Employee Participation, Involvement

1
Employee Participation, Involvement

• Implications for Employee Relations

2
Employee Participation

• Long history in Personnel/HRM
• Distinguish
• Direct v Indirect
• Formal v Informal
• Scope limited/broad
• Level team/department/company
• Focus task/team/individual
• Changing emphasis Employee Involvement v
  Participation

3
Distinctions

• Salamon (1998)
• Industrial Democracy
• Worker control
• Employee Participation -
• Influencing decision-making
• Employee Involvement -
• Engage support, understanding, commitment and
  contribution

4
Continuum of Employee Participation
No Involvement
Receive Information
Joint Consultation
Joint Decision-Making
Employee Control
Source Blyton and Turnbull 1998
5
Phases and Influence of Forms of Participation in
UK
Worker Control
Marxist
Collective Bargaining Joint Consultation
Pluralist
Employee Involvement Task-Based Participation
Downward Communications
Unitarist
1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000
6
Control
Level
Co-determination
Collective Bargaining
Consultation
Communication
Information
Scope of Involvement
7
Levels of Participation
Worker Directors
Collective Bargaining
Works Councils
Joint Consultative Committees
Task-Based Participation
8
Theoretical Contributions

• Unitarist - Human Relations/HRM
• Mayo communications/consultation influence in
  Britain post 1930s
• HRM EI alternative to unions or provide dual
  channel (Willman 2007)
• Marxist Cycles of control (Ramsay 1977)
  participation as response to challenges to
  management authority and changes in power within
  capital-labour relations
• Pluralist Wave theory (Marchington1992)

9
Employee Involvement and Participation

• Recent interest from two main sources
• Rise of HRM
• Focus on EI means to securing commitment and
  high performance - HPWS
• Mutual gains enterprise (Kochan and Osterman
  2000)
• Co-operation, mutual interest v conflict in
  employment relationship
• High involvement mining the gold in peoples
  heads to secure improved performance
• European Initiatives
• European Works Councils (1990s) Information and
  Consultation Directive (2002)
• Tensions between HRM and EU Agendas

10
Employee Involvement

• HRM influence seen through claimed links between
  EI and performance
• Performance a function of
• Ability
• Motivation
• Opportunity (AMO)
• More rigorous selection and better training
  systems to increase ability levels, more
  comprehensive incentives to enhance motivation ,
  and participative structures that improve
  opportunity to contribute (Applebaum et al.
  2000, in Boxall and Purcell p. 20).

11
Linkages within High Performance Work Systems
Expanded employee potential and increased
discretionary effort
Improved company performance

• HR Practices and operating systems designed and
  bundled to enhance
• Ability
• Motivation
• Opportunity

Improved worker outcomes
Improved systemic response to employee effort
Supportive company, industry and societal context
12
Guest (2000) Link HRM and Business Performance
HR Strategy
Business Strategy
HR Practices
HR Effectiveness
HR Outcomes
Quality of Service
Productivity
Financial Performance
13
Employee Involvement

• EI major area of growth in Britain since early
  1980s
• Particular configuration of
• - Level
• - Scope
• - Direct involvement
• - Focus
• Complex reasons for growth see Marchington
  work, often dual-channel (exists alongside
  indirect communications)

14
Employee Involvement

• Employee Involvement includes
• Teamworking (including self-managing teams)
• Team Briefing
• Downward communications
• Two-way communications
• Suggestion schemes
• Problem-solving groups
• Financial participation (includes profit sharing
  schemes and ESOPs)

15
And Engagement?

• Engagement is an idea whose time has come.it
  represents an aspiration that employees should
  understand, identify and commit themselves to the
  objectives of the organisation they work
  for..(however).HR professionals need to
  recognise that engagement is a strategic issues
  that cannot simply be left to manage itself
  (CIPD 2005, 2006)
• An illustration of the assumed links between
  engagement and other factors is contained on the
  next slide

16
Employee Engagement (CIPD 2007)
Opps for upward feedback
Engagement
Feeling informed
Mgt commitment to organisation
Performance
Managers fairness re issues
Intention to Stay
Treating employees With respect
17
Participation in EU

• In EU model of legally constituted forms of
  indirect involvement via Works Councils (or
  equivalent) and (in some countries) employee
  representation at senior levels in organisations
  board level
• Works councils/works committees at establishment
  or organisational level Austria, Belgium,
  France, Greece, Luxembourg, the Netherlands,
  Portugal and Spain, similar structures in
  Denmark, Norway
• Representative system - Key role for trade unions
  and worker representatives

18
European Union Traditions

• Model of participation in EU normally a dual
  system of industry-wide collective bargaining and
  company-based works councils
• Some countries (Germany) gone further in formal
  systems of co-determination at company level
• EU tried to extend this to other countries with
  Draft 5th Directive (1972) and recently with
  European Works Council Directive and Information
  and Consultation Directive (2002)
• Tensions EU v UK models of involvement

19
European Union Traditions

• EWCs covers undertakings with 1000 employees
  within EU countries and with 150 employees in
  two or more of the countries
• Latter covers companies such as MS, McDonalds
• There are currently over 600 EWCs in
  multinationals within the EU, 100 of which are
  UK firms

20
Involvement and Participation

• Europe
• The Information and Consultation Directive UK
  law introduced 2005 2008
• Brings UK more closely in-line with other EU
  countries Works Councils
• Legally constituted forum for information and
  consultation contrasts with voluntary tradition
  in UK cover all organisations with 50 employees
• Represents a shift back to indirect participation
  at a level above the workgroup

21
Involvement and Participation

• In UK considerable hostility to Directive from
  Government and employers
• Many see as alien to traditions of involvement
  and participation in UK encroachment into
  managerial prerogative
• Led to a Watering down of Directive to cover
  direct forms of involvement in UK legislation
• DTI/BERR work links EU developments with HPWS

22
Evidence on Involvement and Participation in UK

• Latest WERS 2004 indicates that
• 72 of workplaces had some form of teamworking
  for core employees
• 83 used some form of downward communication
• 63 had regular meetings with feedback
• 71 used team-briefing for communication
• 30 had problem-solving groups
• 30 used suggestion schemes
• More common in Public than Private sector

23
Evidence from the UK

• According to WERS (2004)
• 91 of workplaces have meetings with entire
  workforce or team briefings
• 38 use e-mail (48 in public sector), 34 the
  intranet (48 in public sector)
• 42 use employee surveys (66 public sector)
• 45 use regular newsletters
• 74 use noticeboards
• Limited change in use of these since 1998 survey

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What Does Evidence Tell Us?

• Management control involvement on managements
  terms?
• Emphasis on top-down communications unitarist
• More communication and consultation far less
  negotiation
• Is management listening?
• Management cultures is knowledge still power?