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1681

Employee Relationship Management / Challenges for a Better Employee Relationship Management

« on: April 25, 2012, 12:51:51 PM »

The relationship between employees working in a common organization is called as employee relationship. Every employee should ideally be comfortable with others to stay motivated and stress free. No conclusion has ever come out of disputes; instead it is just a mere wastage of time and lead to a negative environment at work. The employees should work together as a single unit to come out with more creative plans and accomplish the tasks at a much faster rate.

Employees enjoying a warm relationship with each other tend to discuss things among themselves and always think in the favour of their team which eventually benefits the organization also. Sometimes it is really difficult to satisfy everyone. Someone or the other would have an objection to ideas leading to major unrest in the team and spoling the relationship among themselves.

Let us go through the challenges to an effective employee relationship and ways to overcome them:
   

    Not all teams can afford to have members of the same sex only. Female employees are also likely to be there in the team and might not be too comfortable with their male counterparts. A male employee trying to be friendly with his female team member just to increase the comfort level between them might not be appreciated by her. She might think otherwise and lose her trust on him. A feeling of insecurity would crop up and thus spoiling the relationship between them. One needs to be very careful while dealing with team members of the opposite sex. Think before you speak and do take care of your limits. Too much of interference and a friendly nature might not work well. During informal get togethers make sure one does not speak anything which might embarrass the females. Avoid too much boozing or smoking at parties where female team members are also invited. They would feel awkward and would never be able to talk to you or discuss things. The female employees must also understand the corporate culture and should not overreact unnecessarily. It is absolutely normal to go out for meetings with your boss who is a male.

    It is really difficult to meet the expectations of each and every employee. Employees should not expect monetary benefits which exceed the company’s budget. The moment the management refuses to offer the desired incentives or perks to the employees they become negative and tend to spread rumours around. They badmouth their superiors, lose interest in work and hence their relationship suffers. To avoid such a situation, it is essential for the employees to have realistic expectations. Don’t ask for something which you yourself know is not possible and might disturb the budget of the organization. The team leader from the very beginning must prepare an incentive plan after discussing with his team members. The incentive plan must be same for everyone.

    It is human tendency to support someone who speaks well about you or favours you always.

    Jerry’s music academy was near Patrick’s apartment. Jerry went with Patrick almost daily and no doubts always supported him at the workplace. Patrick was the one who had the liberty to take frequent leaves. Jerry never ever said anything to him which was not at all acceptable to the other team members. One should never be partial at the workplace. Everyone is working to earn his bread and butter just like you. No one is special in the organization. If anyone is working hard, the company is also paying him well. It is always better to avoid taking unnecessary favours from anyone. Don’t ask your subordinates to pick your son from school, go for a grocery shopping or book your movie tickets. The moment you ask for favours, the other individual starts taking undue advantages.

    You can never change the thought process of any employee. One can never get into anyone’s head to find out what he is thinking. You might speak something in a casual way but the other person might misunderstand it and make an issue out of it. One might say something in a light mood but the other person might take it seriously and start arguing. It is always better to be crisp and precise at workplace Avoid lose talks at work and don’t discuss things not related to your work.

    The superior might not always be accessible to his team members. A team leader might have to go for an urgent meeting when his team member walks up to him with a query. In such a scenario the employee should not feel neglected or ignored. It is the team leader’s duty to get back to his team members once he is free.

    Be realistic. Don’t ask any employee to attend his office on his birthday or marriage anniversary. One should never ask any employee to stay back late at office when he knows the other person has a party to attend. Understand other’s problems well. The team member should also not ask for leaves when he is aware of the work pressure.

    Remember life is all about adjustments. Don’t always have a negative approach towards life. Learn to compromise sometimes and make the organization a happy place to work.

1682

Employee Relationship Management / After Effects of Poor Employee Relationship Management

« on: April 25, 2012, 12:49:25 PM »

The relationship among the employees plays an important role in deciding the fate of the organization. Employees must respect each other and come to each other’s help whenever required and look forward towards achieving the organization’s targets. If the employees do not enjoy a healthy relationship among themselves, problems are bound to arise and ultimately their productivity decreases.

Let us go through the after effects of a poor employee relationship:

    One must enjoy whatever he does to deliver his best. Lack of interest and focus result in errors and delay in the task. Employees involved in constant disputes tend to spread negativity around and spoil the ambience of the organization. One doesn’t feel like going to office and eventually his work suffers. He starts treating work as a burden. One feels suffocated at places where individuals sitting on adjacent workstations do not talk to each other. Your happiness, sorrows, tensions need to be shared with others. Imagine a situation where you are constantly fighting with your siblings at home. Would you ever feel comfortable ? - The answer is no. In the same way if one is involved in constant arguments with his fellow workers, he would never feel like stepping into the office. One needs to have friends at work for him to stay motivated in the organization. No individual can work for 8-9 hours at a stretch. He needs a break and people around for him to relax.

   

    In the current scenario only those organizations can survive where work is done in an innovative way. Creativity and innovation comes through discussion. Employees must sit together on an open forum where every employee has the liberty to express his ideas. Every employee comes out with a unique idea which can be evaluated thoroughly to come out with something that has never been thought or implemented before. Employees together can contribute their level best in coming out with something beneficial to them as well as the organization.

    One needs to have trusted colleagues at work who can guide him and correct him if he is wrong anywhere. If one is spending the maximum part of his time in the office, it is but natural to share some or the other secrets with the team members. If you fight with others, you can’t rely on anyone and things would be really difficult for you. One has to pretend always and can’t speak his heart out.

    Employees not very satisfied and pleased with their work and management tend to change their jobs frequently. They find it difficult to adjust in such circumstances where one is at loggerheads with the other employee and thus fail to perform. Employee retention becomes a major problem when employees do not share a warm relationship with others as well as the management. An organization invests so much of its time in training the new joinees so that they come at par with the other existing employees and it’s really sad when the employees leave midway.

    If employees have strained relationship with each other, everyone works in his own sweet way and coordination becomes a concern. Employees are reluctant to share their workload and are thus always overburdened and unhappy. They fail to accomplish tasks within the desired time frame and hence the organization suffers. Employees are busy pulling each other’s legs and thus waste all their time which should be ideally used in productive work. The output of the employees in such situations is actually a big zero.

    Nobody likes to carry tensions back home. Disputes always lead to stress at work and people feel restless even at home. One can’t enjoy anywhere and is sad always.

    Individuals take frequent leaves from work leading to disciplinary problems at workplace. Nobody bothers to follow the rules and regulations of the organization and the office is a complete mess. Organizations fail to make profits and as a result come to a situation where they need to be shut down.

    Employees must be comfortable with each other for them to give their hundred percent at work and stay motivated.

1683

Participative Management / A Basic Understanding of Participative Management

« on: April 25, 2012, 12:48:24 PM »

Participative Management refers to as an open form of management where employees are actively involved in organization’s decision making process. The concept is applied by the managers who understand the importance to human intellect and seek a strong relationship with their employees. They understand that the employees are the facilitators who deal directly with the customers and satisfy their needs. To beat the competition in market and to stay ahead of the competition, this form of management has been adopted by many organizations. They welcome the innovative ideas, concepts and thoughts from the employees and involve them in decision making process.

Participative Management can also be termed as ‘Industrial Democracy’, ‘Co-determination’, ‘Employee Involvement’ as well as ‘Participative Decision Making’. The concept of employee participation in organization’s decision making is not new. However, the idea couldn’t gain that much popularity among organizations. Studies have shown that only 3-5 percent of organizations have actually implemented this concept in their daily operations. Though the theory of participative management is as old as the institution of employees and employers still it is not applied by a large proportion of organizations.

The idea behind employee involvement at every stage of decision making is absolutely straight. Open and honest communication always produces good results both for organization as well as workers. Freedom and transparency in company’s operations take it to the next level and strengthens the basis of the organization. On the other hand, there are several companies that straightway rule out the possibility of participative decision making process. According to them, employees misuse their freedom of expression and participation in decision making as it provides higher status to employees and empowers them.

However, there are many companies who have embraced this particular style of management and are now getting positive results. Toyota is the best example. The company has been following suggestion schemes and employee involvement procedures for over a decade now. The management receives almost 2,000,000 suggestions and ideas every year and around 95 percent of these are implemented by the company. Who is not aware of Toyota’s success rate? Around five thousand improvements per year have made Toyota one of the fastest growing organizations globally. The need is to develop and implement a comprehensive company policy and everything works well.

British Airways is another great example of participatory management. During economic downsizing, employees’ suggestions helped them cut annual cost of their operations by 4.5 million pounds. This is just unbelievable. The company would have suffered from huge losses, had it not adopted employees’ suggestions. It is right to some extent that employees can misuse industrial democracy but with a proper management of HR functions, this problem can be solved and the operations of organization can be taken to the next level.

Satyam is another great example. It has been implementing company-wide suggestion scheme, ‘The Idea Junction’, since 2001. A real-time web-based portal is present in Intranet that can be accessed by all its employees all across the globe to support the entire life cycle of an idea right from its generation till its implementation. The main idea behind adopting this management style was to create values and bring sense of belongingness in the employees through ideas, suggestions and complaints. The whole procedure is backed by a strong and comprehensive reward policy that encourages employees to perform better each time.

Employee participation at each level of decision making process is not at all harmful if managed efficiently. The whole process can be well coordinated and controlled by the sincere and honest efforts of human resource managers.

1684

Participative Management / Scope of Participative Management

« on: April 25, 2012, 12:47:49 PM »

The scope of participative style of management certainly depends on the organization, its nature, functions and processes. Though associating employees at every stage of decision-making is not possible still regular exchange of information, ideas, consultations, thoughts, decisions and negotiations between employer and the employees definitely is a boon to the organization. Few of the world’s biggest organizations like Toyota, HSBC, British Airways, Satyam, British Gas and Nokia Cellular have achieved considerable profits and value creation by implementing the most amazing ideas of their employees. Their success witnesses the importance of workers’ participation in the process of decision making.

The scope of workers’ involvement in managerial decision-making may extend to social, economic and personnel decision making depending upon the requirements of the organization. But there is a difference of opinion about the extent to which employees can participate in managerial decision-making process. Should they be equal partners and make joint decisions or should workers be given opportunities through their seniors to come up with the ideas. The first school of thoughts favors the actual participation of workers while the second school of thoughts suggests the consultation of workers in managerial decision making. It is up to the management to decide which style it prefers and till what extent it requires involvement of employees.

However, if we talk about the scope of workers’ participation in social, economic and personnel decision-making, it may have a direct impact on some of the most crucial activities of the organization. Let’s read further to understand how these three groups of managerial decision-making can affect any industrial establishment:

    Social Decision-Making: It refers to employee involvement in decision making regarding hours of work, rules and regulations at workplace, welfare measures, workers’ safety, employee welfare, health and sanitation. In this category, employees have a say in decisions in these areas. They may take an advantage of their liberty and sometimes, can dominate the management. Here the concept of bounded or restricted participation can work well.

    Economic/Financial Decision-Making: It includes involvement of employees on various financial or economic aspects such as the methods of manufacturing, cost cutting, automation, shut-down, mergers and acquisition and lay-offs. Inviting ideas from employees on various issues like how to cut down the operating cost can work wonders.

    Personnel Decision-Making: The employees’ participation in personnel decision-making refers to their involvement in various management processes including recruitment and selection, work distribution, promotions, demotions and transfers, grievance handling, settlements, voluntary retirement schemes and so on. Participation of employees in these processes can safeguard their interests and motivate them to work hard for the betterment of self as well as the organization.

Employee participation in decision-making process although is beneficial. However, there may be some limits on it to ensure that they do not take advantage of their liberty and right of participation. There are several ways through which employees can participate in the whole process. Some of them are financial participation, participation through collective bargaining, participation at the board level, participation through ownership, participation through work councils and committees and participation through suggestion schemes. Anyone of these ways or processes can be adopted by the management to ensure participation from workers.

1685

Participative Management / Objectives of Participative Management

« on: April 25, 2012, 12:47:05 PM »

   

Participative management acts as a force to motivate employees to meet specific organizational goals. The main idea behind this style of management is not only using physical capital but also making optimum utilization of intellectual and emotional human capital. This is the process of involving people in decision making process to ensure that everyone’s psychological needs are met. It, in turn, increases the job satisfaction among employees and improves the quality of their work life. Motivated employees are the biggest assets of an organization and participative management is an effective strategy to retain the best talents of the industry.

Participatory Management or co-determination is seen as the quick cure for poor morale, employee attrition, low productivity and job dissatisfaction. However, it may not be appropriate to empower employees at every level but use of joint decision making at certain levels in organization can work wonders. Let us read further to explore the main objectives to introduce participative style of management in organizations:

    To Make Best Use of Human Capital: Participative management does not restrict organizations to exploit only physical capital of employees. Rather it makes the best use of human intellectual and emotional capital. It gives employees an opportunity to contribute their ideas and suggestions to improve business processes and create a better working environment.

    To Meet the Psychological Needs of Employees: When employees have a say in decision making process, it gives them a psychological satisfaction. It is a simple force that drives them to improve their performance, create a proper channel of communication and find practical solutions to design better organizational processes.

    To Retain the Best Talent: Participatory management is one of the most effective strategies to retain the best talent in the industry. It gives employees a sense of pride to have a say in organizational decision making process. Once they are valued by their seniors, they stick to the organization and become management’s partners in meeting specific goals and achieving success.

    To Increase Industrial Productivity: In today’s competitive world, motivation, job security and high pay packages are not enough to increase industrial productivity. Leadership, flexibility, delegation of authority, industrial democracy and employee say in decision making are important to increase annual turnover of any organization.

    To Establish Harmonious Industrial Relationship: Participatory from of management is an unbeatable tact to establish and maintain cordial relationships with employees and workers union. The success of an organization depends on its human resources. Employee empowerment acts as a strong force to bind the employees and motivate to give them their best to the organization.

    To Maintain a Proper Flow of Communication: Two-way communication plays an important role in the success of any organization. Employee participation in decision making ensures proper flow of communication in the organization. Everyone contributes their best and tries to strengthen the organization by contributing their best to improve business processes.

Participative management is beneficial to organization as well as employees. It gives employees a higher degree of enjoyment at work place that drives them to work harder. It is equally rewarding for the management as it ensures tremendous improvement in work culture within the organization as well as increase in its productivity.

1686

Participative Management / Features of Participative Management

« on: April 25, 2012, 12:46:01 PM »

Employees have always been bossed around their managers and told what they are supposed to do. They never had the authority to decide things in the company. Gradually, times are changing and employees are encouraged to participate in organization’s decision making process. Management motivates them to come up with ideas and suggestions that can make organizational processes far more efficient. The main idea behind adopting participatory form of management is to work together, achieve targeted goals in minimum possible time and stay ahead of competition.

For some companies, participative management is still a foreign subject. The concept is not widespread and is still restricted to a few organizations. They have such a weird perception towards it that they can’t even picture it working. The management in such companies doesn’t like employees questioning its authority. But the organizations that have successfully adopted this particular style of management they look upon it as a means to achieve their targets and create a sound working environment. The concept is gaining world-wide recognition and popularity day by day.

Some companies still stick to conventional ways of management while others are encouraging employees to contribute to the suggestion box. Let us know about its features and see how participative management can work wonders:

    Ethical Dimensions: Participatory management has ethical dimensions and based on morals, principles and values. In this form of management, every one is treated equally when it comes to organizational decision making. It is based on employee empowerment, responsibility sharing and delegation of authority.

    Proper Channel of Communication: Participative form of management encourages two-way communication. It is not only management that decides what employees need to do but it also encourages employees to participate in decision making and give ideas and suggestions to make organizational processes better and more efficient. They are allowed to share their problems, views, ideas and feedback with their managers.

    Empowers Employees: Participative style of management gives employees a chance to participate in management processes. They are encouraged to come up with their views. Gone are the days when employees were bossed around by their managers. Now they are to be treated like co-workers. This provides a higher status to employees as they also have a say in decision making.

    Recognition of Human Dignity: In this form of management, all employees are treated equally irrespective of their designations when it comes to giving ideas and suggestions for organizational decision making process. Employees are no more the servants of managers but are the most important assets of an organization.

    Psychological Satisfaction to Employees: Most of our lives are spent at workplace. It is important for everyone to have psychological satisfaction as far as our employment is concerned. Commitment from the organization, respecting the dignity of individuals and co-determining the company policies are some of the features of participative management that provide psychological satisfaction to employees.

Participative Management is a universally recognized concept but still most organizations hesitate to adopt it. Through this style of management, both the parties, employer and employees, are satisfied. It brings management and employees closer and thus, should be adopted open heartedly.

1687

Participative Management / Pre-requisites of Participative Management

« on: April 25, 2012, 12:44:21 PM »

Participative management can best be described as a style of decision making that ensures that involvement of stakeholders at all levels. This operates at three levels, Problem analysis, strategy formulation and final implementation of the solution. There are certain prerequisites to be met before participative management can be put to work.

Participative management first of all requires a willingness from the managers to give up some charge to the workers and they must in turn be in a position such that the successful participation of all is ensured. It cannot be successful in any organization unless is carefully planned, timed and well thought upon.

Since participative management is a style of decision making, therefore its implementation essentially requires a change in the employee’s idea of the latter. This change also means that there is a cultural change required in the organization vis-à-vis a change from a certain other style of decision making to participative style. It also brings with it a certain amount of resistance from the employees specially so from the older or the long term employees.

The resistance is a reflection of the disbelief of the employees that their participation will not be respected and implemented. The onus here lies on the managers in putting in sincere efforts to convince them of the usefulness of their role in the decision making. The employees need proof that their ideas will be considered, discussed seriously and implemented finally if found beneficial to the organization. This is precisely why participative management needs to be implemented in phases; this way the employees are able to see proof that their ideas and suggestions hold weight. It also encourages them to come forth in future and also keeps them continuously engaged in thinking about the welfare of their organization.

One more prerequisite for successful participative management is attitude of the top and middle management or those who seek employee interventions in decision making. They must approach employee involvement with a receptive and open mindset. This encourages participation. They must be open to new ideas and innovations. This may sound problematic in large organizations but how the suggestion is being received decides to a large extent whether or not the style of decision making can be successful.

Since decision making is based on inputs of one and all, therefore its success also depends on the degree of participation of employees. In certain organizations despite obvious proofs, the employees decide not to participate or make contribution. In yet another organizations the employees are not skilled enough to make meaningful contributions to the final decision making process. This can be overcome by imparting the right kind of training and by the manager himself by ascertaining the individual strengths of his team members and asking for relevant contributions based upon the same.

In large organizations in order to ascertain the relevance of suggestions, managers also need to set certain benchmarks for making inputs to various groups so that discussions are held at levels that are consequential and the solutions are feasible economically.

Proof of implementations serves as the biggest marketing vehicle that encourages the employees to become more forthcoming. This also communicates to them that they are important and also motivates them more. Ideas that cannot be implemented need to be explained to the employees. This is important in order to avoid mistrust and promote participation.

1688

Participative Management / Ground Preparation for Participative Management

« on: April 25, 2012, 12:43:38 PM »

Participative management in itself does not ensure success and should not be seen as tool to create magic within no time. There is certain ground preparation required before an organization can decide for implementation of the management style.

The following things need to be taken care of:

    Clearly Defined Objectives: Each party to decision making called as the participants namely the management and the workers must have clearly defined objectives. Operationally there should be no clash between the objectives of the two.

    Clear Communication: There should be clear and timely communication between the management and the workers or the employees. This helps in building trust between the two parties. Workers also gain a sense of responsibility increasing their stake in their work and in the organization as a whole.

    Choosing the Representative: It is important for the workers to choose their representative from among themselves and not any person from outside the labor union. This is important for two reasons. First, the person is able to better understand the problems of his colleagues and report the same to the management. Second, the management is keener to talk and listen from a person who works within the organization.

    Training the Workers: Training and awareness regarding the usefulness of participative management is required to make it more effective. Further training is required to ensure that every person at every level knows his what contribution he/she has to make. For example, participation at the level of middle management is different compared to participation at lower or top level.

    Confidence: Both parties workers and the management need a trust to develop between the two. Participation should not be perceived as intimidation to the position of any. If workers think that their status will be adversely affected, they refuse to participate. Similarly, if managers suspect that they will lose their authority, they will decline to participate.

    Increasing Workers Participation: Workers participation needs to be increased at each level in order to encourage them to contribute meaningfully. Further, their suggestions and recommendations need to be treated with dignity and respect. Nothing can be more motivating than seeing your recommendation being put to practice.

    Legal Action: Since participative management requires structural and cultural change which takes time. There is resistance to change offered by the employees especially those who perceive it as a threat to their status and authority within the organization. If allowed to take shape a natural speed, it will take time to show results. Therefore, some legislative action is required against the erring employees.

    Ensuring ROI: Participation should not be at the cost of the values of the organization. It has to be carefully planned; employees should devote a certain time for participation and the rest upon their own specific area of work.

Participative management may be a solution for each and every type of organization. It is a big challenge in big organizations with big employee size. The implementation needs to be carefully planned and implemented gradually.

1689

Participative Management / Participation and Performance - Importance of Participation

« on: April 25, 2012, 12:42:05 PM »

The greatest and widely accepted benefit of participation is the increased work ownership of employee. An employee is better able to relate himself/herself with his or her work and this improves performance and efficiency at work.

John Newstrom and Keith Davis worked extensively upon the subject. They identified three variables that lead to increased performance. These variables are a part of participative management.

According to them, the three variables that collectively enhance performance are:

    Removing conditions of powerlessness
    Enhance job related self efficacy
    Perception of empowerment

    Removing conditions of Powerlessness: This implies empowering the employees to take decisions on their own, be enterprising and take more risks. This requires a wholesome change in the entire organizational structure and culture. Then leadership becomes a crucial aspect. The choice of a leader who can inspire, motivate and delegate with equal efficacy assumes importance.

    The reward system needs a revamp. Psychologically empowerment connotes increased responsibilities in the mind of an employee, a hike is required.

    Finally, participation should result in either job enrichment or job enlargement. Job enlargement means expanding the job responsibilities - adding task elements horizontally. Job enrichment on the other hand means that the job becomes more rewarding - monetarily and otherwise.

    Enhance Job Related Self Efficacy: Increase in responsibilities also demands increased efficiency at work. This is achieved by providing training helping an employee achieve job mastery. Laying down benchmarks for a certain set of responsibilities by the use of role models (those who have already accomplished tasks in similar capacities under similar workload) also benefits.

    Since training induces behavioral changes there is a need for reinforcing the new behaviors. It is this change in attitude and behavior that brings in increased efficiency. Each employee also requires support from those above him and people working his supervision. Support functions become important because the individual now himself delegates his own work. This trickles down to the bottom or the lower level and this is how participation happens across various levels.

    Perception of Empowerment: Employees often misunderstand the idea of participation. There may be a certain group of employees who participate aggressively and in the process their own work gets affected. These perceptions need to be taken care of otherwise they may be well the undoing of all the good work.

    Empowerment means more competence and value addition to work. It means that individual accepts the responsibilities with humility and fulfills them with grace and efficacy. It calls for increased use of talent. It is in wake of this that the concept of talent management is fast evolving.

One limitation of participative management is that the results or decision making doesn’t improve overnight. The above mentioned three variables have been effectively used in organizations implementing participative management. They can act as a catalyst in speeding up the results.

1690

Participative Management / Benefits of Participative Management

« on: April 25, 2012, 12:41:01 PM »

Participative management as a decision making style is not welcome by one and all! Labor or trade unions, for example do not approve of this. They argue that it is in fact disadvantageous to welfare of the workers because the participative processes give deep insights to the management, which in turn puts the latter in a better bargaining position while dealing with unions.

Denison in the year 1990 elaborated on a large number of benefits of participative management. This is after Kanter made useful contributions in the subject from 1983-1989. According to him participative management allows for innovation and knowledge sharing between the managers and the workers, those who are contiguous to the products being made. They being the closest can give better feedback for quality control, devise efficient manufacturing processes and strategize for the same.

Apart from the above mentioned workers, Markowitz and Lawler have also worked independently in the field. Nonetheless we may enumerate the benefits of participative management as follows:

    Innovation and increased efficiency: The problem solving process and openness to new ideas can result in innovation. Apart from this as mentioned above there is also knowledge sharing amongst the workers and the managers. This means that those who are part of a certain process at the ground level give inputs for improved efficiency of the same. This has dual implications, helping improve the quality of product and curtailing the cost of manufacture.

    Timeliness: There is improved communication between the managers and the workers and between workers across different units. A loophole or flaw is reported in time.

    Employee satisfaction and Motivation: Empowering the employees increases their ownership or stake in their work. This increases efficiency and productivity. Consequently there is decreased absenteeism and less employee turnover. This also works in attracting more people towards the organization and the job.

    Product quality: A say in decision making means that workers can immediately pin point and suggest remedial measures for improving the efficiency of the process they are apart of. This means that quality control in product or service is exercised for the lowest level.

    Less supervision requirements: There is greater focus on management of self with due emphasis of widening one’s skill set. One of the major benefits of this is that there is a lesser need of supervision and support staff.

    Better grievance redressal: Increased communication paves way for reduced number of grievances and quick and effective resolution of dispute (often on the spot). Union - management relationship is also benefited and strengthened.

    Hiring Flexibility: Hiring flexibility is increased as a result of cross training. Increased coordination among team members also offers a comfort zone for the newly hired.

Participative management thus results in overall increase of the ownership of work of an employee. This empowerment can lead to increased efficiency, better productivity, improved morale and job satisfaction. But the fact the participative management requires an overall change in the organizational culture, the implementation of the same, specially when there is a bureaucratic style of decision making in place, can be a major challenge!

1691

Participative Management / Limitations of Participative Management

« on: April 25, 2012, 12:39:59 PM »

Participative management is undoubtedly one of the better approaches to management. But like any other style of decision making there are certain limitations. These limitations arise either externally or internally vis-à-vis the implementation.

The following are certain limitations of participative management:

    Complexity of Technology and Organizations: Organizations and Technology are so complicated these days that there are specialized workers required for each job. Workers cannot extend beyond a certain limit in participation. There are instances when a certain department or group participates aggressively and a corresponding group acts equally opposite. Then there are limitations at the level at which you work. Workers, for example, can participate in matters pertaining to operations, policy matters remain outside their reach.

    Employee’s right of not participating: An employee has the right to not participate. Certain people do not believe in the usefulness of participation and therefore opt out of the same. Some labor unions for example question the usefulness of participation reasoning that participation offers the management deep insights into the workers and they may then use it against the latter.

    Manipulation: Managers may sometimes use participation to manipulate employees. This may be both conscious and subconscious. Similarly, representatives of the labor unions may also exploit the workers in the name of participation.

    Workers Psychology: An existent psyche amongst the employees, that they are the workers and their primary purpose is to serve their masters (management) prevents them from participating. It is therefore of little interest to such people.

    General Bias: Resistance to change inside the organization as mentioned earlier is the biggest hurdle to participative management. Managers decline to share power or to delegate apprehending that they may lose authority by doing so. Workers similarly show disinterest in the participation presuming everything to be well in order. Further there is bias from the top management who step back on their promises when they fail to see participation deliver results in quick time.

    Trade Unions: Trade unions are integral to the success of participative management; they may be equally detrimental to the success of the same. Most of the trade unions engage in politics and are little bothered about participation. Add to it, the approach of representatives or individuals is also not very favorable. Workers join trade unions for personal rather than organizational reasons. Membership is regarded as a kind of protection against mishaps like accidents, dismissal and other problems whereby union interventions can rescue the worker. Naturally, the motive of participation is diluted.

Participative management cannot work in isolation. It involves each and every member of the organization. For deriving benefits and success out of the same, no single member or employee group can be left out. There are limitations but they arise because there either one or the other group is left out or there is serious communication gap that needs to be taken care of.

1692

Participative Management / Methods/Ways of Participation of Employees in Decision-Making

« on: April 25, 2012, 12:38:59 PM »

Participation of workers in decision-making process has resulted in successful value creation in many organizations. Though the extent to which employees should participate in organizational decision making is still a matter of debate. Some say that workers’ union should participate with management as equal partners while some believe in restricted or bounded participation, that is, participation of employees or workers to a limited extent. However, there are a number of ways through which employees can participate in decision-making process of any organization.

    Participation at the Board Level: Representation of employees at the board level is known as industrial democracy. This can play an important role in protecting the interests of employees. The representative can put all the problems and issues of the employees in front of management and guide the board members to invest in employee benefit schemes.

    Participation through Ownership: The other way of ensuring workers’ participation in organizational decision making is making them shareholders of the company. Inducing them to buy equity shares, advancing loans, giving financial assistance to enable them to buy equity shares are some of the ways to keep them involved in decision-making.

    Participation through Collective Bargaining: This refers to the participation of workers through collective agreements and by deciding and following certain rules and regulations. This is considered as an ideal way to ensure employee participation in managerial processes. It should be well controlled otherwise each party tries to take an advantage of the other.

    Participation through Suggestion Schemes: Encouraging your employees to come up with unique ideas can work wonders especially on matters such as cost cutting, waste management, safety measures, reward system, etc. Developing a full-fledged procedure can add value to the organizational functions and create a healthy environment and work culture. For instance, Satyam is known to have introduced an amazing country-wide suggestion scheme, the Idea Junction. It receives over 5,000 ideas per year from its employees and company accepts almost one-fifth of them.

    Participation through Complete Control: This is called the system of self management where workers union acts as management. Through elected boards, they acquire full control of the management. In this style, workers directly deal with all aspects of management or industrial issues through their representatives.

    Participation through Job Enrichment: Expanding the job content and adding additional motivators and rewards to the existing job profile is a fine way to keep workers involved in managerial decision-making. Job enrichment offers freedom to employees to exploit their wisdom and use their judgment while handling day-to-day business problems.

    Participation through Quality Circles: A quality circle is a group of five to ten people who are experts in a particular work area. They meet regularly to identify, analyze and solve the problems arising in their area of operation. Anyone, from the organization, who is an expert of that particular field, can become its member. It is an ideal way to identify the problem areas and work upon them to improve working conditions of the organization.

Employees can participate in organizational decision making through various processes mentioned above. However, there are other ways such as financial participation, Total Quality Management, participation through empowered teams and joint committees and councils through which they can contribute their share in making the organizations a better place to work.

1693

Participative Management / Employee Empowerment - Good or Bad

« on: April 25, 2012, 12:37:16 PM »

What motivates people to work? Money may be the primary reason, but beyond a certain limit it fails to. Organizations have been trying out different things to increase the level of motivation of its employees. Employee empowerment is one of them.

Employee empowerment means that an employee is given a chance to be enterprising, take risks without compromising with the organizational goals, mission and vision. His say in the process of decision making in increased. This can be for one particular individual or for the entire organization. In the latter case it is called participative management.

There are pros and cons to this employee empowerment. Whereas it is said and has been observed that participative management may lead to increased productivity, motivation, job satisfaction and quality enhancement; it may also slow down the process of decision making and act a potential security threat in terms of ease of access of information it offers to the employees.

From an organizational perspective the following pros and cons may be associated with employee empowerment.

Pros of Employee Empowerment

    It leads to greater job satisfaction, motivation, increased productivity and reduces the costs.
    It also leads to creativity and innovation since the employees have the authority to act on their own.
    There is increased efficiency in employees because of increased ownership in their work.
    Lesser need of supervision and delegation.
    Focus on quality from the level of manufacturing till actual delivery and service of goods.
    Employees when empowered become more entrepreneurial and start taking more risks. Greater the risk, greater are the chances to succeed.

Cons of Employee Empowerment

At the individual level employee empowerment means you are an integral component of the organization. This may sprout egotism or arrogance in the workers.

Apart from disadvantages at the organizational level, there are certain challenges that emerge at the individual level. Supervisors often complain disgust from the empowered workers. The following points go against employee empowerment:

    Egotism / arrogance: Worker arrogance can create a big trouble for the supervisors and the managers. There can be problems in delegating. Employees avoid reporting about their work and feedback can be taken negatively.

    Security: Since information comes and is shared by all, there are apprehensions about leakage of critical data.

    Risk: Creativity and innovation demands a greater risk bearing capacity and there are equal chances of success and failure. Workers often lack the expertise to execute are enterprise, which can cost big.

    Industrial Democracy: Labor unions and workers are empowered and they may misuse the same. Strikes and lock outs become more frequent. Also, labor unions gain insights into management and their functioning and they leak the same.

Participative management or employee empowerment does not mean relentless transfer of authority. It has to be in a controlled and regulated manner. Each aspect has to be carefully studied and levels of participation decided. For example, the level of participation of knowledge workers is different from that of a floor worker.

1694

Participative Management / Advantages and Disadvantages of Participative Management

« on: April 25, 2012, 12:35:38 PM »

After having read lots of stuff about participative management and its implementation, lots of questions arise in the mind of the reader. Is participative management really beneficial? What are the pros and cons? What are the challenges involved in implementation? What effect does it have upon ROI, after all change comes at a cost! These and lot more, I am sure. Continue reading for getting your answers.

Advantages of Participative Management

Undoubtedly participative approach to management increases the stake or ownership of employees. But there is more to it. The following points elucidate the same.

    Increase in Productivity: An increased say in decision making means that there is a strong feeling of association now. The employee now assumes responsibility and takes charges. There is lesser new or delegation or supervision from the manager. Working hours may get stretched on their own without any compulsion or force from the management. All this leads to increased productivity.

    Job Satisfaction: In lots or organizations that employ participative management, most of the employees are satisfied with their jobs and the level of satisfaction id very high. This is specially when people see their suggestions and recommendations being implemented or put to practice. Psychologically, this tells the individual employee that, ‘he too has a say in decision making and that he too is an integral component of the organization and not a mere worker’.

    Motivation: Increased productivity and job satisfaction cannot exist unless there is a high level of motivation in the employee. The vice versa also holds true! Decentralized decision making means that everyone has a say and everyone is important.

    Improved Quality: Since the inputs or feedback comes from people who are part of the processes at the lowest or execution level. This means that even the minutest details are taken care of and reported. No flaw or loophole goes unreported. Quality control is thus begins and is ensured at the lowest level.

    Reduced Costs: There is a lesser need of supervision and more emphasis is laid on widening of skills, self management. This and quality control means that the costs are controlled automatically.

Disadvantages of Participative Management

There is a flip side to everything; participative management stands no exception to it. Whereas this style of leadership or decision making leads to better participation of all the employees, there are undoubtedly some disadvantages too.

    Decision making slows down: Participative management stands for increased participation and when there are many people involved in decision making, the process definitely slows down. Inputs and feedback starts pouring from each side. It takes time to verify the accuracy of measurements which means that decision making will be slowed down.

    Security Issue: The security issue in participative management also arises from the fact that since early stages too many people are known to lots of facts and information. This information may transform into critical information in the later stages. There is thus a greater apprehension of information being leaked out.

The advantages seem to outnumber the disadvantages. This however is no assurance that one should blindly adopt it for his/her organization. Organizations are different and therefore the culture, the human resources. A deep understanding of both is required in order to ascertain a decision making style and adopt the same.

1695

Participative Management / Reasons for Failure of Participative Management

« on: April 25, 2012, 12:32:24 PM »

Participative management is an effective decision making tool. It is often the managers who implement it the wrong way.

Participative management calls for a change and this change can not come overnight. You require patience and consistency before employees realize the usefulness of the management style.

There are other problems that often arise with the managers. The problems may arise because of the following:

    Managers often view it as the ends and not as a tool.
    There is confusion if whether participative management means democratization.
    Managers sometimes manipulate the process for their own advantage.

   

Participative Management may fail because of the following reasons:

    Resistance to Change: Participative Management calls for a change in the entire organizational culture. Older employees specially resist change and do not welcome it. They take it as a device to curtail their powers. Training is also not welcome.

    Workers tendency to deviate: Managers must be aware of the tendency of the workers to try spending more time formulating strategies than focus on job in hand. This needs to taken care of. Again top level management may not support this style if they find existent inefficiencies.

    One stop Solution: Participative management can not always be a one stop solution for every problem. Often the manager needs to delegate or take a decision on his own without consulting or seeking others advice. For example, cases where disciplinary action is needed do not qualify for participative management.

    Size of the Organization: This style of management can be more difficult to implement in organizations that are big in size. Big size means that there are large numbers of management layers. This often makes registering opinions and suggestions difficult. More difficult can be the implementation of the same.

    Abuse of Authority: Managers sometimes look upon their own jobs as a license instead as a responsibility. They are unwilling to give away some authority to their subordinate which slows down and chokes the process of decision making. Often such managers complain of being overburdened with responsibilities. This fails the idea of participative management.

    Misunderstanding Participation: This is yet another reason for failure of participative management. Managers sometimes fail to understand that participative management is not the same as delegating or distributing responsibility. They fail to realize that participative style also involves considering the suggestions and recommendations of employees with respect and dignity.

Participation is isolation can be of no use to the organization. It is a mere wastage of time and resources then. Most of the organizations view it an end per se and not a mere tool. Once this happens then participation can be used as an effective tool to problem solving.