Micro firms provide staff with challenging, rewarding work
New academic research carried out by researchers Alex Bryson and Michael White at University College London has revealed Britain’s micro firm owners are regularly implementing sophisticated human resources practices previously thought to have been confined to big companies.
People management and job design that make the most of employees? skills and provide them with challenging, rewarding work dubbed high performance work systems? by academics were found to be both widespread and effective in micro businesses.
Analysing the data from the Department for Business, Innovation & Skills? Workplace Employment Relations Study (WERS), the researchers found that 45 per cent of micro firm managers are implementing more than 15 high performance practices.
The authors of the paper argued that the collection of practices have positive effects on small firms by increasing the intrinsic motivation of work.
Once minimum threshold of performance-increasing measures were adopted, micro firms were found to benefit as much from the implementation of such practices as larger firms.
Family ownership which has previously been cited as a barrier to successful human resource management was found to have no impact on the success of such measures.
Small businesses are responsible for an increasing proportion of UK employment, with half of British private sector jobs in small firms in 2014.
Despite the success they appear to be having with human resources management, additional research carried out by the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) in March 2016 revealed that small business owners find managing people challenging, with one-fifth of those surveyed admitting it was difficult.
the UK’s 5.4m small businesses boast some of the most dynamic and creative business leaders in the world. However, our research demonstrates how greater investment in management skills could significantly benefit startups and scale-ups and help leaders realise their growth ambitions, said FSB policy director Mike Cherry.
the UK is well known as being a great place to start a business, but we need to get better at helping small firms reach the next level. A key aspect of this is making sure the right management and leadership capabilities are in place, and that these grow in line with the business, he added.
Want to motivate your micro firm’s staff? Give some of these tips a try.
