人力資源管理—美國篇

■ 約翰羅勒（政治大學IMBA客座教授，美國伊利諾大學香檳校區教授）
On HRM——The Case of America
To be competitive in today's globally integrated markets, companies must be agile and responsive to changing market pressures, yet also able to operate efficiently. To achieve these sometimes competing goals, many companies rely on what are increasingly viewed as "best practices" in the human resource management (HRM) area, including many of the "high performance work system" approaches that have become common in the US in recent years. But internationally active firms must often cope with dramatic differences in laws, business systems, and national cultures across the many countries in which they operate. The ability of managers to design and implement effective HRM policies in these companies requires increasing understanding of these differences and how best to respond to them.
Consider for a moment Taiwan's BENQ Corporation and its recent acquisition of Siemens' mobile phone division in Germany. The average work year in Taiwan is more than 2,200 hours; it is only between 1,600 and 1,700 hours in Germany (Germans typically have five to six weeks of vacation time per year and overtime work is limited). Unlike Taiwan, unions are rather powerful in Germany and work in collaboration with the government and employers' associations to establish national and industrial labor policies and standards. Most significant perhaps is the German system of works councils and "co-determination." Employees must be appointed to a company's board of directors. The works council is a representative body of employees found in most German companies. Not only must companies negotiate with their works councils over departures from industry standards in wages, hours, or working conditions, they must also often deal with the works council regarding many aspects of business strategy, obtaining works council input, and sometimes approval, before implementing change (thus such issues are "co-determined" by labor and management). If the company and works council cannot agree, then disagreements may go to an arbitration board or labor court. To lay off workers, a company must take into account many factors besides employee performance, such as the employee's age, job tenure, marital status, and number of dependents. Thus BENQ confronts a very different employment environment in its newly acquired German subsidiary than in Taiwan. Successful integration of these companies will require work and understanding here and in Germany.
There is little questioning that HRM systems within any given country can vary a lot, both between foreign and local companies and also among local companies. One only needs compare a traditional family-owned Taiwanese enterprise with a hi-tech company in Hsinchu Park. But in general there are approaches to HRM that are common and seem to work especially well within a particular countries or region. I will compare dominant HRM systems in three of the most economically important areas in world: the US, Western Europe, East Asia. I will begin with the American system and continue in the next article with the European and Asian systems.
American HRM has undergone immense change in the past quarter century. In fact, the term "HRM"itself only replaced "personnel administration" in the 1980s. This transformation has been more than cosmetic. Personnel administration was mainly a highly technical support function that grew out of the mass-production factory system perfected by Henry Ford and others prior to World War I. Personnel managers as a rule had little broad business knowledge and focused on implementing long-established practices intended to support very centralized and bureaucratic organizations. Jobs tended to be very specialized, training was mostly limited to specific job requirements, wages were usually seniority based, and union contracts often controlled many aspects of the employment relationship.
As American companies began experiencing ever greater competition from foreign producers starting in the 1970s, managers realized that their companies needed to become more flexible and adaptive. What many still term the "Harvard Model" (as it has is origins at the Harvard Business School) set the stage for the contemporary American HRM framework. Companies began to distinguish much more between "core" and "peripheral" activities. Peripheral activities were outsourced or handled by temporary workers, whereas core activities would be the responsibility of long-term employees. This allowed for greater flexibility in adjusting headcount in response to changing and perhaps unexpected market conditions.
Core workers, either as individuals or as part of a team, would have more freedom to set the pace of their work, determine work methods, and solve work-related problems (i.e., "empowerment"), again as a means of increasing flexibility. To be empowered, core workers would need a wider range of skills, so training would become more extensive. There would be an emphasis not only on skill training but also on general training, including training related to building interpersonal and networking skills. To ensure that these more empowered core workers would act in the company's best interests, rewards would be more closely linked to group and (mainly) individual performance, with other policies intended to built employee commitment to the company (e.g., employee stock ownership programs, organizational "culture building"). As a result of these changes, companies would become "flatter" with fewer middle managers and supervisors who be facilitators and team leaders rather than primarily order givers. Finally, the HRM system would be tied to the firm's overall business strategy, with considerable effort devoted to guaranteeing that different HRM policies and practices fit together well and formed and integrated system. And HRM as a function would increasingly need to demonstrate that it contributed to firm performance—or risk becoming a peripheral and outsourced function.
The Harvard Model, resulting in what are often termed "high performance" (or "high involvement") work systems, has become fairly widespread in the US. Another similar approach is Total Quality Management (TQM). These approaches have risen to the level of a "best practice" in US in part because many academic studies have indicated that high performance work systems appear to lead to higher worker productivity and company profitability, at least in the American context. Although this approach to HRM has begun to spread to other parts of the world, especially Europe and Asia, this transition is neither complete nor always successful. In the second part of this article, I will look HRM in Western Europe and East Asia and how the HRM systems dominant in these two regions compare to the high performance work system approach.
現代企業為維持國際競爭優勢，必須能夠靈活應變市場變遷，同時保持經營效率。為了達到這些目標，很多企業在人力資源管理領域上，採用近來受到肯定的最佳實務典範，其中包括在美國日趨風行的「高績效工作系統」等管理方法。但跨國企業必須注意到不同國家之間法律、企業環境、文化的異同，唯有瞭解這些差異以及應變之道，管理者才能良好設計且成功執行人力資源管理制度。
整合勞資 創造雙贏
以近來台灣明基公司併購德國西門子手機事業部門一案來看，台灣勞工年度工時超過2,200個小時，但是德國介於1,600到1,700小時之間（德國勞工約有五到六周的年休假日，而且對工時超時有嚴格規定）。德國工會組織較台灣相對強而有力，並且有能力和政府及資方共同制訂國家及業界標準的勞工政策。
最重要的莫過於職工委員會和「共同決策」制度。董事會成員必須有勞方代表，此委員會組織散見於德國各企業。遇到和業界標準歧異的薪資、工時或工作環境等議題，資方必須和委員會協議解決；公司經營的策略議題上，資方也必須採納委員會的意見，或是得到委員會認可，才能夠執行某一決策（此即為勞方和資方「共同決策」制度）。若勞方和資方無法達成協議，必須尋求調解，或上勞工法庭。解雇員工之前，勞方也必須慎重考慮該名員工的年齡、年資、婚姻狀況和家計負擔。所以明基公司的德國子公司和台灣的工作環境是相當不同的，唯有瞭解這些差異點，才能順利整合。
不同國家之間的人力資源管理無疑的相當不同，甚至在相同國家內的企業也會有很大差異，只消比較台灣的家族型企業和新竹園區的高科技公司，就能夠瞭解此一論點，但是仍有一放諸四海皆適用的準則可供參考。接下來比較現行人力資源管理實務在三個主要經濟區域———美國、西歐和東亞的不同。第一部分先討論美國，西歐和東亞置於第二部分探討。
追求組織最佳利益
美國的人力資源管理過去20年經歷很大的改變。事實上，「人力資源管理」 這個名詞在80年代才取代「人事管理」，卻是相當深遠的改變。人事管理是組織內的技術性支援系統，從一次大戰以降至亨利福特的大量生產工廠中所衍生。當時，人事經理對企業所知有限，依循中央集權體系下所制訂準則來執行規範。工作劃分相當專門，在職訓練也限定在特定的工作目標需求上。工資依年資給付，工會合約也限制很多勞資關係。
70年代美國企業開始遭到國外企業的競爭壓力，經營者才體會到組織需要變的更有彈性和應變性。所謂的「哈佛模式」（源自哈佛商學院）自此創下當代人力資源管理的基礎。企業開始明確劃分「核心」和「周邊」工作的差異。「周邊」工作通常外包，或交由臨時雇員處理，真正的「核心」工作由組織的正職員工負責。如此一來，組織就更具有彈性來應對不斷變遷且不確定性高的市場狀況。核心員工無論是個人或團隊形式，都有較多的自由來設定工作進度，決定工作方法，以及解決和工作相關的問題（亦即授權），而具備較多彈性。
因為被授權，核心員工需要更多工作相關的技巧，在職訓練的內容也就必須更廣泛，不再只局限於工作技巧，進而包含人際關係和組織溝通技巧。
扁平化管理效益高
為了確保核心員工能朝組織最佳利益行事，員工薪酬就必須和所處團隊或個人績效表現有更直接的相關連結，或加上其他能促進員工對組織向心力的方法（如員工持股計畫，或建立組織文化）。因為這些改變，公司變的較為「扁平化」，聘用較少的中階主管擔任執行的角色。最後，人力資源管理系統必須和企業整體策略連結，確保採用的所有人管規範和規定都能互相整合。身為組織功能的一環，人力資源管理也越需證明其對組織的貢獻度，才不致淪為邊陲功能，甚至被外包出去。
哈佛模式後來演變成現在美國相當廣泛使用的「高績效工作系統」，另一個相似的是「全面品質管理」。這些方法目前都被視為最佳實務典範，因為很多研究指出，在美國高績效工作系統確實能夠促進員工生產力和公司獲利。雖然這些方法也逐漸傳播到世界其他角落，如歐洲和亞洲，卻總是未竟事功或不如人意。在接下來的第二部分，我們將探討人力資源管理在歐洲和亞洲的現狀，並探討這兩個區域現行的方法和採用高績效工作系統的異同。
【策略小辭典】
高績效工作系統（High performance work system）
人力資源管理策略可概略分為「高績效工作系統」以及「控制型工作系統」（Control-based work system）。前者特色就如同本文提到的重視員工授權、給予員工大量而廣泛的訓練發展，以及以績效為基礎的薪資計算等，創造出一個彈性的工作組織，達到員工、資訊技術和組織間的良好配置，促進員工對組織的貢獻。
後者特色則是高標準化且中央集權式的決策模式、以年資為基礎的薪資設計、明確而狹義的工作內容劃分，給予員工的教育訓練也相當有限。
【2005/08/14 經濟日報】