What Drives Ultimate Success: Being a Best Place or Being a High Performance Place?

I've posted before (at my blog Compensation Force) about the questions raised regarding "best place to work" designations in the book High-Performance Pay: Fast Forward to Business Successby Patricia Zingheim and Jay Schuster.  In their book, they challenge the notion that the best employers are those with the most family friendly initiatives or employee perks.  Alternatively, they coin the term and push forward the idea that all parties might be better served by striving to become "best high performance places to work".

I liked their point then and I like it even more now.

I think the challenge raised by Zingheim and Schuster is particularly relevant in today's economic environment.  To attract the right "talent", the people that are going to navigate the rough waters to help achieve sustained success, employers may need to move beyond the notion of being a desirable workplace for any and everyone - and instead create an environment and reward programs that will entice and motivate high performers. 

Because these are not one and the same.

I would submit that people committed to superior performance will want to work for an organization that is also committed to superior performance (not just in word, but in deed) and to sharing the upside of that superior performance with those that got them there.

Time to rethink those employment brands.

Ann Bares is the Editor of Compensation Café,  Author of Compensation Force and Managing Partner of Altura Consulting Group LLC, where she provides compensation consulting services to a wide range of client organizations.   She earned her M.B.A. at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School, enjoys reading in her spare time and is currently trying to decide whether to follow her daughter to China this summer.  Follow her on Twitter at @annbares.

Comments

[Paul Weatherhead]

I particularly liked Chapter 15 of "High-Performance Pay". If that federal entity can turn things around in such dramatic fashion, and sustain that success for more than a decade and still counting, then there's hope for any organization - public or private!

[Ann Bares]

Great point, Paul - thanks!