EMPLOYEE INVOLVEMENT

(RESEARCH PAPER)

SUBMITTED BY:
AZARES, ANTHONY JOHN A.
BALURAN, JANEVE A.

SUBMITTED TO:
MR. MICHAEL PROTACIO

Introduction
The importance of employee involvement has been widely recognized since Mcgregor’s
Theory Y Management Style.

The aim of employee involvement is to provide an environment in which employees feel

comfortable enough to participate in management discussion, and decisions making.

Employee involvement is used by managers to motivate employee by giving them

importance, and making them feel that they are making a contribution to help improve
their organization.

In order to involve employees, organization can adopt activities such as; suggestion
systems, work teams, improvement meetings, quality circles, regular discussions with
superiors.

Employee involvement is a broad term that has been variously referred to as

“empowerment,” “participative management,” “engagement,” “work design,” “high
involvement,” “industrial democracy,” and “quality of work life.” It covers diverse
approaches to gaining greater participation in relevant workplace decisions.
Organizations such as General Mills, The Hartford, and Intel have enhanced worker
involvement through enriched forms of work; others, such as Verizon, Deutsche
Telekom, Wells Fargo, and Boeing, have increased participation by forming EI teams
that develop suggestions for improving productivity and quality.

Discussion
According to our research that the employee involvement is refers to work structures
and processes that allow employees to systematically give their input in to decisions
that affect their own work. In these research some examples of employee involvement
are continuous improvement teams, formal quality of work life programs, quality control
circles, flatter organizational structures, labor management problem solving efforts,
employee problem solving task forces and teams, structured suggestion system.

Depending on your background or specialty, you may refer to it as engagement, voice,

participation, democracy, etc. No matter what you call it, the concept of employee
“voice” has been a topic of consideration for centuries. Even ancient Romans
understood the value of having direct participation in matters of business and state.
Organizations are still realizing the importance of employee involvement in every type
and level of work. So what exactly is employee involvement and how can organizations
benefit from it?

When an employee participate directly to help an organization fulfill its mission and
meet its objectives by applying their ideas, expertise, and efforts towards problem
solving and decision making, to know more about what is employee involvement. it is
also the way of communicating employee to tell them what will be the action or plan to
be implemented if the company or organization needs an organization development, it
seeks to increase members input into decisions that affect organization performance
and employee well being

A working Definition of Employee Involvement

it seeks to increase members input into decisions that affect organization performance
and employee well-being. It can be describe in four key elements that promote worker
involvement.
1. Power – This element of employee involvement includes providing people with
enough authority to make work –related decisions covering various issues such
as work methods, task assignment, performance outcomes, customer service,
and employee. the amount of power afforded employees can vary enormously,
from simply asking them for input into decisions that managers subsequently
make, to managers and workers jointly making decisions, to employees making
decisions themselves.
2. Information – Timely access to relevant information is vital to make effective
decisions, organization can promote employee involvement by ensuring that the
necessary information flows freely to those with decision authority. This can
include data about operating results, business plans, competitive conditions, new
technologies and work methods, and ideas for organizational improvement.
3. Knowledge and skills – Employee involvement contributes to organizational
effectiveness only to the extent that employees have the requisite skills and
knowledge to make a good decisions, organization can facilitate employee
involvement by providing training and development programs for improving
members knowledge and skills. Such learning can over an array of expertise
having to do with performing tasks, making decisions, solving problems, and
understanding how the business operates.
4. Rewards - Because people generally do those things for which they are
recognized, rewards can have a powerful effect on getting people involve in
organization. Meaning opportunities for involvement can provide employees with
internal rewards, such as pay and promotions, can reinforce employee
involvement when they are linked directly to performance outcomes that results
from participation in decision making.
Outcomes of Employee Involvement
•Improved organizational decision-making capability
•Improved attitude regarding work
•Substantially improved employee well-being
•Reduced costs through elimination of waste and reduced product cycle times
 •Empowerment, job satisfaction, creativity, commitment, and motivation, as well
as intent to stay
•Increased employee productivity across industries

Examples of employee involvement

 Continuous improvement teams.

 Formal quality of work life programs.
 Quality control circles.
 Flatter organization structures.
 Labor management problem solving efforts.
 Employee problem solving task forces and teams.
 Structured suggestion system.

The benefits of employee involvement

1. You have more motivated employees –

More motivated employees mean better performance; especially when you have
total employee involvement in terms of staff management. Employees do not
leave because of the company or pay, but because of their manager. It also
works the other way around. Employees stay and get motivated because of who
manages them.

2. You retain and attract talent because of your employee- centric culture –

Paying close attention to employee feedback is a critical element to retaining key

talent. Taking that extra step to show staff that you care about what they think and
feel, can go a long way. Employees work best when they’re given a voice on how a
company is run and how they are managed. Not only does this make employees
happier, but it also makes them stronger.

3. You can manage change better and welcome it –

 In today’s very dynamic and competitive work environments, it is the organization
that embraces change that gets to be on top. Change is constant and is always a
part of any industry. And in this aspect, the business that adapts the quickest usually
gains the upper hand.

4. Your employees care more about attaining business goals –

A company’s mission and vision is its driving force and competitive edge, and key
business metrics are its measurable manifestations. The best way to reach business
goals is to have everyone on the same page. You need your organization running
like a well–oiled machine – with each part performing optimally

5. You nurture a learning environment – Well trained employees are the key to
attaining business goals, and the most effective way to learn is to nurture a
learning environment. A learning environment doesn’t only mean that training
courses and learning modules are well- designed. It also means that consistent
feedback is solicited from the learners too.

The Diffusion of Employee Involvement

Practices The number of organizations using EI practices is growing in both the United
States and Europe. In the most comprehensive, long-term study of EI applications,
Lawler and his colleagues at the Center for Effective Organizations at the University of
Southern California have surveyed the Fortune 1000 every three years between 1987
and 2005. Their data show positive trends in EI use among these firms over that time
period, including both a growing number of firms applying EI and a greater percentage
of the workforce included in such programs. Despite these positive trends, however,
their research reveals that the scope and depth of EI interventions are relatively modest.
For EI interventions that don’t involve large and systematic shifts in power, information,
knowledge and skills, and rewards, such as suggestion systems and survey feedback,
most of the Fortune 500 involve more than 20% of the workforce. But for more powerful
EI interventions, fewer than 20% of the workforce is involved. Thus, although many
large organizations are using EI practices, there is considerable room for their diffusion
across organizations and throughout the workforce. Similarly, EI has prospered outside
of the United States. Countries using EI in western Europe include France, Germany,
Denmark, Ireland, Sweden, Norway, Holland, Italy, and Great Britain. Although the
tremendous changes currently taking place in countries such as Russia, Bulgaria, the
Philippines, and the People’s Republic of China may have dampened EI efforts, several
programs are actively under way. Canada, Mexico, India, Australia, New Zealand, Hong
Kong, and Japan also are using EI. Internationally, EI may be considered a set of
processes directed at changing the structure of the work situation within a particular
cultural environment and under the influence of particular values and philosophies. As a
result, in some instances, EI has been promoted by unions; in others, by management.
In some cases, it has been part of a pragmatic approach to increasing productivity; in
other cases, it has been driven by socialist values.

How Employee Involvement Affects Productivity

An assumption underlying much of the EI literature is that such interventions will lead to
higher productivity. Although this premise has been based mainly on anecdotal
evidence and a good deal of speculation, there is now a growing body of research
findings to support that linkage. Studies have found a consistent relationship between EI
practices and such measures as productivity, financial performance, customer
satisfaction, labor hours, and waste rates. Attempts to explain this positive linkage
traditionally have followed the idea that giving people more involvement in work
decisions raises their job satisfaction and, in turn, their productivity. EI practices, such
as participation in workplace decisions, can improve productivity in at least three ways.
First, such interventions can improve communication and coordination among
employees and organizational departments, and help integrate the different jobs or
departments that contribute to an overall task. Second, EI interventions can improve
employee motivation, particularly when they satisfy important individual needs.
Motivation is translated into improved performance when people have the necessary
skills and knowledge to perform well and when the technology and work situation allow
people to affect productivity. For example, some jobs are so rigidly controlled and
specified that individual motivation can have little impact on productivity.

How to Get Employee Involvement

In order for an employee involvement process to be effective, three things need to be

present:

1. Employees need to be given the authority to participate in substantive decisions

2. Employees need to have training or experience with appropriate decision-making

skills

3. Incentives to participate (either implicit or explicit) must be present

EMPLOYEE INVOLVEMENT APPLICATIONS

Parallel Structures

Parallel structures involve members in resolving ill-defined, complex problems and build
adaptability into bureaucratic organizations. Also known as “collateral structures,”
“dualistic structures,” or “shadow structures, parallel structures operate in conjunction
with the formal organization. They provide members with an alternative setting in which
to address problems and to propose innovative solutions free from the existing, formal
organization structure and culture. For example, members may attend periodic off-site
meetings to explore ways to improve quality in their work area or they may be
temporarily assigned to a special project or facility to devise new products or solutions
to organizational problems. Parallel structures facilitate problem solving and change by
providing time and resources for members to think, talk, and act in completely new
ways. Consequently, norms and procedures for working in parallel structures are
entirely different from those of the formal organization. This section describes the
application steps associated with the two most common parallel structures, cooperative
union–management projects and quality circles, and reviews the research on their
effectiveness

Application Stages

Cooperative union–management projects and quality circle interventions fall at the lower
end of the EI scale. Member participation and influence typically are restricted to making
proposals and to offering suggestions for change because subsequent decisions about
implementing the proposals are reserved for management. Membership in parallel
structures also tends to be limited, primarily to volunteers and to numbers of employees
for which there are adequate resources. Management heavily influences the conditions
under which parallel structures operate. It controls the amount of authority that
members have in making recommendations, the amount of information that is shared
with them, the amount of training they receive to increase their knowledge and skills,
and the amount of monetary rewards for participation limited amounts of EI, they are
most appropriate for organizations with little or no history of employee participation, top-
down management styles, and bureaucratic cultures.
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