Approaches to Performance Improvement

Performance improvement approaches (Dean & Ripley, 1997, 1998c) combine various applied models that were developed during the past three decades and that have been used to assess and analyze human performance.  These approaches, developed principally in the North American context, are designed to positively modify the performer’s outcomes and accomplishments in the workplace.  The main approaches to performance improvement are human resource development (HRD), human performance technology (HPT), and organizational development (OD).  Table 2 highlights the areas of intervention of each approach.

Table 2

Approaches to Performance Improvement

Approach	Area of Intervention	Description
Human Resource Development (HRD)	Formal instructional design & training	Using the training function of the organization to enhance strategy, structure, systems
Human Performance Technology (HPT)	Workplace performance technologies	On-the-job training and job-aids that reduce the costs of the training dollar
Human Performance Technology (HPT)	Systems and process redesign	Designing an entire electronic system that brings the information, feedback and proper resources to the workplace of the individual in order to align the organization, process and job performer levels of the organization
Organizational Design (OD)	Organizational culture	Managing the white-space of the organization chart especially in times of rapid change

Source: Dean & Ripley, 1998c.

Human resource development (HRD) utilizes training to build individual skills and knowledge in order to improve individual behavior.  HRD, as espoused by the Academy of Human Resource Development,  attempts to identify individual interests, values, competencies, and needs to develop capable people for future jobs and thus enhance the capacity of the organization. 

Human performance technology (HPT) uses systematic approaches to analyze individual and organization performance needs and improve processes.  A rigorous up-front analysis is conducted in hopes of genuinely understanding the performance problem.  Following the up-front analysis, a manager can design and develop a performance intervention, and revise it as needed after implementation (Dean & Ripley, 1997). 

Organizational design (OD) is a planned process of team-wide change, managed from the top to increase organizational effectiveness and organizational health through planned interventions.  The OD process is designed to change the organization’s culture from one which avoids an examination of social processes in communication, decision-making, and planning, to one which institutionalizes and legitimizes this examination (Dean, 1999). 

The success of these approaches has been uneven, however, in sustainably improving the performance of individuals in the workplace.  For example, there is the case of the manager of leadership development at a large company during the 1980s.  After training 350 of 550 managers, the manager discovered that training alone did nothing to change long-standing managerial systems.  He also witnessed the dramatic savings in time and cost to the company by simply offering job-aids as opposed to training, but still the fundamental systems of management did not improve (P. Dean, personal communication, February, 1999).

In contrast to those interventions, performance improvement approaches that aligned structure, systems, processes, and job performance led to cost savings, as non-value added steps of processes were eliminated.  This change was positive but usually ended up being merely incremental and not as beneficial as whole-systems change.  Indeed, whole systems of employees changing whole systems with large-scale systems change techniques, such as future search (Weisbord, 1992), resulted in more radical change.  These examples highlight the importance of system-wide approaches to performance improvement as compared to approaches that focus exclusively on changing the behavior of individual performers.