplemanagement on organisational performance’ (Purcell et al., 2003). The aim here is touse these data to examine the influence that FLMs’ leadership behaviour has onemployee attitudes towards their job and their organisation and the effect employeeperceptions of HR practices have on these attitudes. The methodology is outlined inthe third section of the article. Prior to that we first look at the role of FLMs – thosein the lower echelons of the management hierarchy with immediate responsibility fortheir subordinates’ work and performance – to assess how their roles in peoplemanagement have evolved in recent decades and note the frequently reported gapbetween espoused HR policies and enacted HR practices. We then search, almost invain, for research in the HRM-performance equation which recognises the role ofFLMs as crucial agents. We use theory to seek to close this gap by focusing on theemployees’ experience of HRM to suggest a casual chain in the so-called HRM blackbox (Wright and Gardner, 2004). The substantial research and theory on socialexchange, perceived organisational support (POS) and OCBs is used to explore whythe roles and behaviours of FLMs are so important. Results are provided in the fourthsection where employee outcomes seen in levels of affective organisationalcommitment, and key components of job experience (job challenge, job autonomy andjob achievement) are assessed through the employee survey results and related to

Front-line managers as agents in the HRM-performance chain

HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT JOURNAL, VOL 17 NO 1, 20074


Journal compilation © 2007 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

employees’ perceptions of the quality of management leadership behaviour and toHR practices as applied to them in key policy areas.

In the penultimate section we provide a case study drawn from first and secondyear research data in one of the companies studied. Selfridges, in its Trafford Parkdepartment store, had deliberately set out to improve their FLMs’ peoplemanagement behaviour. We use survey data and interview material to explore whatchanges had been made and assess their effects on employees’ perceptions of HRpractices and their relationship with their FLMs. More general implications for HRpolicy and practice flowing from this research are discussed in the final section.

THE CONTESTED ROLE OF FRONT-LINE MANAGERS IN

PEOPLE MANAGEMENT

Three interlocking debates on the role of line managers, in general, and FLMs, inparticular, took place in the 1990s. These often harked back to earlier studies on the‘lost managers’ (Child and Partridge, 1982) and the ‘forgotten supervisor’ (Thurleyand Wirdenius, 1973). First, within HRM, there was substantial discussion on‘returning HRM to the line’ (Cunningham and Hyman, 1995; Hutchinson and Wood,1995; McGovern et al., 1997; Harris, 2001). Second, there is clear evidence that FLMroles in people management, and in management more generally, have beenbroadened while maintaining their traditional supervisory duties (McConville andHolden, 1999; Hales, 2005). Third, a steady stream of studies in the period on aspectsof the FLM role in HRM like appraisal, involvement and incentive pay has noted thedistinction between espoused and enacted HR practices with the gap often explainedby FLMs’ lack of training, lack of interest, work overload, conflicting priorities andself-serving behaviour (Grint, 1993; McGovern et al., 1997; Fenton O’Creevy, 2001;Harris, 2001; Whittaker and Marchington, 2003). Managers may well not transmit thearticulated values of top management but reflect instead the ‘informal’ culture of thefirm (Truss, 2001). While some HR policies may impact on employees directly, mostrely on line manager action or support, and the quality of the relationship betweenemployees and their immediate line managers is liable, too, to influence perceptionsnot only of HR practices but of work climate, either positively or negatively.

This variability in the people management performance of FLMs is clearlyreflected in employees’ views of their manager’s leadership behaviour as noted byGuest and Conway (2004) and our own research (Hutchinson and Purcell, 2003: 12).For example, in terms of the FLMs’ role in providing everyone with the chance tocomment on proposed changes, 40 per cent said their FLM was poor or very poor,35 per cent said their FLM was good or very good and 25 per cent said their FLMwas neither good nor bad. This range of responses was much greater than forquestions concerning satisfaction with HR practices.

Part of the explanation for this wide variation in employees’ judgements of theirFLMs’ people management activities comes from McGovern et al. (1997: 21). Theyasked line managers in the seven companies studied to ‘rank in order whatmotivates you to be involved in personnel activities’. The first ranked answer in eachcase was ‘personal motivation’, as opposed to targets, company values, careeradvancement and other possible reasons. The authors went on to note from theirqualitative research on ‘the rules of the game’ in each organisation that ‘people

John Purcell and Sue Hutchinson




management, either in the form of carrying out HR policies or in general, did notemerge in the list of unwritten rule/measurement priorities within any of theorganisations’ (McGovern et al., 1997: 23). In other words, the fulfilment of FLMs’people management roles often rely on the manager’s own sense of motivation andcommitment. It is therefore likely to be more discretionary than other aspects of FLMduties especially those related to the primary task of the work unit. The extent andnature of this discretionary behaviour will be influenced by the design and range ofHR practices they are expected to implement. In cases where there are few formalpolicies FLMs are left more to their own devices and as encouraged or discouragedby senior management. Alternatively, where an extensive range of HR policies existand are well known, FLMs are provided with the tools, techniques and proceduresto use in people management. These then can be expected to modify or influence therelationship between FLMs and their subordinates. Employee commitment to theorganisation will be influenced by their perceptions of these practices as well as theirrelationship with their FLM.

THE POSITION OF FRONT-LINE MANAGERS IN THE

HRM-PERFORMANCE CHAIN

The role of FLMs in people management, enacting HR practices and engaging inleadership behaviour means that they have to be included in any causal chainseeking to explain and measure the relationship between HRM and organisationalperformance. This has been largely ignored in the huge volume of research in the last15 years in the main because of a reliance on single respondents in multi-employerresearch projects (see Boselie et al., 2005). While a list of HR practices in use and theircoverage can be generated these cannot be related to either the actual practicesapplied by line managers or to employee responses to them and to leadershipbehaviour. The steps in the performance chain are ignored.

Employee responses to HR practices are at the heart of all HRM-performancemodels (Purcell and Kinnie, 2006) because it is the link between employee reactionsand their subsequent behaviour which is critical. Employee reactions are usuallysubdivided into those concerning affective or attitudinal outcomes like jobsatisfaction and organisational commitment, those building cognitive skills and thoseaffecting behaviour seen in discretionary behaviour and task behaviour. This focusesattention on the need to include in the research specification assessments on levelsof organisational commitment, especially affective rather than continuancecommitment, and job satisfaction. Appelbaum et al. (2000) and Purcell et al. (2003)separate behaviour from attitudinal components (commitment and job satisfaction)because discretionary behaviour both on the job and off the job (Adler et al., 1999)is the critical factor in linking employee responses to performance and is differentfrom performance improvements coming via better knowledge, skill and ability. Ourmodified model (Figure 1) takes this into account and also seeks to clarify thedistinction between policies, practices and employees’ experiences of them.

Intended practices are those HR policies designed by the organisation tocontribute to the achievement of business strategy and meet tenets of sociallegitimacy (Boxall and Purcell, 2003). These will be influenced by organisationalvalues (Purcell et al., 2004) and by operational strategies determining skill and





staffing requirements and the human-technology interface. Actual practices are thoseHR practices that are implemented and the method or style of leadership behaviouras part of people management. It is these practices and the way they areimplemented in people management that employees perceive and react to. Each HRpractice and the way it is applied will have a functional purpose and employeescan judge each in terms of utility or satisfaction to them as well meeting standardsof fairness or legitimacy. But taken together people management has a non-instrumental role of communicating to employees the nature of the firm, their valueto it and the type of behaviours expected. Thus, the group or bundle of peoplemanagement practices as perceived by employees constitute an important element inoverall organisational climate (Bowen and Ostroff, 2004) and have causal powersdifferent from the functional purpose of each practice. Employee reactions aretypically assessed attitudinally in levels of job satisfaction and affectiveorganisational commitment. Employee outcomes are observable responses seen intask behaviour, discretionary behaviour as a form of OCB and attendance (orturnover and absence). It is these behaviours which influence organisationaleffectiveness, however defined, and ultimately, firm financial or economicperformance (see Ostroff and Bowen, 2000; Gerhart, 2005; Fulmer et al., 2003 forevidence).

The link between employees’ experience of actual people management and theirattitudes towards the firm, seen in affective commitment, is suggested by socialexchange theory. Here, employees’ POS embodied in HR practices applied or opento them is reciprocated by higher OCB and retention/attendance (Eisenberger et al.,2002). The central assumption is that ‘HRM practices are viewed by employees as a“personalized” commitment to them by the organisation which is then reciprocatedback to the organisation by employees through positive attitudes and behaviour’(Hannah and Iverson, 2004: 339). POS may be linked to particular policies of salienceto employees, but it is the overall effect, the ‘strength’ of the HR system (Bowen andOstroff, 2004), and employees’ broader conceptions of the employment relationshipwhich is critical (Hannah and Iverson, 2004: 338).

Uhl-Bien et al. (2000: 138) focus on leadership behaviour within social exchangetheory using the term ‘leader member exchange (LMX)’. They assert that ‘one criticalelement of HR systems that has not been well addressed . . . is the role ofinterpersonal relationships’. Managers and subordinates research, they suggest,‘shows that more effectively developed relationships are beneficial for individualand work unit functioning and have many positive outcomes related to firmperformance’ (ibid: 143). Ostroff and Bowen (2000: 209) see this as establishing‘alignment or congruence between individual and manager goals’, and thusmanagers as agents can play important roles in the transmission of values andclimate. Thus LMX and the influence of line managers, especially FLMs, form a keypart of people management (Tekleab and Taylor, 2003) and ‘the immediate

FIGURE 1 The people management–performance causal chain

Intended practices

Actual practices

Perceptions of practices

Employee attitudes

Employee behaviour

Unit level outcomes





supervisor plays a critical role as a key agent of the organization through whichmembers form their perceptions of the organization’ (Liden et al., 2004).

Guest and Conway’s (2004: 19–32) 1,000 worker study showed that supervisoryleadership was the strongest factor associated to organisation commitment.Supervisory leadership was also the strongest, or among the most important factors,explaining positive psychological contracts, work satisfaction, loyalty to customers,colleagues and supervisor and felt ‘excitement’ at work. A study by Kidd andSmewing (2001: 37) found that ‘respondents who saw their supervisor as engagingin feedback and goal setting behaviours were more committed to their organisation,as were those whose supervisor trusted them and gave them authority to do the job’.

In other words the relationship between employees and FLMs is important ininfluencing the employees’ views of the support received or available from theorganisation both at the functional practice level and in organisational climate. It isthis that is related to levels of organisational commitment and attitudes towards thejob. ‘Supervisors are able to jointly influence the exchange relationships that theyhave with the employee and that the employee has with the organisation. Becausethe supervisor is an important source of information, she is able to influence whetheremployees attribute favourable or unfavourable treatment to the actions of thesupervisor, the organisation or both’ (Eisenberger et al., 2002). It is the proximity andimmediacy of the relationship which is important as confirmed in studies oncommitment where commitment to the FLM is often greater than to the organisation(Becker et al., 1996). As Redman and Snape (2005: 304) note, ‘there may . . . be ageneral tendency for the more cognitively proximal focus (i.e. supervisor or team) toexert greater influence over employee behaviour’. It is, in HR terms, not just thequality of this LMX relationship but the extent to which FLMs are perceived to bethe provider of HR practices. These practices have to exist, initially as policies, to beapplied. Taken together, the whole bundle of practices can be judged as the ‘strengthof the HRM system’ to use Bowen and Ostroff’s (2004: 209) term. They suggest that‘a strong HRM system coupled with a visible supervisor may foster strongerrelationships among HRM climate and performance’ more than either by itself.

This suggests that, first, employee perceptions of FLMs’ leadership behaviour,independent of HR practices, influences affective organisation commitment and jobexperiences, and second, that employee satisfaction with HR practices as a whole,independent of FLM leadership behaviour, influences affective organisationcommitment and job experiences. Further, that satisfaction with HR practicescoupled with satisfaction with FLM leadership behaviour will foster a strongerrelationship with employee attitudes to their job and their organisation than eitherby itself. Our analysis seeks to test these propositions.

METHODOLOGY

Twelve organisations agreed to take part in the research in the period 2000–2003.Organisations were approached on the basis of their known quality in HRM.Compared with Workplace Employee Relations Survey 98 (WERS 98) data they werein the upper quartile of organisations in terms of the number of HR policies rangingfrom a minimum of 8 to a maximum of 15 out of a possible 18. Interviews were firstheld at the corporate level with senior HR and other executives, and, where relevant,





with trade union officers focusing on intended HR practices and business strategies.Within the unit of analysis, chosen to give depth to the research, the senior managerand deputies took part in semi-structured interviews focusing on HR policies in use.A random sample of employees was selected within the unit of analysis with the aimof achieving a minimum of 40 interviews. Interviews were conducted face to facewithin the workplace using a structured questionnaire and lasted about 50 minuteson average. The response rate was in excess of 90 per cent. The survey was repeateda year after the first in the same unit of analysis, and where possible, with the sameemployees. In subsequent analysis we only use an employee response once (N608).

Appendix 1 lists the variables used in the statistical analysis. Some of the variablesare based on a single measure, while others are summated scales. Factor analysisbased on principal component analysis with Varimax rotation confirmed that eachset of scales loaded on a single factor and the Cronbach’s alpha reliability test2 wasused to assess the internal consistency of the summated variable. Control variablescovered gender, age, length of service in the organisation, length of service in the job,overtime worked, job status (full-time/part-time) and trade union membership. Fiveitems, taken from WERS 98, were used to measure leadership behaviour coveringdimensions of involvement, support, communication and fairness. Measures ofemployee perceptions of HR practices included the factor ‘satisfaction with HRpractices’ (which was based on nine items each based on a five-point scale), plus fourother items which used a different measure: individual performance related pay,teamworking, openness and work–life balance.

RESULTS

The first stage of our analysis was to assess the association between the outcomevariables, commitment and certain aspects of job experience (job autonomy, sense ofachievement and job challenge), and the variables of interest, namely, perceptions offront-line leadership management behaviour and perceptions of HR practices. Table1 indicates that there is a strong and significantly positive relationship between allthe outcomes, perceptions of leadership behaviour and perceptions of HR practices.These results suggest that perceptions of leadership behaviour enhance employeeoutcomes such as commitment and certain aspects of job experience. Similarly,employee satisfaction with HR practices is associated with higher levels ofcommitment and aspects of job experience. The strong associations betweenleadership behaviour and HR practices indicate the importance of FLMs in theenactment of HR practices and supports the combination of the two in the termpeople management. There are also associations between the outcome variables(commitment, for example, being strongly associated with job challenge, jobautonomy and sense of achievement). It is also interesting to note that perceptionsof leadership behaviour are strongly negatively associated with tenure in theorganisation, job and age, suggesting that longer service and older employees ratetheir managers worse.

We carried out further analysis to understand how the correlations interact witheach other. Ordinary least squares regression in three steps was conducted with eachof the employee outcome variables as the dependant variable, and with employeecharacteristics (the controls), perceptions of leadership behaviour and perceptions of





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HR practices as independent variables. The results are shown that in Table 2. Thefirst block measures the control data. The second block shows that perceptions ofleadership behaviour are significant in explaining commitment, job autonomy,challenge and achievement, although there is considerable variation in theexplanatory power of this factor across the dependant variables. This is consistentwith the first proposition. Similarly, if we then add perceptions of HR practices in thethird block we find that this is also significant in explaining the various employeeoutcomes (leadership behaviour continues to remain significant in step 3). Thissupports the second proposition.3 For example, if we take commitment, our modelshows that the control variables explain 5.3 per cent (R2) of commitment. If we thenadd perceptions of leadership behaviour we can explain 21.1 per cent of the variance(i.e. a further 15.9 per cent which is the R2 change). Finally, perceptions of HRpractices add an additional impact of 18.7 per cent in explaining employeecommitment. Taken together the combined effect of leadership behaviour and HRpractices explains 34.6 per cent of the variance in commitment.

The major limitation to surveys of this sort is always that by being cross-sectionalit is impossible to identify trends or establish causality. We were able to doquasi-longitudinal research by repeating fieldwork in a second year. The results inone company are reported next. Three companies had responded to the first-yearsurvey results by taking action to improve the quality of FLM people managementbehaviour as reported in Hutchinson and Purcell (2003). We report next on one ofthese where a wide ranging set of actions was implemented and where we were ableto follow up with further senior management interviews in the third year.

CASE STUDY: LONGITUDINAL RESEARCH ON ACTION AND OUTCOMES TO

IMPROVE FLMs’ LEADERSHIP BEHAVIOUR AT SELFRIDGES AND CO.

Over the last 10 years the retail group Selfridges has undergone an ambitiousprogramme of renewal and growth, reinventing itself as an upmarket, innovativeand vibrant ‘store for the next century’ with a strong consumer brand. Under thedirection of a new senior management team the transformation process focused onchanging the culture of the organisation through the promotion of strong valuesfacilitated by an HR strategy which was integrated into company’s vision and goals.

Our research focused on the Trafford Park store on the outskirts of Manchesterwhich was the first store to be opened outside London, in 1998, and became a testbed for the development of future stores. Around 650 staff worked in the storecomprising a mixture of directly employed staff and concessionary staff – these arestaff who are employed by concession owners but present an identical presence tothe customer as Selfridges’ staff. An extensive range of HR practices (15 out of the18 possible) were in evidence, including extensive training and development(Investors in People accreditation), a staff forum for consultation, generous staffdiscounts and extensive communication.

Our first attitude survey in 2000 of 40 staff in two units of analysis (ladieswearand household departments) showed some very positive employee attitudes. Therewere high levels of organisational commitment among sales associates (includingconcessionary staff) which compared favourably with commitment levels in theother 11 organisations in the study (Purcell et al., 2003) and were substantially higher





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than for retail staff nationally using identical WERS 98 questions. Further analysisshowed a positive relationship between satisfaction with various HR practices andmeasured employee attitudes. For example, employee perceptions of teamworking,career opportunities, performance appraisal, involvement and communicationshowed positive correlations with job satisfaction and/or organisationalcommitment.4

Team leaders

The survey did, however, reveal some less positive attitudes and experiences. Only58 per cent were satisfied with the performance appraisal system, with views ofdissatisfaction centring mainly on the behaviours of FLMs. There was clear evidenceof a policy-practice gap in terms of the frequency of appraisals. Company policyspecified biannual appraisals (one for pay purposes and one for training anddevelopment) yet employee experiences of formal appraisals revealed aninconsistent approach with variable frequency and some employees never havingbeen appraised. There was further evidence of poor leadership behaviour. Forexample, 46 per cent said they wanted more recognition and appreciation shown bymanagement, two-thirds said they were hardly ever asked by managers for theirviews. As one respondent remarked, ‘management should have a more relaxed,approachable attitude . . . do more floor work, and ask staff what problems theyhave. They should be more involved on the shop floor’. These results were ofconcern to the company, particularly because they had recently invested in aleadership programme for these managers (referred to as the ‘boot camp’) to instilthe company culture and values into management style. To the HR manager it wasclear that ‘team leaders’ behaviours were not in line with Selfridges expectations’and that they were not living the espoused values of the company (Purcell et al.,2003: 19–25).

Following these results the store focused on making improvements to the teamleader role, redefining it into one single role (there had previously been two grades).All team leaders were required to re-apply for new positions through a new selectionprocess, which focused on behaviours as well as skill sets, and inevitably this meantsome lost their position. Improvements were also made to the FLMs’ performanceappraisal process, linking it more to development and career opportunities andincluding a core requirement to undertake staff appraisals and give emphasis toleadership behaviours. The second attitude survey, conducted a year later, showedimproved employee attitudes in terms of job satisfaction, commitment, and jobinfluence, as shown in Table 3. Since there had been no changes to the job contentof sales associates in the intervening period, the marked improvements to jobinfluence and satisfaction can only be explained by changes in the way FLMsmanaged their staff. This was clear in the qualitative comments of respondents. Forexample:

(I am very satisfied with the sense of achievement I get in mywork) . . . because I now have a good manager who appreciates the workdone – I get constant praise – we have a good rapport, respect eachother . . . a good manager makes all the difference.





We now have a good team leader who gives us a chance to give ourviews and do our own thing.

The survey also revealed improvements in attitudes towards employeeperceptions of leadership behaviour and certain HR practices (most notablyperformance appraisal) as shown in Table 4. As one respondent put it, ‘We now havea manager that gets appraisals done . . . and we get praise now and little gifts, suchas perfume.’

Performance also improved in the store with sales increasing by 23 per centcompared to the previous year, payroll costs down 5 per cent and ‘contribution’ – thekey measure of sales against payroll costs – up by 31.7 per cent. Labour turnover fellto well below the average for retail, in part because it became one of the indicators

TABLE 3 Employee attitudes (sales associates) in Selfridges

Employee outcomes % agree or strongly agree % of employees % of employees

Year 1 (n = 40) Year 2 (n = 41)

A lot of influence over the job 35 56Satisfied with level of job influence 68 73Satisfied with sense of achievement 68 83Commitment: ‘I feel loyal to Selfridges’ 81 93‘I would recommend a friend or relative to

work in Selfridges’83 90

TABLE 4 Employee attitudes (sales associates) towards management leadership behaviourand certain HR practices in Selfridges

% agree or strongly agree % of employees % of employees

Year 1 (n = 40) Year 2 (n = 41)

Managers are good at:Keeping everyone up to date about proposedchanges

58 61

Responding to suggestions from employees 43 59Treating employees fairly 58 68

Satisfied with respect from immediate linemanager

88 92

Line manager provides coaching and guidanceto help improve your performance (% to agreat extent or some extent)

58 78

Satisfied with performance appraisal 59 84Satisfied with career opportunities 70 88





used to assess FLM performance. Significantly, senior store managers themselvesattributed these improvements to the changes made to the team leader role andcontinued to focus on this group of managers.

A year later the FLM job was again reviewed and team leader role guides wereissued giving greater clarity and more emphasis to people management activities.These now included recruitment, coaching, counselling, monitoring absence andlateness, handling disciplines and grievances, leading, delivering daily teambriefings, communicating, conducting development reviews, and giving recognition.In terms of recruitment and selection, for example, a task formally undertaken by theHR department, team leaders were required to interview applicants, advise on thejob evaluation and make the final decision to select. Team leaders had otherresponsibilities such as dealing with customer complaints, ensuring excellentstandards on the shop floor, drawing up the weekly rota and helping out on thefloor. In order to prepare them for this new role, all team leaders went through eightdays of training, covering mainly aspects of people management.

The recruitment of team leaders was also re-examined as the HR managerexplained:

We looked at behaviours as well as skill sets such as body language,communication skills, how people say things, how they identify withpeople and connect with the team . . .

This was in line with the company policy of recruiting for attitude rather thanskill to try and ensure that all staff fit and deliver the culture and values of theorganisation. Potential recruits were initially tele-vetted (as are all staff) – a telephonescreening process that aims to do behavioural screening around the company values,before going on to a half-day assessment including individual and group exercises,role playing, conducting interviews, etc. With this emphasis on the need for ‘fit’ itis not surprising that the company aimed to recruit 60 per cent of staff to team leaderlevel from within. At the same time the HR function was moved off-site to a sharedservice centre. The store’s effort to improve the performance of team leaders alsoincluded addressing how the team leaders themselves were managed. Four areasin particular were focused on: involvement, coaching and guidance, careeropportunities and management support. At the team leaders’ initiative a forum wasset up meeting twice a month to discuss common issues and problems to which‘experts’ may be invited for advice and guidance. Assistant Sales Managers (ASMs)– those who manage the team leaders – took on the role of coaching and developingteam leaders through both formal and informal means. On the formal sidedevelopment reviews were conducted twice a year focusing on monitoring teamprogress against key performance indicators such as absence and customer service(mystery shopper results). In addition, weekly formal meetings were held with teamleaders to assess their training needs. On a more informal basis the ASMs conductweekly floor walks with the team leaders to assess sales and performance issues.

This, therefore, is further evidence of the company’s attempt to influence attitudesand behaviour, this time those of the team leaders themselves, through improving HRpractices which applied to them and which also focused on the leadership behaviourof their managers – the ASMs. This whole process was considered a success by seniormanagers. As one senior manager rather bluntly explained, ‘forcing the team leaders





to be more disciplined, more planned and forcing them to be less reactive . . . partlybecause the HR team are no longer available on-site to wipe their back sides!’

DISCUSSION AND IMPLICATIONS FOR PRACTITIONERS

Earlier research on the HRM and performance link which focused exclusively on acount of HR policies in place and the proportion of employees covered by suchpolicies had the danger of giving an erroneous impression that it was the numberand mix of policies that was important. Once the model of the causal chain isproposed hypothesising the steps between intended practices and performanceoutcomes, it is clear that the crucial link is between the employee experiences ofpeople management, the formation or modification of attitudes towards theemploying organisation and the job and the inducement these provide to engage incertain types of discretionary behaviour. A form of social exchange occurs wherebyPOS is reflected in attitudes and reciprocated through behaviour. At this point anassertion that it is the quality of the HR practices per se which causes this chainreaction is untenable for two reasons. First, we know that the gap between intendedand actual is commonly experienced, and is explained in the main by the problemsFLMs have in applying HR practices. Second, the employees’ experience of these isinexorably linked with their relationship with their FLM because the FLM is seen asthe agent of the organisation, and in most cases the deliverer of the HR practices.Employees’ perceptions of people management are not restricted to those written inthe employment manual but cover wider aspects such as organisational climate andleadership behaviour (LMX). We suggest that there is a form of symbioticrelationship between FLMs and HR practices. HR practices, to be successfullyapplied, need effective FLM activity of the sort recognised and reciprocated byemployees. FLMs to be effective in people management need HR policies to workwith and apply. Employees respond to both the HR practices and their FLMleadership behaviour as our data showed. The employees’ judgement of their FLMleadership behaviour was directly related, where positive, to higher levels ofaffective commitment and to better aspects of job experience. FLMs are important inhelping to create, or transmit, impressions of the organisation as a whole(commitment) and in making jobs satisfying by influencing how demanding the jobis, how much autonomy the employee has in the job and the sense of achievementthat comes from doing the job. Once we controlled for the FLM influence it was clearthat HR practices, taken together, have similar effects if they are rated highly byemployees. This regression analysis is a statistical nicety. In practice, as ourqualitative research showed in Selfridges and elsewhere, there was an interactive anddynamic relationship between the leadership behaviour of FLMs and the impact ofHR practices.

All research has its limitations and ours is no different. Although a significantproportion of employees in each unit were covered, the small number of respondentsin each case limits analysis at the company level. However, the total number ofachieved interviews (609) is sufficient to draw some general conclusions with respectto these types of organisations with extensive HR policies and practices. Most studiesin the HR-performance paradigm use the number of HR practices in use as the inputmeasure (e.g. Guest et al., 2003) whereas here we are looking at the effectiveness of





a reasonably full range of practices. Longitudinal research can overcome thisdifficulty and, while it can never be certain, it can be strongly suggestive. The actionof Selfridges in trying to improve the people management behaviour of their FLMsthrough behavioural selection, training, appraisal, career management andinvolvement did have a marked and measured effect on employee attitudes andbehaviour and on performance.

The example of Selfridges has clear implications for practitioners who wish toimprove organisational performance as far as possible via people management. Inparticular, paying particular attention to FLMs as an occupational group withnumerous responsibilities and often competing priorities is necessary. This caninclude building involvement and problem solving activities to allow access todecision-makers and provide means for mutual support, better selection with greateremphasis given to leadership behaviours as well as technical skills and knowledge,access to further development, coaching and guidance and career management. Therelationship between FLMs and their own managers is important and we haveshown elsewhere how this was the biggest variable explaining FLMs’ own levels ofaffective commitment and job satisfaction (Hutchinson and Purcell, 2003: 48). It alsofollows that since FLMs have a major role in ‘bringing HR policies to life’, to quotea senior manager in one company, the design of these policies should includeconsideration of how FLMs can apply them: to be as ‘user friendly’ as possible. Theother implication of the research is that it is people management, not just HRpractices, which, through employee reciprocal behaviour, impacts on organisationalperformance. People management is the combination of leadership behaviour, HRpractices and organisational climate, and conceptions of HRM need to take accountof this wider agenda in both practice and theory.

Notes

1. Additional members of the research team were Nick Kinnie, Juani Swart andBruce Rayton.2. Nunally (1978) suggests 0.70 as a threshold level for alpha.3. Reversing the order of the two blocks of explanatory variables showed thatboth perceptions of leadership behaviours and perceptions of HR practices remainsignificant.4. The low N of 40 precludes more sophisticated statistical analysis.

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APPENDIX 1: VARIABLES USED IN STATISTICAL ANALYSIS

Commitment (Alpha = 0.7345) five-point scale

• ‘I feel proud to tell people who I work for’• ‘I feel loyal to my company’• ‘I share the values of my company’

Job autonomy five-point scale

• ‘How satisfied are you with the amount of influence you have over your job?’

Job achievement five-point scale

• ‘How satisfied are you with the sense of achievement you get from your work?’

Job challenge five-point scale

• ‘My job is challenging’

Perceptions of leadership behaviour (Alpha = 0.8622) five-point scale

How good do you feel managers here are at . . . ?

• ‘Keeping everyone up to date with proposed changes?’• ‘Providing everyone with a chance to comment on proposed changes?’





• ‘Responding to suggestions from employees?’• ‘Dealing with problems at the workplace?’• ‘Treating employees fairly?’

Satisfaction with HR practices (Alpha = 0.7772) five-point scale

• ‘How satisfied do you feel with the level of training you receive in your currentjob?’

• ‘Overall, how satisfied do you feel with your current career opportunities?’• ‘How satisfied are you with this method of appraising your performance?’• ‘How satisfied do you feel with your pay?’• ‘How satisfied are you with your pay compared with the pay of other people

that work here?’• ‘Overall, how satisfied do you feel with the rewards and recognition you

receive for your performance?’• ‘How satisfied do you feel with the benefits you receive – other than pay?’• ‘Overall, how satisfied are you with the influence you have in company

decisions that affect your job or work?’• ‘How satisfied do you feel with the amount of information you receive about

how your company is performing?’

Performance related pay four-point scale on effectiveness

• ‘How effective do you think this system (individual performance related pay) is inencouraging you to improve your performance?’

Teamworking five-point scale from very strong to very weak

• ‘Describe the sense of teamworking’

Openness four-point scale

• ‘To what extent do you feel that your company provides you with reasonableopportunities to express grievances and raise personal concerns?’

Work–life balance four-point scale

• ‘How well do you feel that your company does in helping employees achievea balance between home life and work?’





Front-line managers as agents in the HRM-performance causal chain: theory, analysis and evidence

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