Employee Participation, Involvement Implications for Employee Relations
Employee Participation, InvolvementImplications for Employee Relations
Employee Participation Long history in Personnel/HRM
Distinguish Direct v IndirectFormal v InformalScope – limited/broadLevel – team/department/companyFocus – task/team/individual
Changing emphasis – Employee Involvement v Participation
Distinctions
Salamon (1998) Industrial Democracy –
Worker control Employee Participation -
Influencing decision-making Employee Involvement -
Engage support, understanding, commitment and contribution
Continuum of Employee Participation
No Involvement
Receive Information
Joint Consultation
Joint Decision-Making
Employee Control
Source: Blyton and Turnbull 1998
Phases and Influence of Forms of Participation in UK
1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000
Unitarist
Pluralist
Marxist
Employee Involvement
Task-Based
Participation
Collective Bargaining
Joint Consultation
Downward Communications
Worker Control
Levels of Participation
Worker Directors
Task-Based Participation
Joint Consultative Committees
Works Councils
Collective Bargaining
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)
Employee Involvement and ParticipationRecent 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 relationshipHigh involvement – ‘mining the gold in people’s heads’ to secure improved performance
European InitiativesEuropean Works Councils (1990s) Information and Consultation Directive (2002)
Tensions between HRM and EU Agendas
Employee Involvement
HRM influence seen through claimed links between EI and performance
Performance a function of AbilityMotivationOpportunity (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).
HR Practices and operating systems designed and ‘bundled’ to enhance
• Ability
• Motivation
• Opportunity
Supportive company, industry and societal context
Expanded employee potential and increased discretionary effort
Improved systemic response to employee effort
Improved company performance
Improved worker outcomes
Linkages within High Performance Work Systems
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)
Employee Involvement Employee Involvement includes:
Teamworking (including self-managing teams)Team BriefingDownward communicationsTwo-way communicationsSuggestion schemesProblem-solving groupsFinancial participation (includes profit sharing schemes and ESOPs)
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
Employee Engagement (CIPD 2007)
Opps for upward feedback
Feeling informed
Mgt commitment to organisation
Manager’s fairness re: issues
Treating employees With respect
Engagement
Performance
Intention to Stay
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
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
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 M&S, McDonalds
There are currently over 600 EWCs in multinationals within the EU, 100+ of which are UK firms
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
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
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 schemesMore common in Public than Private sector
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
What Does Evidence Tell Us?
Management control – involvement on management’s terms?
Emphasis on ‘top-down’ communications – unitarist
More communication and consultation far less negotiation
Is management listening? Management cultures – ‘is knowledge still
power’?