EMPLOYEE INVOLVEMENT

OBJECTIVES
1. Understanding motivation
2. Empowering employees
3. Assessing current levels through surveys
4. Basics of Empowerment
5. Understanding functioning and effectiveness of
teams
6. Encouraging employee participation through
suggestion systems
7. Understanding the concept of Gain sharing
8. Brief overview of performance appraisals
9. Overview of unions and employee involvement
INTRODUCTION TO EMPLOYEE
INVOLVEMENT
 Employee involvement is one approach to
improving quality and productivity.
 Employee involvement is not a replacement for
management nor is it the final word in quality
improvement.
 It is a means to better meet the organization’s
goals for quality and productivity at all levels of
an organization.
MOTIVATION
 Theories of Motivation
1. Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs
2. Herzberg Two factor Theory

Note: Refer previous chapter of Motivation - HRD

HOW TO ACHIEVE MOTIVATED WORK
FORCE

 Know thyself
 Know your employees

 Establish a positive attitude

 Share the goals.

 Monitor progress

 Develop interesting work

 Communicate effectively

 Celebrate success
EMPLOYEE SURVEYS
 Employee surveys help managers assess the
current state of employee relations, identify
trends, measure the effectiveness of program
implementation, identify needed improvements,
and increase communication effectiveness.
EMPLOYEE SURVEYS
 The first step is for the quality council to create a
multifunctional team with responsibilities
 The second step, the team will develop the survey
instrument using in-house and external
expertise.
EMPLOYEE SURVEYS
Examples of each include:
1. Personality characteristics—anxiety, self-esteem
in the organization, and ability to participate in
the organization.
2. Management styles—consideration of
subordinates, initiating structure, commitment to
quality.
3. Job attitudes —job satisfaction, social support at
work and co-worker’s commitment to quality.
4. The work —task variety, autonomy and
importance.
EMPLOYEE SURVEYS
 The third step is to administer the survey.
 This activity begins by communicating to the
employees the purpose, schedule of events, and
employee expectations.
 The survey should be administered by an outside
group to maintain anonymity.
 Surveys are administered every 12 to 18 months.
EMPLOYEE SURVEYS
 The last step is to determine areas for
improvement.
 Such areas for improvement will occur at the
work unit level, cross boundaries among work
groups such as between engineering design and
marketing, and cover the entire organization.
 By listening to the voice of the employee, the
organization can receive feedback to help ensure
a thriving TQM effort.
EMPOWERMENT
 The dictionary definition of empowerment is to
invest people with authority.
 Its purpose is to tap the enormous reservoir of
potential contribution that lies within every
worker
 “Empowerment is an environment in which
people have the ability, the confidence, and the
commitment to take the responsibility and
ownership to improve the process and initiate the
necessary steps to satisfy customer requirements
within well-defined boundaries in order to
achieve organizational values and goals.
EMPOWERMENT
 In order to create the empowered environment,
three conditions are necessary.
1. Everyone must understand the need for change.
2. The system needs to change to the new
paradigm.
3. The organization must enable its employees
(Enablement means providing information,
education, and skill)
TEAMS
 Employee involvement is optimized by the use of
teams.
 A team is defined as a group of people working
together to achieve common objectives or goals.
 Teamwork is the cumulative actions of the team
during which each member of the team
subordinates his individual interests and
opinions to fulfil the objectives or goals of the
group.
WHY TEAMS WORK?
1. Teams work because many heads are more
knowledgeable than one.
2. Second, the whole is greater than the sum of its
members.
3. Third, team members develop a rapport with
each other that allows them to do a better job.
4. Finally, teams provide the vehicle for improved
communication, thereby increasing the
likelihood of a successful solution.
TYPES OF TEAMS
 1. Process improvement team.
 2. Cross-functional team.

 3. Natural work teams.

 4. Self-directed/self-managed work teams.

CHARACTERISTICS OF SUCCESSFUL
TEAMS
 1. Sponsor
 2. Team charter.

 3. Team composition

 4. Training

 5. Ground rules.

 6. Clear objectives

 7. Accountability

 8. Well-defined decision procedures

 9. Resources.

 10. Trust
CHARACTERISTICS OF SUCCESSFUL
TEAMS
 11. Effective problem solving
 12. Open communication.

 13. Appropriate leadership

 14. Balanced participation

 15. Cohesiveness.
TEAM MEMBER ROLES
 1. The team leader, who is selected by the quality
council, sponsor, or the team itself, has the
following roles
 2. The facilitator is not a member of the team;
he/she is a neutral assistant and may not be
needed with a mature team. This person does not
get involved in the meeting content or evaluation
of the team’s ideas.
 3. The team recorder, who is selected by the
leader or by the team and may be rotated on a
periodic basis
TEAM MEMBER ROLES
 4. The timekeeper, who is selected by the leader
or by the team and may be rotated on a periodic
basis
 5. The team member, who is selected by the
leader, sponsor, or quality council or is a member
of a natural work team
EFFECTIVE TEAM MEETINGS
 If the participants know their roles and utilize
the characteristics of successful teams, the
probability of effective team meetings is
enhanced
 1. Meetings should be regularly scheduled; have
a fixed time limit, and start on time. Participants
should be notified ahead of time with the
location, time, and objective
 2. An agenda should be developed, either at the
end of the previous meeting or prior to the
beginning of the next meeting. It should be sent
to the participants prior to the meeting.
EFFECTIVE TEAM MEETINGS
 3. Agendas usually list: opening focus, previous
meeting feedback, agenda review, agenda items,
summary, and action items
 4. Periodically, the meetings should be evaluated
by the participants
TEN COMMON PEOPLE PROBLEMS AND
THEIR SOLUTIONS
1. Floundering
 occurs when the team has trouble starting or
ending a project or different stages of the project.
 Solutions to this state are to look critically at the
improvement plan, review the mission statement,
determine the cause of the holdup, and have each
member write down reasons and discuss them at
the next meeting.
TEN COMMON PEOPLE PROBLEMS AND
THEIR SOLUTIONS
2. Overbearing participants
 They usually have a position of authority or a
particular expertise.
 Teams need these abilities; however, it becomes
detrimental when they discourage discussion on
their expertise and discount other members’
ideas.
TEN COMMON PEOPLE PROBLEMS AND
THEIR SOLUTIONS
3. Dominating participants
 Dominating participants like to hear themselves
talk, use overlong anecdotes, and dominate the
meeting.
 Members get discouraged and find excuses for
missing meetings.
TEN COMMON PEOPLE PROBLEMS AND
THEIR SOLUTIONS
4. Reluctant participants
 Reluctant participants feel shy or unsure of
themselves and must be encouraged to
contribute.
 Problems develop when there are no built-in
activities that encourage introverts to participate
and extroverts to listen.
TEN COMMON PEOPLE PROBLEMS AND
THEIR SOLUTIONS
5. Unquestioned acceptance of opinions as facts
 Unquestioned acceptance of opinions as facts
occurs when members assert personal beliefs
with such confidence that other members think
they are facts.
TEN COMMON PEOPLE PROBLEMS AND
THEIR SOLUTIONS
6. Rush to accomplish
 Teams must realize that improvements do not
come easily and rarely overnight.
 Solutions are to remind members that the ground
rules call for the problem-solving method or to
confront the rusher off-line and explain the
effects of impatience.
TEN COMMON PEOPLE PROBLEMS AND
THEIR SOLUTIONS
7. Attribution
 Attribution is the activity of guessing at a
person’s motives when we disagree or don’t
understand his or her opinion or behavior.
 Solutions are to reaffirm the importance of the
problem-solving method, question whether this
opinion is based on data, and find out the real
meaning of the problem.
TEN COMMON PEOPLE PROBLEMS AND
THEIR SOLUTIONS
8. Discounts and “plops”
 arise when members fail to give credit to
another’s opinions or no one responds to a
statement that “plops.”
 Every member deserves the respect and attention
from the team.
TEN COMMON PEOPLE PROBLEMS AND
THEIR SOLUTIONS
 9. Wanderlust:
 digression and tangents happen when members
lose track of the meeting’s purpose or want to
avoid a sensitive topic.
TEN COMMON PEOPLE PROBLEMS AND
THEIR SOLUTIONS
10. Feuding
 team members can disrupt an entire team with
their disagreements.
 Usually these feuds predate the team and are
best dealt with outside the team meetings.
 Solutions are to get the adversaries to discuss the
issues off-line, offer to facilitate the discussion,
and encourage them to form some contract about
their behavior
COMMON BARRIERS TO TEAM PROGRESS
 Evidence shows that the barriers given below are
due primarily to the system rather than to the
team
 1. Insufficient training

 2. Incompatible rewards and compensation

 3. First-line supervisor resistance

 4. Lack of planning

 5. Lack of management support

 6. Access to information systems

 7. Lack of union support

 8. Project scope too large

COMMON BARRIERS TO TEAM PROGRESS
 9. Project objectives are not significant
 10. No clear measures of success

 11. No time to do improvement work

 12. Team is too large

 13. Trapped in groupthink

BENEFITS OF EMPLOYEE INVOLVEMENT
 Involving employees, empowering them, and
bringing them into the decision-making process
provides the opportunity for continuous process
improvement.
 The untapped ideas, innovations, and creative
thoughts of employees can make the difference
between success and failure.
BENEFITS OF EMPLOYEE INVOLVEMENT
 Employee involvement improves quality and
increases productivity, because
A. Employees make better decisions using their
expert knowledge of the process.
B. Employees are more likely to implement
and support decisions they had a part in
making.
C. Employees are better able to spot and
pinpoint areas for improvement.
BENEFITS OF EMPLOYEE INVOLVEMENT
D. Employees are better able to take
immediate corrective action.

E. Employee involvement reduces

labor/management friction by encouraging
more effective communication and
cooperation.

F. Employee involvement increases morale by

creating a feeling of belonging to the
organization.
GAINSHARING
 Gainsharing is a financial reward and
recognition system that results from improved
organizational performance.
 It is different than profit sharing, in which the
stockholders share a portion of the year-end
profits
GAINSHARING VS PROFIT SHARING
 Gainsharing and profit sharing are both
incentive programs used by businesses to
motivate employees and boost company
performance. However, the key difference lies in
how the rewards are distributed.
 Profit sharing directly rewards employees based
on company profitability.
 In contrast, gainsharing focuses on specific
improvements or cost-reduction efforts and isn't
necessarily linked to how profitable a company is
GAINSHARING VS PROFIT SHARING
 Alignment with organizational goals:

Gainsharing is better suited for improved

performance in operations, while profit sharing is
ideal for fostering long-term loyalty and a
commitment to success.
GAINSHARING VS PROFIT SHARING
 Operational efficiency:

 Profit sharing isn't directly linked to operational

efficiency and may not drive specific process
improvements. However, gainsharing can have a
significant impact on efficiency by driving
improved performance.
GAINSHARING VS PROFIT SHARING
 Employee motivation and engagement:

 Although profit sharing encourages engagement

because of the employees' sense of ownership in a
company, gainsharing may be better for
motivation. This is because there is a direct link
between performance and rewards.
GAINSHARING VS PROFIT SHARING
 Financial implications:

 Gainsharing may potentially be more cost-

effective for businesses since it involves sharing a
portion of immediate cost savings. On the other
hand, profit sharing may be more financially
sustainable in the long run since it only shares a
percentage of the overall profits.