High Performance Team Development and its Impact on performance within the South African Railway Maintenance Industry

The effective and efficient planning and execution of maintenance within the South African railway industry relies on infrastructure teams. Despite the critical role of these teams, there is a significant gap in understanding how to develop high-performance teams (HPTs) within this sector. Basic teams need to transition towards integrating the concept of HPTs. However, industries have been slow to adopt structured HPT development, lacking awareness of its potential to significantly enhance productivity and performance at the maintenance execution level. This research addresses this gap by theoretically identifying the key characteristics that define HPTs. The study's originality lies in its focus on assessing team morale, evaluating employees' perceived understanding of HPTs, and proposing tailored development strategies for the South African railway maintenance industry. The research identifies gaps between existing and ideal team morale and HPT development, proposing targeted focus areas and structured methods for achieving HPTs. The proposed methods and recommendations offer a strategic framework for senior management, human resources, and training divisions to systematically close these gaps, facilitating the transformation of standard maintenance teams into HPTs. By doing so, the research provides a novel approach to improving maintenance execution performance, which is expected to yield enhanced team morale, reduced railway incidents, and increased customer satisfaction.

Keywords: Maintenance management, High-performance teams, Team development, Team morale, Railway industry.