Human resource management technology, workplace performance, and employee well-being in the British public sector

Abstract

Using linked employer–employee data for workplaces in Britain, we find high-performance workplace practices (HPWPs) are positively associated with public sector workplace performance. Contrastingly, HPWPs are not associated with measures of public sector employees' well-being or motivation. The implication is that the performance effects of HPWP in the public sector constitute part of efficient management technology, without the need to invoke special employee responses as mediators. Public sector findings differ from those in the private sector: in the latter, HPWPs are positively associated with some performance outcomes but employee outcomes are a complex mix of non-significant, positive, and negative associations.