Unit 8.1

Employee Involvement Participation and Empowerment

DefinitionsEmployee involvement :

is a range of processes designed to engage the support,understanding and optimum contribution of all employeesin an organization and their commitment to its objectives’

Employee participation :

is a process of employee involvement designed to provideemployees with the opportunity to influence and whereappropriate, take part in decision making on matterswhich affect them’

(Institute of Personnel Development)

DefinitionsParticipation :

One of four policy choices for managing the employment relationship ( Farnham 1997) –

employee has ‘right’ to question and influence organisation decision making – may involve representative workplace democracy. ( see Rose 2001 p380)

The other policy choices are :

– Worker subordination via managerial prerogative

– Union incorporation via collective bargaining

– Employee commitment via employee involvement

Participation – Some facts• Is mainly a pluralist / collective approach

• A continuum from ‘no involvement’ to ‘employee control’ ( see Blyton & Turnbull 1998)

May Involve :

– Collective bargaining

– Employee share schemes

– Works councils

– Worker directors

– JCCs

– EWCs (1994 EU Directive – must have if more than 500 workers)

Works Councils -The German Model

German Workplace Co-determination –

Mitbestimmung - regarded as ‘best practice model’

Employee-only council at workplace / company or group level Betriebstrate ( no official Trade union involvement)

Employee representation on supervisory management boards Aufsichsrat ( official trades union roles here)

What is Employee Involvement ?

Involvement :

Individualistic

Unitarist

Aims :

Harness commitment to objectives

Maintenance of management control

Part of ‘soft’ HRM approach (Rose 2000)

Involves upwards and downwards communications flow

Employee Involvement

Downward communication flows

(top management down to line staff)

Written information (e.g.staff newsletters notice-

boards, staff handbooks, house journals)

Team briefings / Cascade briefing

Staff forums

Employee Involvement

Benefits of Communications : Reinforce line managers as team leaders

Increased workforce and supervisory commitment

Reduce misunderstandings

Help control of ‘grapevine/rumour factory’

Improve upward communication

Employee Involvement

Upward communication flows

(formal/informal)

Paid / Unpaid suggestion schemes

General / attitude surveys of staff

Appraisal schemes / upward appraisals

TQM tools - QCs / QITs/ (e.g. Marriotts HATs)

Employee Participation

Benefits of TQM tools :

• Improved quality in products and services

• Cost savings

• Increased commitment and Interest

• Encourages awareness and flexibility in problem solving

• Enhancement of supervisory and leadership skills

Employee Empowerment

‘predominantly about encouraging front-line staff to solvecustomer problems on the spot, without constantrecourse to management approval’

(Goldsmith et al,1997p 145)

‘management strategies for sharing decision-making power’

(Bowen and Lawler, 1992) [cited in Lashley, 1996:334]

Types of Empowerment

Structured empowerment –

close control; formal; sets out clear boundaries; clear rules passed on through training

Flexible empowerment –

certain boundaries set; expecting employees to use their experience/common sense to make decisions; guidelines rather than rules

Conditions for Successful Implementation of Schemes

Good employee relations• Trust

• Openness

• Participative Style

Top management Commitment

• Information flow

• Appropriate system

• Resources– [ Time, Training, Facilities, Lost Output ]

How Does Empowerment Affect The Power Balance ?

What is Power – who holds more in the employment relationship ?

‘ ..extent to which one party to a relationship can compel the other to do something he otherwise would not do voluntarily Rose (2001 p 5)

– Management • Threat of sanction e.g. dismissal, closure

• Withholding payment of wages

– Employee• Skills shortages ?

• Threat of sanction – withdrawal of labour (strike, work to rule)

How Does Empowerment Affect The Power Balance ?

Hyman & Mason 1995 (cited in Salamon 2000 state :

‘empowerment becomes becomes a euphemism for work intensification’ (p387)

They suggest that rather than giving ‘power’ it gives responsibility to employees without extra Reward and employers get a cost saving from delayering management

How Does Empowerment Affect The Power Balance ?

Hollinshead et al (1999) suggest of the employment relationship :

‘developments in the 1980s and 1990s suggest that the process only appears to give employees greater control and, in reality remains dominated and restricted by management’ (p324)

‘Empowerment is still mostly an illusion ‘

(Argyris 1998 p98)

‘management have defined the redistribution of Power in very narrow terms…strictly within an agenda set by management…

(Wilkinson 1998)

So haw are these three concepts related ?

• Participation – pluralist about real power sharing and at the extreme a say in the decisions of the business

• Involvement – Unitarist – focusing on commitment to shared goals and maintaining two way communication

• Empowerment - as part of HRM approach tends to be unitarist but if extended to giving employees real power over a broader range of issues could be pluralist (tends to be limited in application / scope)