What is a high-involvement work system?
A working definition from MIT Sloan
high-involvement work system (noun)
A set of complementary organizational practices that improves worker and company outcomes by motivating, training, and empowering employees.
Managers face many challenges when it comes to balancing organizational performance and employee satisfaction. According to a 2022 WorkRise report co-authored by scholars affiliated with the MIT Institute for Work and Employment Research, high-involvement work systems (also known as high-performance work systems) consist of a set of management practices that can improve job quality and worker satisfaction while making firms more productive.
One company using management practices associated with high-involvement work systems is QuikTrip. The Oklahoma-based convenience store and gas station chain frequently appears on Fortune’s list of best places to work and boasts a 13% annual turnover rate for full-time employees compared to the industry’s 109% average. According to a 2022 Forbes article, QuikTrip has $16.4 billion in annual revenue. QuikTrip’s high-involvement management practices include hiring very selectively, paying nearly double the industry’s average base pay, and cross-training and empowering employees to multitask and solve customer problems. “Overall, thoughtfully curated bundles of HIWS practices have the potential to offer win-win opportunities to employers and their existing employees,” the report co-authors write.
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