1. Management Commitment: the concept of management commitment involve the process that an organisation management undertake to increase quality and how these measures can be implemented, maintained and measured. When deciding on quality management, organisations have to first plan on what techniques that would be employed. The planning process is the most important step as organisations have to carefully select what would guarantee success for its operation and what would cause failures.
After a desired management tool has been selected, the next step is to install the selected management tool (TQM) into the organisational strategy and policy so as to ensure that employees adopt such principles. The best way to ensure employees follow through is training and education. A very important TQM practice that also affects employee’s performance and must be taken into consideration. Management have to continually review the selected process in order to monitor the progress and detects and waste or defects quickly, communicate to employees and act fast. The planning phase is the most important process and it’s the glue that holds together all TQM activity. Plans are reviewed at periodic intervals and are adjusted if necessary and employees are trained and educated continuously to ensure that they understand the process and are able to adapt to changes.
2. Employee Empowerment: The TQM believes that participation from every level of an organisation is a must. This principle focuses on teamwork. It encourages managers and employees to work together across functions and departments, from top level to lower hourly employees, as well as with customers and suppliers, to identify areas that require improvement, regardless of how small. This aspect believes that human resource are significant and should be trained on knowledge and performance as there are the main force of a multifaceted business environment. (Oltra (2005), Tari et al. (2006)).
The employees are trained and empowered to make decision based on their judgement on things that they can control This is one way of satisfying internal suppliers and not only does it reduce the burden of the supervisor shift responsibility for quality control from specific departments to all employees which can motivate employees ‘internal suppliers’ to do better job. This allows total quality management to move from a centralized to a decentralized approach to control.
3. Fact Based Decision Making: decision must be made only on data and not situational thinking or past experiences. In making decisions, an organisation can adopt SPC (Statistical Process Control) which involves the application of statistics to analyse data, study and measures the performance process to identify common and special causes of variation in the performance process. Other statistical data can be used like: FMEA (Failure Mode and Effect Analysis) to detect all possible failures in a process and study the consequences of such failures. DOE (Design of Experiment) and the 7 statistical tools. When making decisions, organisation has to follow a pattern
1. Continuous Improvement: it is important for organisation to continually improve in all aspect of their work from strategic planning to decision making , to detailed execution of the work element as what may be considered as an exceptional performance today may be classified as unacceptable in the future. In order not to be outperformed by competitors, organisations have to use the concept of process improvement to attain both breakthrough gains and continuous improvement.
Continuous improvement does not involve end results alone but also more importantly to potential to produce better results in the future. It focuses on 5 major areas for capability improvement which are demand generation, supply generation, technology, operations and people capability. (Satpathy, 2008). A central principle of TQM is that mistakes made by people, that are caused by faulty systems and processes can be identified and removed, and recurrence can be prevented by changing the process.
1. Customer Focus: customer satisfaction is becoming the major objective of most business presently, many organisations now understand the importance of satisfying customers and that customers can only be satisfied if their needs are constantly met by providing quality goods and services to satisfy their needs. Sila (2007). TQM has a customer-first orientation i.e. the customers come first. Satisfying customers is seen as an organisation biggest priority the success of the organisation lies within the extent to which it can satisfy its customers. The TQM organisation understands the needs of customers and is quick to respond to customer requirements.
The concept of requirements is extended to take in product and services attribute that meet basic requirements, also those that enhance and distinguish them for competitive advantage. TQM organisation never compromises quality and focuses on customer driven standards. There are several dimension to customer satisfaction and these includes: After sales service and support, Packaging, Variety, Speed of service, Value for money, fitness for use, Customer confidence in the organisation and image of the company. (Satpathy, 2008).
The principles of TQM when applied appropriately are beneficial to firm success. (Ju et al., 2006). An effective TQM program has several benefits for organisation like, improved access to global markets, higher customer maintenance levels, less time required to develop new innovations, and a good reputation as a quality firm which boost the company image. Kaynak (2003). Other benefits include Reduction of defects and waste, ease of problem solving, continuous improvement of processes and products.
Also financial benefit which is the most important, financial benefit includes higher return on sales and investment, cost reduction etc. Only few companies use TQM because implementing an effective program is time consuming not to mention the effort, money, and patience involved. However, firms with the necessary resources could gain major competitive advantages in their industries by implementing TQM. Demirbag et al. (2006).
1. The Effect of TQM on Employees Performance in both Public and Private Sector Employee satisfaction in the management field has gained much attention over the years. Many studies indicate that loyal and satisfy employees are more committed to the continual improvement of service quality, (Jun et al, 2006) and also loyal employees signify values for an organisation. However, attention paid to TQM practices mostly focus on customer satisfaction and overall organisational performance with very little attention paid on how TQM practices affects employee satisfaction.
TQM practices provide a platform to better understand the nature of employee satisfaction. It aims to explain the direct and indirect effects between employees in the presence of satisfaction and loyalty. (Chang et al). In subsequent years, numerous studies were carried out on TQM practices. But just few studies attempt to identify the key attributes for successful TQM implementation which is employees. Successful implementation of total quality management heavily depends on changes in employee work related attitudes and activities. But what is the impact of these changes on the employee’s performance and management?
The study would examine the impact of implementing TQM in an organisation and how employee’s management and performance are affected by the TQM programme. Leadership and commitment are identified as two crucial elements for the successful implementation of TQM programme (Bowen, Siehl, & Schneider, 1989, citied in Chang et al 2010) and are considered two of the most important principle of TQM. (Ugboro and Obeng 2000, cited in Chang et al 2010).
Deming (1986) describes that training employees in problem solving and statistical process control would promote continuous quality improvement. Hackman and Wageman (1995) noted that teamwork and employee training are also critical as organisations deploy TQM which can significantly improve uncertainty in the work place such as organizational commitment, job satisfaction, job involvement, and employee performance boost, but no significant changes in role conflict, task characteristics, and career satisfaction.
TQM does not focus only on product quality but also on quality of employees. Successful TQM implementation depends heavily on changes in employees work related attitudes and activities. (Noorliza et all 2006). TQM processes in theory according to Butler (1996); cited in Noorliza et al (2006) produces positive effect on employees by improving their satisfaction and commitment and also enhancing their organisational effectiveness. Many organisations that have adopted TQM practices have experienced improvement in employee performance. TQM can bring benefit to an organisation in terms of quality, employee development and productivity when fully implemented (Lawler et al., 1995) through improved teamwork, creativity, innovation, training, communication, trust, and decision making. (Cited in Noorliza et al 2006).
The study addresses the following research questions: What impact do TQM practices have on employee performance and management? It would examine employees’ job involvement, job satisfaction, career satisfaction, and organizational commitment as a result of TQM practices. The study would discuss the implementation of the TQM practices from the human resources perspective. Zeitz et al. (1997) viewed TQM practices “as being formal, programmatic, and behavioural”. (Cited in Noorliza el al 2006). It is defined “as a set of practical measures, such as continuous improvement, meeting customers’ requirements, reducing rework, long-range thinking, increased employee involvement and teamwork, process redesign, competitive benchmarking, team-based problem-solving, continuous monitoring of results, and closer relationships with suppliers”. (Noorliza el al 2006).
1. Work-related attitudes According to Guimareas (1996); cited in Noorliza et al (2006), there are several indicators for work-related attitudes. These included, job involvement, job satisfaction, career satisfaction, and organizational commitment. Organisational commitment involves loyalty among employees within an organisation. Companies have used these several indicators to measure the extent to which their quality management process leads to improvement in employees’ performance and satisfaction. The diagram below show how job satisfaction can lead to job loyalty which would positively impact on organisations as a satisfied employee means employees would participate more and represent the organisational goals and values.
Source: Ali et al (2011) The diagram above explains the effect of TQM on employee’s management and how employees can be satisfied in the job which according to the diagram would lead to loyalty to the organisation. Employee satisfaction is increasingly becoming an important factor alongside customer satisfaction as these two principles are part of if not the main quality management principles for an organisation to be successful.
All the levels of TQM are interrelated and are more effective when applied together to achieve a certain goal ‘job satisfaction’. Empowerment and participation, working conditions, rewards and recognition, team work, training and development all lead to employee’s satisfaction which leads to loyalty which results in excellent performance of employees. This clearly shows how TQM practices impact on employee’s performance and management and depending on the organisation and how if such element are implemented accurately, they would generate positive quality.
