Employee Involvement

12 Key excerpts on "Employee Involvement"

• 

  eBook - ePub

  Employment Relations

  Fairness and Trust in the Workplace

  • Cecilie Bingham(Author)
  • 2023(Publication Date)
  • SAGE Publications Ltd

    (Publisher)

  A slightly more nuanced view of involvement, and one without acknowledgement of employee power and influence, comes from the employers’ organisation, the CBI. It describes the purpose of Employee Involvement as being to

  … promote business success through a combination of practices and systems designed to secure the maximum awareness and commitment of employees in an enterprise to its objectives. (CBI/EDG, 1991)

  Both of these definitions signpost the alignment of the employee with the organisational goals and indicate a largely unitary perspective despite the fact that, under the Acas definition, employees are being asked to ‘influence decisions’; actions which might, under other circumstances, be considered pluralist. Here the assumption behind both of these definitions is that the employer and employee want, and are working towards, the same thing, that is, business success and profitability under a managerial regime that remains unquestioned. Salamon (2000: 369) suggests that involvement is a means of enhancing the support and commitment of employees to the objectives and values of the organisation, while he sees participation as a way of providing employees with genuine opportunities to influence and contribute towards organisational decision making.

  Involvement schemes burgeoned under the auspices of HRM. Teamworking, autonomous work groups, team briefing, and pick-and-mix development schemes such as ‘cafeteria learning’ as well as customer service initiatives, are all areas that have become part of the managerial lexicon promoting involvement. But despite numerous means of involvement it is unclear just how much real power has been ceded to employees and how much influence they are able to exert.

  Marchington and Wilkinson (2005: 403–7) showed how

  direct Employee Involvement

  could be divided into a number of categories:

  • Downward communication (top down) including, for example, in-house journals, employee reports, team briefings. Here management is in complete control of the information process – who receives the information, how and when it is delivered and crucially perhaps when information is withheld. This type of communication is not uncommon, with over 84% of managers in very small organisations and just under 80% of managers in very large organisations saying that they always discussed changes prior to implementation with their employees (see Table 9.1

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book
• 

  eBook - ePub

  Human Resource Management for the Hospitality and Tourism Industries

  • Dennis Nickson(Author)
  • 2013(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  As we have already noted, there is a definitional and terminological debate on the meanings of terms such as ‘Employee Involvement’, ‘employee participation’ and ‘industrial democracy’ (Blyton and Turnbull, 2004). Hyman and Mason (1995) suggest that, increasingly, talk of industrial democracy — which denotes a fundamental change in the balance of power in society generally and the workplace specifically, such as the establishment of employee self-management — has little currency in contemporary market-driven economies. Consequently, we are left with the notions of ‘Employee Involvement’ and ‘employee participation’, which represent the ‘two principal and in many respects contradictory approaches to defining and operationalizing employee influence’ (Hyman and Mason, 1995: 1).

  Employee involvemer

  Marchington and Wilkinson (2005b) recognize that there are a number of mechanisms that have been introduced under the broad heading of Employee Involvement, such as team-working and empowerment, to name just two. While there may be a number of differing initiatives, there is nonetheless common agreement on the intent of Employee Involvement. In that sense most writers recognize that Employee Involvement is concerned with measures that are introduced by management to optimize the utilization of labour while at the same time securing the employee's identification with the aims and needs of the organization. Employee Involvement is seen as being very much a phenomenon of the 1980s and closely linked with ‘soft’ HRM and its emphasis on unitarism and the creation of common interests between employer and employee. Employee Involvement is managerially initiated and characterized as direct, ‘descending participation’, which is task-centred as it attempts to involve all individuals in the workplace (Salamon, 2000). In this way it seeks to provide employees with opportunities to influence and take part in organizational decision-making, specifically within the context of their own workgroup or task. Therefore it is intended to motivate individual employees, increase job satisfaction and enhance the sense of identification with the aims, objectives and decisions of the organization. Organizations have a number of ways in which they can involve employees; Table 10.2

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book
• 

  eBook - ePub

  Managing Employment Relations

  • John Gennard, Graham Judge, Tony Bennett, Richard Saundry(Authors)
  • 2016(Publication Date)
  • CIPD - Kogan Page

    (Publisher)

  et al, 1992).

  Employee Involvement is generally seen as directed at individual employees. By introducing Employee Involvement mechanisms, management seeks to gain the consent of the employees to their proposed actions on the basis of shared objectives rather than purely control (Walton, 1985; Hyman and Mason, 1995). These mechanisms are aimed at enabling individual employees to inform management decision-making processes. Typically, they are based on management sharing information directly with individuals or groups of employees in return for their views. Alternatively, Employee Involvement (EI) can also involve ‘task-based’ control of decision-making for employees at the individual job level of the organisation. This encompasses the notions of ‘job enlargement’ and ‘job enrichment’ (Dundon and Wilkinson, 2013: 492). Although critics might rightly suggest that these types of EI initiatives remain largely unitarist in design, it can also be argued that they increase job satisfaction by reducing the routinisation of work and allowing greater autonomy. However, Employee Involvement is not about employees sharing power (jointly regulating the employment relationship) with management; the decision whether to accept, or reject, the views of the employees rests with management alone.

  In contrast, employee participation concerns the extent to which employees play an active role within the decision-making machinery of the organisation. This is generally achieved through indirect collective representation in the form of joint consultation, collective bargaining and board-level worker representation. These systems focus on collectively representative structures (Hyman and Mason, 1995). This approach is often termed ‘power-based’ control as employees ‘have a real say’ in the decision-making process across all levels of the organisation. It is also underpinned by legal rights and the bargaining power of labour (Dundon and Wilkinson, 2013: 488–490). Crucially, the context of employment relations and the balance of workplace relations will determine the extent to which EI and EP exist in an organisation. In general, employers are unlikely to invest in EIP practices unless there is a clear business case. Otherwise, powerful trade unions may demand robust structures of employment participation. At the same time, employers may seek to challenge the influence of unions by developing direct channels of employment involvement (Ramsay, 1977, 1980; Marchington, 2005).

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book
• 

  eBook - ePub

  Quality Management for the Technology Sector

  • Joseph Berk, Susan Berk(Authors)
  • 2000(Publication Date)
  • Butterworth-Heinemann

    (Publisher)

  Employee Involvement means that every employee is regarded as a unique human being (not just a cog in a machine), and that they are involved in helping the organization meet its goals. It means that each employee’s input is solicited and valued by his or her management. It means that employees and management recognize that each employee is involved in running the business.

  Employee empowerment is a somewhat different concept. It means that in addition to involving employees in running the business, employees and management recognize that many problems or obstacles to achieving organizational goals can be identified and solved by employees. Employee empowerment means that management recognizes this ability, and provides employees with the tools and authority required to continuously improve their performance. It means that management states its expectations about employees recognizing and solving problems, and empowers them to do so.

  Facilitating Employee Involvement

  We believe that most managers want to have their employees involved in improving the business, or at least to be an active participant in helping the business meet its objectives. In many organizations, however, this is not true for all employees. In every organization it’s possible to identify people who make things happen, and others who are along for the ride. It’s possible to identify people who are well suited for the work they are doing (and who enjoy their work), and others who seem to enjoy their work less, and perhaps are not so well suited for it.

  An earlier chapter in this book discussed the 80/20 concept, and this concept can be applied to the employees described above. We’ve all been in organizations where 20 percent of the people in an organization do 80 percent of the work. Imagine what would happen in those organizations, though, if everyone became as enthusiastic and productive as the 20 percent that do 80 percent of the work. That 20 percent would maintain their output, but now the other 80 percent of the people would increase their productivity. The mathematics of the situation indicate an organization’s output might increase by a factor of four or more. Employee empowerment is a management philosophy that allows increases of this magnitude to emerge.

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book
• 

  No longer available |Learn more

  Participation and Empowerment in Organizations

  Modeling, Effectiveness, and Applications

  • Abraham Sagie, Meni Koslowsky(Authors)
  • 1999(Publication Date)
  • SAGE Publications, Inc

    (Publisher)

  The term employee participation actually has diverse meanings. It can imply that workers participate on the company board (worker participation in management; Strauss, 1990), hold shares or stocks of the firm (employee ownership; Zwerdling, 1984), or get revenues (gainsharing; Beck, 1992). However, this book will focus on employee par-ticipation in work-related decision making (PDM). Wagner and Gooding (1987b) have defined PDM as an organizational process by which management shares influence on decision making between hierarchical superiors and subor-dinates. When PDM is a part of a formal managerial program such as job enrich-ment, quality of working life, employee stock options, or total quality management (TQM), it is referred to by several writers as employee involve-ment (Cotton, 1993; Lawler et al., 1992, 1995). Hence, involvement implies more than simply taking part in decision making; it denotes a program that com-bines PDM with some type of incentive for the participants (e.g., monetary incentives). It is noteworthy that these definitions and distinctions demonstrate only one approach, albeit a very popular one, to the domain of employee participation. In analyzing this approach in depth, we will find that it emphasizes formal manage-rial programs that require a direct face-to-face interaction between a manager and either an individual subordinate or, sometimes, a group of subordinates. The interaction can occur in many forms, either formal (e.g., participation-based 4 PARTICIPATION AND EMPOWERMENT IN ORGANIZATIONS managerial programs) or informal, including employee suggestions, consulting on work issues, and involving the employees in decision making, goal setting, or problem solving. All of these PDM forms are work centered; the topics for the joint decision-making group or team include issues such as efficiency on the assembly line, technology, and marketing procedures.

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book
• 

  eBook - ePub

  Total Quality Management

  Key Concepts and Case Studies

  • D.R. Kiran(Author)
  • 2016(Publication Date)
  • Butterworth-Heinemann

    (Publisher)

  Know thyself. Make SWOT analysis of yourself with respect to the issue.

  2.  Know your employee or the workforce, their attitudes background, etc.

  3.  Establish a positive attitude.

  4.  Share the goals.

  5.  Monitor the progress.

  6.  Develop intersecting work by job rotation, job enlargement, and job enrichment.

  7.  Communicate effectively.

  8.  Celebrate success.

  11.10 Benefits of Employee Involvement

  Besterfield cites the following benefits of Employee Involvement and participative management:

  1.  Employees make better decisions using their expert knowledge and skills in the process.

  2.  Employees are more likely to implement and support decisions if they had a part in making them.

  3.  Employees are better able to spot and pinpoint areas for improvements.

  4.  Employees are better able to make immediate corrective action.

  5.  Employee Involvement reduces the labor/management friction by encouraging more effective communication and cooperation.

  6.  Employee Involvement increases the morale by creating a feeling of belonging to the organization.

  7.  Employees are better able to accept change because they control the work environment.

  8.  Employees have an increased commitment to unit goals because they are involved.

  Peter Grazier puts the following points in favor of total Employee Involvement.

  1.  Everyone has something to contribute and will, if the environment is right.

  2.  The human element performance is more important than the technical element.

  3.  Most decisions can be significantly improved through collaboration.

  4.  People need leaders. Good leaders build trust and a higher sense of mission and source of worth.

  5.  Employee Involvement is not a program. It is a corporate philosophy.

  6.  Continuous improvement is beautifully simple. As improvements begin to flow, confidence will build and the progress will feed on itself.

  11.11 Role of Senior Management in Employee Involvement

  In Chapter 4

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book
• 

  eBook - ePub

  Contemporary Human Resource Management

  Text and Cases

  • Adrian Wilkinson, Tony Dundon, Adrian Wilkinson, Tony Dundon(Authors)
  • 2021(Publication Date)
  • SAGE Publications Ltd

    (Publisher)

  14 Employee Involvement and Participation Tony Dundon Adrian Wilkinson

  Introduction

  Employee Involvement and participation (EIP) has long been a central pillar of human resource management, with various practices often shaped by the different political, economic and legal contexts found in different countries. Contextual factors also influence the demand (among employees and unions) for participation as well as the desire (by managers and employers) for the types of mechanisms used. In different countries the terms employee participation and involvement can mean very different things, often with a lack of clarity. The confusion of the terms ‘involvement, participation or communication’ is made worse as some methods (such as team briefings or quality circles) tend to coexist and overlap with other techniques (such as joint union–management consultative committees or collective bargaining). In a European context, collective participation remains significant in certain countries, notably Germany and Sweden. However participation is not exclusive to union-only channels and in many countries non-union employee representation (NER) has grown in popularity: in Britain 18 per cent of private sector employees worked in establishments with the presence of a non-union representative (van Wanrooy et al., 2013: 60).

  This chapter first defines participation and considers the context in which participation has changed over time. We then review a framework against which to evaluate employee participation, followed by an explanation of the types of schemes used in practice. Next is a consideration of the meanings and possible impacts on organisational performance and employee well-being. Finally, we review some of the current influences and policy choices in the area of Employee Involvement and participation.

  Defining Participation

  EIP is something of an elastic term which can mean different things to different people (Wilkinson et al., 2020). Some authors refer to involvement as ‘participation’ while others use ‘empowerment’ or ‘communications’, often without fully extracting the key conceptual meanings or differences that are used in practice (Wilkinson et al., 2020). There are further complications when considering EIP in international terms. In European countries, for example, government policy and legislation provides for a statutory right to participation in certain areas, among both union and non-union establishments. In other countries, however, such as the USA or Australia, there is less emphasis on statutory provisions for Employee Involvement with a greater tendency to rely on the preferences of managers and unions, resulting in a complex web of individual and collective forms of EIP in many organisations.

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book
• 

  eBook - PDF

  Employment Relations in the Shadow of Recession

  Findings from the 2011 Workplace Employment Relations Study

  • Brigid van Wanrooy, Helen Bewley, Alex Bryson(Authors)
  • 2013(Publication Date)
  • Bloomsbury Academic

    (Publisher)

  49 4 The Involvement of Employees in Workplace Change INTRODUCTION All workplaces face the prospect of change at one time or another. Managers and employees will often be proactive in developing ideas for how to improve work processes, work organisation or working conditions. However, the stimulus may also come from outside the workplace, if developments in product or labour markets are judged to have the potential to risk the workplace’s competitiveness. The recession has, of course, amplified these external pressures. Many workplaces in the private sector have seen reductions in the demand for their products and services, while many workplaces in the public sector have seen reductions in their operational budgets. These changed circumstances are likely to have led many managers to re-evaluate working processes or organisational methods in search of cost-savings, or (in some cases) to innovate proactively in search of the all-important competitive edge. The resulting process of adaptation creates an impetus for dialogue between managers and employees within the workplace as they search for the best way forward. Ensuring that this dialogue takes place is argued by some to be an important means of arriving at decisions which are ‘socially optimal’ – that is, optimal for both employers and their employees (Freeman and Lazear, 1995). It is also argued that, if employees are allowed to contribute to decision-making, they will reciprocate with greater levels of engagement in their work and a more positive attitude towards the workplace as a whole (MacLeod and Clarke, 2009). Others see the question of participation primarily as one of citizenship (or power) with the employee as a stakeholder who deserves a voice over issues that affect them (Kelly, 1998; Commission of the European Communities, 2002; Budd, 2004).

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book
• 

  eBook - PDF

  Industrial Democracy in the Chinese Aerospace Industry

  The Innovation Catalyst

  • Denise Tsang(Author)
  • 2017(Publication Date)
  • Palgrave Macmillan

    (Publisher)

  In this chapter, we will explore Employee Involvement initiatives among Chinese aerospace conglomerates, which has reinforced autonomy and motivated the workforce. As mentioned in Chapter 1, Employee Involvement could be classified in terms of information, consultation and discretion; they provide opportunities for employees to express their voice concerning issues that affect them (Marchington and Suter 2013). In such sense, downward communication from the management that provides information to employ- ees could be seen as a precursor for voice behaviour. Consultation, on the other hand, provides managerial means to harness the knowledge of employees and provides voice opportunities. It contrasts with quality circles, which formalized a system for employees to be involved in a voice system concerning decision- making. The point of departure for employee voice, which results from their involvement at work, is a cooperative attempt to improve firm and national competitiveness, built on Hirschman’s (1970) work that conceptualized its objective as changing the status quo 1 as well as Marchington et al. (2001) perspective that managers and the employees shared the same agenda. During its marketization process, Chinese aerospace conglomerates adopted western techniques to involve employees and disseminated infor- mation on issues, including finance, investment plans and staffing. For instance, CASIC has been publishing its annual Corporate Social Responsibility Report since 2008 that covers various firm and strategic information, in addition to its internal communication through the intranet. This chapter will probe into the Employee Involvement techniques of quality circle and employee survey, which has been classified as upward problem solving. We will also examine the financial involvement associated with shares ownership and the discretion made by employees in their rating of superior performance.

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book
• 

  No longer available |Learn more

  Human Resource Management at Work

  The Definitive Guide

  • Mick Marchington, Adrian Wilkinson, Rory Donnelly, Anastasia Kynighou(Authors)
  • 2020(Publication Date)
  • CIPD - Kogan Page

    (Publisher)

  The nature of employee participation has changed over the last 50 years. The 1970s model reached its high point with the 1977 Bullock Report on ‘Industrial Democracy’, which addressed the question of how workers might be represented at board level. This emerged in a period of strong union bargaining power and the Labour government’s ‘Social Contract’. The Bullock Committee’s approach had several distinctive features. It was partly union-initiated, through the Labour Party, and based on collectivist principles that saw trade unions playing a central part in future arrangements. In addition, it was wedded to the general principle of employee rights established on a statutory basis (Ackers, 2019). Thus, from this perspective, participation can be seen as a fundamental democratic right for workers to extend a degree of control over managerial decision-making in organisations.

  Over the last 30 years, we have seen the emergence, and continuing growth of a rather different animal – Employee Involvement and participation (EIP) (Marchington, 2015b; 2015c). This arose in a context of reduced union power and an anti-corporatist Thatcher government during the late 1980s which resisted statutory blueprints and encouraged firms to develop the arrangements which best suited them. This agenda was quite different from the previous period in several ways. First, it was management-initiated, often from outside the employment relations sphere, and with scant reference to trade unions. Second, it was more individualist, and stressed direct communications with individual employees. Third, it was driven by business criteria concerning economic performance and the ‘bottom line’, with an emphasis on employee motivation and commitment (Dundon and Wilkinson, 2020). Dutiful compliance and following rules no longer described the ‘good worker’; instead, management demanded employee commitment, working beyond contract and exercising initiative. The notion of high-commitment HRM (see Chapter 3 ) made the case that long-term competitive advantage could only be achieved through people.

  The term ‘employee voice’ is also used in the literature in this area, sometimes interchangeably with EIP (Barry and Wilkinson, 2015; Wilkinson, Barry et al, 2020). The academic concept of ‘employee voice’ was popularised by Freeman and Medoff (1984), who argued that it made good sense for both employers and employees to have a ‘voice’ mechanism. This had both a consensual and a conflictual image: on the one hand, employee voice could lead to a beneficial impact on quality and productivity, while on the other, it could identify and deal with problems (Gollan and Wilkinson, 2007). Trade unions were seen as the best or indeed only agents to provide voice as they were independent, but representative voice has also been examined in non-union organisations (Gollan et al, 2014).

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book
• 

  eBook - PDF

  Equality, Participation, Transition

  Essays in Honour of Branko Horvat

  • V. Franicevic, M. Uvalic, V. Franicevic, M. Uvalic(Authors)
  • 2000(Publication Date)
  • Palgrave Macmillan

    (Publisher)

  In this way, the development process was limited by the dominance of bureaucratic entrepreneurship mainly geared at the establishment of big enterprises that produced low quality, mass-produced products for protected domestic markets (Petrin, 1989). The question that remains to be discussed here is whether the old system was a good base for real employee participation which could simultaneously achieve both performance and personal improvements. It is our view that the achievement of both goals, company com- petitiveness and personal satisfaction through Employee Involvement, cannot be achieved without significant technical know-how, since it requires a complete change in organizational culture and people’s behav- iour. This is why the selection of the best suitable procedure for the implementation of required changes is of crucial importance. In spite of good intentions, the introduction of quality-based manage- ment into a company frequently fails. This occurs when the introduction of the organizational change is perceived by employees as manipulative or is associated with competitive, rather than cooperative goals (Tjosvold, 1998; Tung-Chun, 1997). The more fundamental question still remains, namely, whether any such systems will have a lasting effect if the work- ers are not the owners or do not have significant stakes in the business performance of the company. Two possible directions can be foreseen. First, with increased worker involvement in business processes, greater investment in employee knowledge and the improvement of working conditions as the companies move into knowledge-based 112 Employee Involvement and the Modern Firm production processes and product development areas, the transparency of company operation increases and workers become better placed to participate in business decision-making. Therefore, one solution may be to establish a closer connection between business results and work- ers’ involvement.

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book
• 

  eBook - PDF

  Advanced Introduction to Employee Engagement

  • Alan M. Saks, Jamie A. Gruman(Authors)
  • 2021(Publication Date)
  • Edward Elgar Publishing

    (Publisher)

  In addition, both job and organization engage- ment predicted job satisfaction, organizational commitment, intention to quit, and organizational citizenship behavior towards the organization; however, only organization engagement predicted organizational citizen- ship behavior towards individuals. In a study that used single item meas- ures of overall job and organization engagement, Saks (2019) found that job engagement was a stronger predictor of job-related consequences (i.e., job satisfaction and intention to quit one’s job), and organization engage- ment was a stronger predictor of organization-related consequences (i.e., organizational commitment and organizational citizenship behaviors). Saks and Gruman (2014) extended the multidimensional definition of employee engagement by noting that in addition to performing work and organizational roles, many employees also perform group or team roles as well as specific tasks and assignments. Thus, employee engagement can vary within and across employees with respect to various targets. In organizations, employees might vary in how engaged they are when they perform a specific task, their job, team-related tasks and behaviors, tasks and activities that are associated with being a member of a business unit or department, and tasks, activities, and initiatives that an employee performs as a member of an organization. THE MEANING OF EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT 25 A multidimensional definition of employee engagement is important because it recognizes that employees have multiple roles in the workplace, and they will bring different degrees of themselves into the performance of each role. Thus, the extent or degree to which employees choose to employ and express themselves physically, cognitively, and emotionally will vary across the different roles they occupy. This means that an employee who has very low job engagement might be highly engaged in other roles or even in specific work tasks.

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book