The problems involved in identifying the impact of employee participation and involvement schemes on a company’s performance

The problems involved in identifying the impact of employee participation and involvement schemes on a company’s performance

There are various ways through which a company can promote a positive working environment for its employees, and the cardinal aim for doing this is enhancing the company’s performance. Some of the strategies that can be used include creative problem solving, operational excellence, collaborative teamwork, exceptional customer service, and high trust. Basically, this requires the company to invest in, comprehend, and be sensitive and responsive to the employees’ needs. This is founded on the fact that the employees form an extremely valuable asset and are remarkable customers in the company. Peccei et al. (2005: 20) asserts that involvement schemes and employee participation can be used to ensure employee empowerment and involvement. In turn, this improves the levels of employee commitment, productivity, creativity, and motivation, which enables the company to achieve greater profitability and better performance. As much as involvement schemes and employee participation enhance company performance, there are challenges involved in identifying how they actually influence a company’s performance. This paper aims at uncovering those challenges.

Employee participation

According to recent research, high-involvement workplace practices have the ability of developing positive attitudes and beliefs that are linked to employee participation. Consequently, these practices are likely to generate forms of discretionary behaviors that result to enhanced performance. Actively participative employees are able to implement, design, ad conceive process and workplace transformations (Dundon et al., 2004: 1165). One of the ways through which a company performance is improves is the competitive advantaged gained in the business environment as a result of employee participation. Employee participation is positively linked to improved performance in a wide array of areas including reduced employee turnover, productivity, profitability, and increased customer satisfaction.

It is worth pointing out that employee participation possesses the behavioral, emotional, and cognitive aspects (Peccei et al., 2005: 23). The cognitive employee participation component deals with the beliefs employees hold about the working conditions, its leaders, and the organization itself. The emotional component regards the employees’ feelings about the three factors as well as whether they hold negative or positive attitudes towards the leaders and organization. Finally, the behavioral component is a value-added organization aspect and it encompasses the discretionary effort that participative employee dedicate to their work (Dundon et al., 2004: 1163). This may include brainpower, extra time, and energy dedicated to the firm and task. From the foregoing discussion, it is evident that there are various factors that are necessary for employee participation; behavioral, emotional, and cognitive aspects. In order to determine whether employee participation has played a vital role in influencing the company’s performance, it is worth measuring and assessing the three components, which is exceptionally difficult (Beardwell and Claydon, 2010).

Companies ought to realize that the employee participation concept takes many forms. It evolved through employee participation, involvement in decision making, and empowerment strategies. These aspects are vital for promoting an empowered and motivated workforce that promote substantial positive performance in a company (Peccei et al., 2005: 19). The concept of empowering employees entails offering them a vital flexibility and freedom degree so that they can make decisions regarding work in the absence of direct top management involvement. Unfortunately, many companies embrace the traditional management techniques whose main emphasis is rigidity, control, and hierarchy, and fail to consent with the novel management models. This implies that in such companies, employee participation may not be a contributing factor towards performance. Employee participation plays a huge role in determining how companies make decisions and run businesses. Moreover, its impacts on a company can either be negative or positive (Marchington and Cox, 2007).

In a majority of the countries, there are bylaws and policies that safeguard the employees from exploitation and harassment. For a very long time, trade unions have been used in many countries to voice the employees’ grievances. Therefore, most employees present their mistreatment and concerns through the respective trade unions (Peccei et al., 2005: 20). In this regard, trade unions have remarkably transformed the manner in which employees participate in the daily running of companies and how they are treated. Were the employees’ grievances presented directly to the company through being allowed to participate and there free to speak their opinions and make decisions, it would have been easier to determine the impact of employee participation on company performance. The principal that guides trade unions is that the employees’ collective voice has more power and achieves more than a lone voice. Moreover, representation is the partnership’s foundation that is responsible for positive outcomes in a business. Its results are a civilized and humane workplace.

Many companies do not have the appropriate mechanisms for promoting effective communication with employees. As a result, there are both consensual and conflictual consequences to many companies as a majority of the employees lack appropriate mechanisms for expressing their grievances. According to Marchington and Cox (2007), employee participation possesses beneficial results on quality, productivity, and deflects challenges that would explode otherwise. The absence of effective mechanisms for addressing employee issues resulted to trade unions creation. Thereafter, trade unions were recognized as the most appropriate agents for offering effective voices as they were independent from the employer (Marchington and Cox, 2007). Employees also felt safe while presenting their grievances in trade unions as in their company, they were possibilities of being terminated if the spoke openly about the challenges they were facing.

Another challenge why it is difficult to determine the impacts of employee participation on a company’s performance is that its impacts are diverse and multifaceted. Moreover, there are both positive and negative impacts and they do not have to be necessarily on company performance. On the same note, there are wide arrays of performance and assessing all of them to determine if employee participation has had any impact is cumbersome (Dundon et al., 2004: 1159).

Many companies fail to embrace a democratic rule in their management practices since they perceive a threat of the authority they have towards the employees. On the same note, some companies may embrace the democratic rule and fail to involve the employees fully. If employees are allowed to make contributions towards the decisions made in a company and their views and recommendations are not responded to, they feel demoralized. According to Beardwell and Claydon (2010), failing to respond to the employees is a principal was trough which employee participation is killed. Even if employees make contributions and efforts that are not acknowledged at the end of the day, they will eventually make the conclusions that the management is not interested in the employees’ welfare. It is imperative that the management recognizes the employees’ improvement no matter how small it is (Gold, 2011: 50). This will make it easier and faster to identify the impacts of employee participation on company performance.

 

 

Involvement schemes

One of the biggest problems that stand in the way of determining the impact of employee participation and involvement is the misconception by many managers that this can be determined by simply asking employees to participate in the activities of the company. This misconception can be misleading when it comes to analyzing the impacts of employee participation in a company (Addison et al 2000). This will give the idea that the success that is seen in the company is simply as a result of employee participation while it may not be so. If employee participation and involvement is not planned, then the determination of the results is very difficult. Effective programs must be put in place to come up with convenient ways through which the employees can be involved in the activities of the company (Addison et al 2000).

Lack of participative management

In order to determine the levels of employee participation and the impact that this participation has on the company, there must exist a participative management so as the changes in the company can be identified. If the management is not in touch with what is happening in the company, it is not easy to determine the impact of employee participation and involvement in the company (Addison et al 2000). Managers who are not ready to relinquish control over their employee will have difficulties in establishing employee involvement and it is also difficult for them to determine the effects of the employee involvement in the company. Participative management involves a long process that contains different phases that must all be undertaken in order for the management to be in a position to determine the impact of employee participation and involvement in the workplace. This is important because in order to determine the effects of employee participation and involvement in a company, one should be in a position to change the employee’s perception about the management (Addison et al 2000).

If participative management is implemented in the workplace, the employees will be resistance and therefore they will present a barrier in determining the impact of employee participation in a company (Edwards & Wright 2001). When the relationship between the management and the employees is not good, this will reflect in all the activities of the company including the studies to determine the impact of employee participation and involvement. Managers need to be genuine and honest when establishing the participative management program so that they can create a clear path to determine the effects of employee participation in the company through creating good employee-employer relationship (Edwards & Wright 2001).

Ineffective communication

In order to effectively determine the impact of employee participation and involvement in a company, the employees must be in a position to freely share. If there is not good communication between the employees, and between the employees and employees, if is not possible to identify all the changes that have taken place in the company as a result of employee participation and involvement (Edwards & Wright 2001). Moreover, for employee participation and involvement to be effective, good communication must exist in the work place. If the managers take their posts as a privilege instead of a responsibility, they are likely not to involve their subordinate in decision making because there is no effective communication and they tend to dominate the work place. This will result to less cooperation and support from the employees. This in turn means that the strategies put in place to determine the effects of employee participation and involvement in the work place will be difficult to coordinate and as a result, the results will not be accurate or it will be completely difficult to determine the impacts (Edwards & Wright 2001).

Low levels of employee motivation, creativity, productivity, and commitment

High employee motivation, creativity, productivity, and commitment are some of the results of employee participation and involvement. If these are not evident in the company, it is difficult to determine how employee involvement is benefiting the company. Employee empowerment helps in enhancing the levels of employee motivation, productivity and commitment (Smidts, Pruyn & Van 2001). Low levels of employee motivation, productivity, and commitment show that the employees are not working for the good of the company to improve business in general. If all these factors are low in a company, it means it is difficult to coordinate activities in the company and therefore it is difficult to determine whether employee participation is benefiting the company or not (Smidts, Pruyn & Van 2001). When employees are not committed in their work, it is very difficult to determine their levels of involvement or the impact of their involvement to the company. Low levels of commitment and motivation results to lack of team work between the employees. When there is not team work in the work place, it is difficult to conduct activities that are aimed at analyzing the impacts of employee participation and involvement in the company (Smidts, Pruyn & Van 2001). The process of determining the impact of employee participation and involvement in every department involves complex procedures that call fall employees’ commitment. Low levels of employee commitment make it difficult for these procedures to be carried out and as a result, the impact of employee participation and involvement cannot be determined accurately (Smidts, Pruyn & Van 2001).

Employee’s resistance behavior

Resistance behavior in most circumstances makes it difficult for companies to analyze the impacts of participation and involvement of employees (Smidts, Pruyn & Van 2001). The leadership style used in the work place determines the behavior of the employees. If the management is dictatorial, then the employees are resistant to whatever is presented to them. As a result, the efforts to determine the impacts of employee involvement and participation do not yield any quality results. If the employees have resistance behavior, it affects the performance of the entire company (Smidts, Pruyn & Van 2001). This also affects the process of analyzing the impacts of employee participation and involvement. If the behaviors of the employees are resistance and this means that the results of the analysis are not going to be correct. The employees will give false information about employee participation and involvement and this is likely to affect other variables that are crucial in the analysis (Smidts, Pruyn & Van 2001).

Industrial disputes

Industrial disputes make it difficult to determine the impact that employee involvement and participation has cause in the work place. Poor communication and inappropriate leadership arte the leading causes of industrial disputes (Ugboro & Obeng 2000). The work environment is characterized by tension and therefore it is difficult to determine the impact of employee involvement and participation. If the communication channels are poor during normal activities of the company, it is also that way during the process of analyzing the impact of employee involvement and participation. When there are industrial disputes in a company, the procedures of determining the impacts of employee participation and involvement may be disrupted by industrial actions, strikes and other disruptive activities (Ugboro & Obeng 2000).

Conclusion

Employee participation is positively linked to improved performance in a wide array of areas including reduced employee turnover, productivity, profitability, and increased customer satisfaction. It entails the emotional, cognitive, and behavioral aspects and assessing these in employees to determine how employee participation is likely to lead to better performance is difficult. Most employees prefer using trade unions to present their grievances for fear of being discriminated or terminated at the workplace. Through the use of trade unions, it is difficult to gather the employees’ opinions. The impacts of employee participation are diverse and multifaceted and some employers fear that they will lose authority if they give employees full freedom and flexibility.  Issues of participative management, ineffective communication

Low levels of employee motivation, creativity, productivity, and commitment, employee’s resistance behavior, and industrial disputes are experienced frequently in involvement schemes and this makes assessing how involvement schemes contribute to a company’s performance.

References

 

Addison, J., Siebert, S., Wagner, J., & Wei, X 2000, Worker participation and firm            performance: evidence from Germany and Britain. British Journal of Industrial        Relations, 38(1), 7-48.

Beardwell, J. and Claydon, T 2010, Human Resource Management: A Contemporary Approach (6th Edition), FT Prentice Hall, New York.

Dundon, T., Wilkinson, A., Marchington, M. and Ackers, P 2004, ‘The meanings and purpose of employee voice’. International Journal of Human Resource Management, 15(6): 1149-1170.

Edwards, P., & Wright, M 2001, High-involvement work systems and performance outcomes: the strength of variable, contingent and context-bound relationships. International Journal of Human Resource Management, 12(4), 568-585.

Gold, M 2011, ‘“Taken on Board”: An evaluation of the influence of employee board-level representatives on company decision-making across Europe’. European Journal of Industrial Relations, 17 (1): 41-56

Marchington, M. and Cox, A 2007,  ‘Employee involvement and participation: structures, processes and outcomes’, in: Storey, J. (ed) (2007) Human Resource Management: A Critical Text. London: Thomson Learning, chap. 10.

Peccei, R., Bewley, H., Gospel, H. and Willman, P. 2005, ‘Is it good to talk? Information disclosure and organisational performance’. British Journal of Industrial Relations, 43(1): 11-37.

Smidts, A., Pruyn, A. T. H., & Van Riel, C. B 2001, The impact of employee communication and perceived external prestige on organizational identification. Academy of management journal, 44(5), 1051-1062.

Ugboro, I. O., & Obeng, K 2000, Top management leadership, employee empowerment, job satisfaction, and customer satisfaction in TQM organizations: an empirical study. Journal of Quality Management, 5(2), 247-272.

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