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This paper explores the experiences of non-English-speaking background (NESB) skilled employees working in Australian workplaces, their perceptions of managers' actions and how a lack of employee involvement and participation (EIP) practices and performance appraisal (PA) is perceived regarding career progression.

This exploratory research project is based on 26 semi-structured interviews with skilled migrant NESB employees based in Australia. Social exchange theory (SET) and labour market segmentation theory (LMST) are applied to help explain macro- and micro-level influences on NESB employees and their relationships with their line managers and the workforce.

Participants perceived line managers to be highly communicative and approachable; however, they indicated how a lack of EIP in decision-making and in their PA affected career progression opportunities for NESB employees. While they were satisfied overall with their jobs, the research indicated a need for improved practices and support from the broader organisation in these two identified areas.

There is relatively little research on how the challenges of an increasingly diverse workforce are managed, particularly from NESB employees' perspective. Therefore, this research fills a gap concerning NESB employees' experience in Australian organisations.

This study aims to investigate the relationships between various frontline management (FLM) styles, human resource management system (HRM) system strength and employees' helping behaviours as a form of organisational citizenship behaviours (OCBs). The research also examines the moderating role of workgroup loyalty in the association between HRM system strength and employees' helping behaviours.

The research uses survey data collected from 315 government workers in Malaysia. Structural equation modelling (SEM) was employed to test the hypothesised relationships.

Two FLM styles, “policy enactor” and “employee coach,” positively predict employees' helping behaviour. However, the “organisational leader” FLM style did not significantly lead to employees' helping behaviour. HRM system strength significantly mediates the relationship between the three FLM styles and employee helping behaviours. Finally, workgroup loyalty significantly moderates the relationship between HRM system strength and employees’ helping behaviours as OCB.

With a wealth of literature demonstrating the importance of FLMs in the implementation of HRM and a growing body of literature demonstrating the robust nature of the “system strength” argument, human resource (HR) practitioners are increasingly able to focus their attention on the way the system and FLMs contribute to employee outcomes and organisational performance. Our results indicate that HRM system strength does indeed enhance the impact of FLM styles on employee helping behaviours.

The originality of this paper is that it acknowledges and empirically examines the heterogenous nature of FLM styles, through signalling theory in enacting HRM policies and links the growing FLM literature to the HRM system strength research. These concepts have also been tested for the first time in a Malaysian context.

The implementation of performance management is the responsibility of managers; more importantly, a key part of a frontline manager's role is ensuring that frontline employees are performing by meeting organisational goals. Existing research has shown a lack of focus on the role of frontline managers in the implementation of performance management systems despite plenty of research on the separate topics of frontline managers and performance management. This article aims to understand how frontline managers connect the intended performance management system, through components and processes developed by the human resources department and higher levels of management, with their employees' performance.

This study used a qualitative method, conducting semi-structured interviews with 57 participants from two Singapore public sector organisations to understand the interaction between the formal and informal performance management systems.

The authors found that frontline managers used the formal and informal performance management systems in the organisation to manage the demands of their role. Notably, the expectations that superiors and subordinates have heavily influences how the frontline managers choose to implement their performance management responsibilities.

The article uses systems theory to illustrate and explain the complex and dynamic nature of PM in practice through the FLM's implementation of the formal and informal PM systems. The primary contribution of the study is through demonstrating under what situations do frontline managers use the formal and informal performance systems in a complementary manner within the constraints placed on them.

Existing research has ignored the perspectives of frontline managers (FLMs) in relation to the support they receive. This study aims to understand the extent to which and how other organisational actors support FLMs in their implementation of performance.

This article used a qualitative method (57 semi-structured interviews) in two Singapore public sector organisations to understand the types of support provided to FLMs. The interviewees came from various levels and the hierarchical sampling frame allowed for comparisons to be made across the cases.

The authors found that the HR department, superiors and peers signalled to FLMs the custom and practice of performance management (PM) that led to the FLMs not prioritising their PM responsibilities. Notably, the focus of the FLMs was on meeting operational needs rather than the PM process.

The authors add to the literature by examining the how the support from other organisational actors signalled to FLMs the importance of PM within their work group. This paper also explores how FLMs seek support and the type of support they want in their role.

The purpose of this paper is to understand the role of HRM philosophy for HPWS formulation and implementation, as well as to investigate its role to improve employee perceptions of HPWS.

A qualitative study of 55 interviews was conducted with managers (senior, HR, frontline) and employees from three telecommunication organisations based in Pakistan.

The findings indicate that a clear, well-developed HRM philosophy ensures clarity in HPWS formulation not only for managers, but also for employees. However, lack of strong philosophical foundations for HPWS can result into distorted HRM messages and negative employee perceptions.

Whilst there remains debate over the positive and negative influence of HPWS for employee outcomes, this study presents HRM philosophy as important HRM component to understand HPWS implementation. The article highlights the fact that the purpose of HPWS practices and its effective communication to employees can make a substantial difference in how employees perceive these practices. In sum, an employee centred philosophy is likely to be pre-condition circumstances for improving employee outcomes.

Exposure to high-trauma work has been associated with negative outcomes for individuals and organisations. Support for these employees can buffer and protect against mental health problems. Frontline managers (FLMs) are well placed to provide for employee support needs but are often not effective in doing so. The purpose of this paper is to identify and understand barriers to provision of four different types of social support as identified by House (1981) by FLMs to employees in a high-trauma workplace.

This qualitative study investigates three Australian ambulance service organisations, including 72 interviews.

Nine barriers to support are identified that can obstruct the provision of optimum employee support. These relate to the FLM themselves, the workplace context and employee-centric factors.

This paper is a single industry case study; further complexity may exist in other high-trauma industries. Future research should consult policy makers to develop strategies to address the barriers to FLM support.

FLMs are critical support persons as they are well placed to provide many employee support needs. Emotional support is the foundation for facilitating all other types of support to employees but results here indicate it is often lacking for workers in high-trauma workplaces for a range of individual and organisational barriers that operate in isolation and combined.

This paper juxtaposes House’s (1981) support framework with study findings to provide a model of the barriers to optimal employee support. This model contributes to a reconceptualisation of the relationship between employee and direct manager that is particularly pertinent for high-trauma contexts.

Drawing from the human resource management (HRM) literature and framed with self-determination theory, this article seeks to investigate the impact of a hybrid system of HRM, characterized by the integration of practices from high-involvement work systems (HIWS) and high-compliance work systems (HCWS), on employee well-being in China.

We hypothesize there is a positive relationship between the hybrid system and employee well-being, mediated by the satisfaction of basic psychological needs as proposed by self-determination theory. To test these hypotheses, we conducted a cross-sectional survey involving 337 employees from both an agricultural company and a bank in China.

Our dataset provides support for the hypotheses, indicating that hybrid human resource (HR) systems positively relate to employee well-being, with a positive association with work engagement and a negative association with emotional exhaustion. Furthermore, our findings reveal that this relationship is mediated by the satisfaction of basic psychological needs.

This paper contributes to the HRM literature in three significant ways. First, it explores the hybrid HRM system, which integrates high-involvement work systems (HIWS) and high-compliance work systems (HCWS), enhancing the theorization of HRM in a more comprehensive manner. Second, it utilizes self-determination theory (SDT) to illuminate the underlying mechanisms connecting hybrid HRM to employee well-being – a topic that has received limited attention in prior research. Lastly, we operationalize employee well-being by examining both work engagement and emotional exhaustion, thereby offering a comprehensive understanding of its multidimensional nature.

The purpose of this paper is to identify possible agents and levers to trigger the development and implementation of work place health promotion programs (WHPPs) in the Australian construction industry. Unlike most large workplaces and most high-risk workplaces, these programs are rarely found in the construction sector.

Qualitative interviews with 80 trades workers and site-based and off-site construction managers are used to reveal perceptions of the impact of WHPPs and ill-health and poor health behaviors on site activities with a view to identifying leverage points to introduce WHPPs in construction.

Unhealthy lifestyle behaviors are seen as impacting on sites in three main ways: productivity (broadly defined), safety and interpersonal relations. Results also reveal specific roles and levers for different actors in the supply chain and a clear desire for a collective, industry-based response to identified health problems.

High levels of chronic diseases in the construction industry means firms within the sector must make a concerted attempt to change patterns of behavior or face significant long-term health implications for their workforce. Reducing levels of health and longevity of the workforce, mean work performance, productivity and participation is likely to decline.

Although construction workers are recognized as one of the workforces at most risk for life limiting diseases such as Type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease, relatively little work has investigated health and well-being considerations for construction workers. This study contributes by investigating possible levers and agents to create healthier workplaces in construction.

The purpose of this paper is to explore differences in the degree of innovation in employment relations (ER) between emerging and established firms,

A large national telephone survey (N=1,416) of both emerging (<5 years) and established firms was conducted.

Emerging firms were more casualised, less unionised, and experiencing higher levels of market expansion and unpredictability. Despite these differences, younger firms showed otherwise remarkable similarity to older firms across a range of ER practices, and both categories showed a reliance on business networks, rather formal training, for ER knowledge. While introducing ER changes more rapidly than older (and larger) firms, they were converging towards a suite of ER practices similar to that adopted by older firms. The results suggest that, if anything, established firms may have been engaged in greater innovation in more unusual ER practices.

Only managers were surveyed. The data are cross-sectional rather than longitudinal. As the study was undertaken in only one country, replication in other settings would be desirable.

The results raise major doubts about the notion that new firms represent the cutting edge of innovation, and highlights the degree to which newer firms match or mimic older firms’ ER architecture.

The purpose of this paper is to develop understanding of the “HRM process” as defined by Bowen and Ostroff (2004). The authors clarify the construct of “HRM philosophy” and suggest it is communicated to employees through “HRM messages”. Interrelationships between these concepts and other elements of the HRM-performance relationship are explored. The study identifies commonalities in the HRM philosophy and messages underscoring high-performing HRM systems, and highlights the function of a “messenger” in delivering messages to staff.

Case study of eight Australian hospitals with top performing HRM systems. Combines primary interview data with independent healthcare accreditor reports.

All cases share an HRM philosophy of achieving high-performance outcomes through the HRM system and employees are provided with messages about continuous improvement, best practice and innovation. The philosophy was instilled primarily by executive-level managers, whereby distinctiveness, consensus and consistency of communications were important characteristics.

The research is limited by: omission of low or average performers; a single industry and country design; and exclusion of employee perspectives.

The findings reinforce the importance of identifying the HRM philosophy and its key communicators within the organisation, and ensuring it is aligned with strategy, climate and the HRM system, particularly during periods of organisational change.

The authors expand Bowen and Ostroff’s seminal work and develop the concepts of HRM philosophy and messages, offering the model to clarify key relationships. The findings underscore problems associated with a best practice approach that disregards HRM process elements essential for optimising performance.