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’?