EMPLOYEE INVOLVEMENT AND EMPLOYEE PARTNERSHIP

Employee involvement means that every employee is regarded as a unique human being, not
just a cog in a machine, and each employee is involved in helping the organization meet its
goals. Each employee’s input is solicited and valued by his/her management. Employees and
management recognize that each employee is involved in running the business.
Objectives
Employee involvement and empowerment is a long – term commitment, a new way of doing
business, a fundamental change in culture. Employees who have been trained, empowered,
and recognized for their achievements see their jobs and their companies from a different
perspective. The best way to obtain a genuine commitment from people is to involve them in
the project from the beginning. Even if the original ideas are not theirs, the process of
designing, planning and assessing will automatically pull them into the stream of things.
Managers who try to take back some of that power end up with bitter, frustrated, and
disillusioned employees. Performance will suffer, and future attempts to involve employees
will be met with cynicism.
Organizations operating with the involvement of their employees, have evolved beyond
merely telling people what is going on, to actively seeking their contribution to the decision
making process.
The keys to involvement are several and complex:
(a) Financial. Share ownership and profit distribution plans can help to foster an interest in a
company’s affairs at the competitive level which is often hard to get across in the normal day
to day routine of workplace activity. Some evidence exists for suggesting that limited positive
benefits can accrue from this approach. A survey from the Industrial Society showed that one
in six UK employees own shares in their company. However, this was heavily skewed toward
managers amongst whom one-third held stock. Amongst unskilled manual workers this
dropped to just 5%. Half of all share owners surveyed felt
(b) Job security. Doubt as to whether you will still be with the company next week are hardly
likely to encourage a sense of belonging.

Methodology
Employee involvement and empowerment is worldwide applicable technique. There is no
single option for employee involvement. It includes suggestion systems, teams, focus groups,
surveys, self-directed work groups, incentive programs and more. The goal is to determine
the most effective employee involvement options that will be linked to specific organizational
goals. In order to implement employee involvement and empowerment to an enterprise the
following key actions need to take place: • Giving employee the responsibility • Training
employee to accept responsibility • Communicating and giving feedback • Giving rewards
and recognition
Workers today are more and more being asked by management to join employee involvement
programs in order to improve the quality of their work lives. Management usually makes the
case that the days of destructive adversarial labour management relations are over and that a
ruthless competitive economic world requires that workers and management cooperate so that
both survive. It is in the best interest of both workers and supervisors to increase happiness
and satisfaction on the job, because happy and satisfied employees are productive employees
who insure the employer’s profit and continued existence of the company and the worker’s
jobs. In such programs management usually wants: 1. Access to the workers' knowledge of
the job. 2. Cooperation In the introduction of new technology without protest. 3. Flexibility
regarding job classifications, work rules, job assignments, the contract for the purpose of
greater efficiencies. 4. Contract changes and sometimes contract concessions.
Alternative Techniques
The section examines which business strategy offers the highest returns: process
reengineering, total quality management or employee involvement. Total Quality
Management (TQM), focuses on work methods and process control to improve performance.
Process Re-engineering employs downsizing (also known as layoffs) to boost efficiency.
Expected Results / Benefits
Employee involvement and empowerment approaches aim at enhancing responsibility,
increasing authority, and making jobs challenging and interesting to employees, based on
their abilities and the needs of the organization. The return on such nominal investments will
come in the form of higher levels of employee motivation, creativity, productivity, and
commitment.
Companies are choosing to empower people because it makes good business sense.
Employees on self-directed work teams perform all the tasks formerly done by managers.
Across the world, companies are looking for the best approach to the demands for higher
quality, the pressure of increasing global competition, the necessity to be more efficient and
productive, and the effects of rapid change. Successful companies believe that the only way
to compete is through employees who perform the tasks that produce a product or service: •
are in the best position to ensure and improve its quality • are best able to lower costs by
eliminating waste throughout the process • are in the best position to speed up their processes
by reducing cycle times • are the ideal agents of change when they are in touch with their
processes, trained through education and experience.
Several surveys and benchmarking findings reveal the essential role of consultants in the
Employee Involvement and Empowerment process. Consultants' help and guidance may be
extremely beneficial in all stages of this procedure. This is due to the fact that consultants
have the following attributes: • They are objective and immune to internal politics. • They
have followed the process before. • They bring information and best practices from other
companies. • They are good communication paths between front line workers and customers,
and the leaders of the company or organization.
Consultants, besides their beneficial qualities, can also unintentionally create barriers by: •
having the solution being viewed as "theirs" and not "yours" • taking too strong a lead role
and disengaging the organization.
The consultants may play different roles in the Employee Involvement and Empowerment
procedure, and this is a matter for the company to decide always taking into account the
organizations needs and the specific approach chosen. The role of consultant may be: • a
strong facilitator and experienced practitioner who brings a methodology with them. • a team
member; can be an objective and unbiased contributor to the solution; • a subject-matter
expert with knowledge of performance levels and best practices of similar organizations and
processes; able to perform specific tasks for the team.
IMPLEMENTATION PROCEDURES
Steps / Phases
Successful employee involvement requires leaders/managers to: Initiate and maintain the
process of involvement & provide access to resources that people need in order to contribute.
It is only when involvement is practiced effectively that human commitment and creativity
will fuel process improvement.
Facilitating Employee Involvement
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.
Facilitating employee involvement requires recognizing the value of each individual,
understanding human motivations, assigning people to positions in which they can be
successful, and listening to employees.
Listening: A Basic Involvement Tool
Listening is one of the most effective tools managers can use to promote employee
involvement. This may sound trivial, but it is not. Listening to human being is a powerful
involvement tool. It helps the speaker feel that the person listening wants to understand what
the speaker has to say. It encourages people to open up, and to become involved. If no one
listens, people won’t become involved, because they will recognize that no one values their
opinions.
Last aspect on listening has to do with summarizing what you think you have heard. This will
help make sure you have heard what the employee has to say and gives the employee an
opportunity to correct any misperceptions on your part.
.
Obstacles
Obstacles to employee involvement and empowerment and relative recommendations on
avoiding or overcoming them, concern:
(1) Negativism in reviewing employee recommendations for improvement.
(2) Fear is another strong negative motivation, and it should also be avoided.
(3) Failure to respond to employee recommendations is another sure-fire way to kill an
employee involvement and empowerment effort.
(4) Punish anyone as a result of a continuous improvement recommendation.
EMPLOYEE PARTNERSHIP
In many instances, partnerships distribute profits generated by the company among partners
according to the terms of the partnership agreement. When one or more partners perform
specific tasks on behalf of the partnership, the compensation structure for the partnership may
become more complicated. Consult with an attorney specializing in partnerships with specific
questions concerning your specific business circumstances.

Partnership Types
There are two broad categories of partnerships: general and limited. In both types of
partnerships, partners receive a share of the proceeds generated by the company. If you are a
partner in a general partnership, you have a role in directing the day-to-day operations of the
company. If you perform specific tasks for the partnership, you may receive compensation
for your work. On the other hand, in a limited partnership, a limited partner is prohibited
from taking an active role in the running of the company, including compensated work.

Partners vs. Employees

Employees are not compelled to invest financially in their workplaces. They also receive
standard wages that do not directly fluctuate with the rise and fall of earnings of their
companies. By contrast, as a partner you are expected to make a significant investment in the
partnership, either financially, in services you perform for the partnership, or both. In
addition, your financial compensation may fluctuate depending on the earnings of the
partnership. In fact, you may be financially liable for losses suffered by the partnership.

PRINCIPLES OF EMPLOYEE PARTNERSHIP

• Joint commitment to the success of the organisation

• Joint recognition of each other’s legitimate interests

• Joint commitment to employment security

• Joint focus on the quality of working life

• Joint commitment to operating in a transparent manner

• Joint commitment to add value to the arrangement

These principles translate into common features that are associated with partnership working.
For example, employees would show a strong commitment to the goals of the business and
would be flexible in their approach to achieving these goals. In turn, the organisation would
understand and listen to employee concerns and actively pursue policies to address such
issues wherever possible.

Partnership working is a relationship based on the satisfaction of mutual as well as separate

interests with respect given by both parties to those separate interests. However, partnership
works best when a union thinks about the business and business thinks about the staff before
any decision is made or any action is taken. By doing so, a virtuous circle can be achieved
rather than a vicious one.

Partnership is built on principles and practices of shared commitment between the

organisation and the people who work there. This should produce the following business
benefits:

• Change implemented with assistance rather than resistance

• Competitive edge for the organisation

• Dealing with issues before they become problems

• Less bureaucracy

• Fewer, if any, tribunal cases

• Higher levels of staff retention

• Greater ability to recruit high quality staff

• Low levels of absenteeism

• Less conflict

• Better decision making

For a trade union, all of these are benefits too. There are also some specific areas that a trade
union working in partnership will benefit from:

• Opportunity to maintain or increase its influence on company strategy

• Opportunity to ensure that the impact of staff is considered in any decision

• Opportunity to increase membership levels

• Opportunity to develop the skills of the representatives to a much higher level

• Opportunity to become an equal stakeholder within the organisation

These, if the union approaches partnership working in the right spirit, are benefits to the
organisation as well.

More recent researchers have asked the question of whether high-involvement work practices can
be generalized to the service industry sector. Once again, impressive results have been documented.
Two studies of employees in the life insurance industry examined the impact of employee
perceptions that they had the power to make decisions, sufficient knowledge and information to do
the job effectively, and rewards for high performance. Both studies included large samples of
employees (3,570 employees in 49 organizations and 4,828 employees in 92 organizations). In both
studies, high-involvement management practices were positively associated with employee morale,
employee retention, and firm financial performance.
Another recent study has tested high-involvement work practices in a call center environment. In a
field experiment, 149 call center employees were randomly assigned to either high involvement
work practices, autonomous teams, aligned job design (essentially new performance metrics aligned
with the business strategy), or the traditional management system. Findings comparing pre- and
posttest scores showed substantial improvement in organizational commitment and intrinsic job
satisfaction in the high-involvement work practices group compared to no change for the control
group or the autonomous work team group, and impact on organizational commitment only for the
aligned job design group. The high-involvement work practice group also showed the most
improvement in performance on a variety of measures.