What constitutes an HI organization? The authors point to North Carolina’s Nucor Corp., a minimill steelmaker, as one example. According to O’Toole and Lawler, the company, which we profiled in a recent Workplace Perspective column, has found long-term success “based on employee participation in the financial gains (and losses) that result from their efforts and ideas.” In fact, the authors go so far as to say that organizations like Nucor that heavily involve their front-line workers in decision making represent the most promising examples of change in recent years.

In turning their microscopes to look specifically at small and midsize businesses, the authors find good news from a 2005 Harris Interactive/Age Wave survey, which asked more than 7,000 American workers if they agreed with certain statements concerning their work. Forty-four percent of workers in small organizations reported that they “often feel energized” at work, versus 28 percent at large organizations. Likewise, a much higher percentage of workers said they are “willing to put forth more effort” in their work and “feel passionate” about their jobs than their counterparts at large firms. The authors conclude that workers at smaller organizations are generally more satisfied because they belong to “supportive communities in which they know their bosses and coworkers and in which they are treated as individuals.”

Unfortunately, not all the findings in The New American Workplace are promising. The book takes a detailed look at what went wrong for such former corporate superstars as Ford, General Motors and Delphi between the 1970s and today. The authors find that, “At companies like Delphi, decades of accumulated, poor strategic choices eventually make it ‘too late’ for managers to pursue positive employment practices that, if adopted earlier, might have led to better organizational performance.” The positive practices cited by the authors include those inherent to HI organizations: offering workers challenging and enriching jobs, giving them responsibility over their work and providing extensive training and development opportunities.