BUID January 2013
Employee Voice:
Dynamics and Challenges
Professor Miguel Martínez Lucio
Outline
• Dialogue and Foundations
• Participation and HRM and Human Relations
• Forms of Participation
• Politics, Context and Outcomes
1. Dialogue and Participation:
Social Foundations of Management
• The question of participation and involvement has a
long history in the study of management
• Utopian and Co-operative Movements
• Early 20th Century political concerns with the
question of participation were driven by moral and
even sometimes religious approaches but also
political ones due to the threat of disorder
• Questions of participation and social order
• The Role of Trade Unions and Collective Bargaining
Emergence of Personnel Management
and Industrial Relations
Bruce Kaufman (2008) Managing the Human Factor
Ithaca:Cornell University Press
• argues there are a range of factors in the early 20th Century
giving rise to a more organised and structured approach to
personnel management and industrial relations:
• a combination of organisational factors and change in
management, developments in social organisations
concerned with personal development, and the impact of
educators, unions and government in the case of the USA.
• this is of relevance because traditions of participation are
shaped by various actors and processes and narratives
Movements contributing to the development of modern
management (the case of HRM) in the USA
Civil Service Reform
Industrial Welfare work
Industrial safety movement
Progressive Social Reformers
Trade Unions
Government regulation and labour law
Scientific Management
Vocational Guidance
Industrial Psychology
Employment Management
World War 1
Industrial Democracy
(see Kaufman, 2008)
2. The Link with Human Relations
Question of management’s authority and undermining of legitimacy in
1930s due to failures and tensions in the Taylorist approach to
management.
Elton Mayo and the Hawthorne Studies
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Work as group activity
Work is central life interest
Lack of attention to human relations was a major flaw in management
Work and group belonging and need for satisfaction
Complaints may be reflection of broader issues
Informal social groups have a major role on worker wellbeing
Management can foster collaboration
Workplace should be view as a social system made up of interdependent
parts
• Hence there is a counterveiling approach to
the way people are managed when compared
to the more controlling aspects of ‘Scientific
Management’ – many institutions, groups of
professionals, leading firms, government and
events mould management and in the 193040s we see the emergence of alternatives to
Taylorism and direct control (counternarratives)
The Role of Industrial Relations
• The age of state regulation and the emergence
of collective bargaining in key developed
countries but also a selection of developing
countries
• The emergence of worker representation in
the form of independent trade unions
• The age of organised capitalism and regulated
forms of employment relations
The Harvard School: soft HRM?
The Harvard school is based on a series of key texts and individuals such as
Beer et al HRM: A Genera1 Managers Perspective 1985:
They provide a map of the HRM territory that placed that human
dimension at the centre along with reference to the internal and external
environmental factors:
Central elements are
• Pluralism: mutual influence between management and employees
(divergence)
• Policies must be mutually reinforcing
• General Managers must be central to HRM within a context of a clear
strategy and philosophy
• ‘Employee influence’ is to be key to areas related to Work Systems, Human
Resource Flow, and Rewards
•
•
(a) the ‘human dimension’
(b) the way in which different elements of HRM fit together.
•
Co-ordinating key levers of management and in the work of Pettigrew in terms of the
mapping of complex organisational processes.
•
Strong attraction to the European model of HRM and its stronger regulatory context
(extensive state-labour relations, tripartite processes, stronger legislative support, emphasis
on social partner roles in strategic issues such as training and development, and organised
employer and labour movements).
•
The more recent work of Kochan (see ‘HRM: An American View’ in Storey HRM: A critical
perspective): The question of a common interest between employees and managers has reemerged. Employee voice mechanisms are seen as best achieved and sustainable through a
joint commitment to competitiveness and quality. The move to flexibility and new forms of
working practices are seen to be in the interest of ‘both sides’ through a ‘mutual
commitment’. (see Claydon in Sparrow and Marchington, 1998).
3. Participation and Management
• Introduction: In recent years, management
has again shown widespread interest in
implementing different forms of employee
involvement. This includes schemes to
improve direct communications with the
workforce; forms of task participation; Total
Quality Management (TQM) initiatives; and
forms of financial participation, such as profitsharing.
Increasing pressures for
involvement in recent times
MARKET PRESSURES
•
•
•
Quality competition - competitive strategies in the product market based on
quality and adaptability require active co-operation and flexibility from employees,
and devolvement of decisions to employees.
- Crisis and rationalisation; pressures to get employees to accept urgent cost
reducing measures (e.g. cuts in benefits and pay, work reorganisation and
intensification) may lead management to 'share control'. Business awareness is
seen as vital: Townley terms this an educative approach, designed primarily to
achieve greater support for management, although it is likely to be limited to oneway employee communication, e.g. internal marketing.
- Enhancing Managerial Prerogative: Shift relations with stakeholders such as
trade unions (marginalise or change their role). Such arguments imply that
employees can be committed to the organisation, or to the trade union, but not to
both but there is some evidence of ‘dual’ commitment
LABOUR PRESSURES
• - The New Politics of Involvement (and Ethical dimension) may introduce forms of EI in order to secure legitimacy for
wider economic and social measures e.g. EU social charter,
include rights to info and consultation at European level.
There is also an ethical imperative with regards to EI within
the Corporate Social Responsibility literature (See the Journal
of Business Ethics). Employee Ownership may also be a
contributory factor here.
• - Social and Technological Pressures?
• technological developments require greater specialist knowledge, and
therefore place a premium on employees having responsibility for their
own work
• 'learning society': highly educated workforce will demand greater control/
influence over their jobs
INTEREST AND ENGAGEMENT
• - Time Frames: Cycles and Waves Ramsey (1991) argues that
we can view the history of EI in terms of a series of cycles,
with periods of development followed by periods of relative
stability. He puts the emphasis on the need (by both
management and the state) to periodically accommodate the
power of labour. Marchington et al (1993) reject the idea of
cycles in favour of waves, whereby EI ebbs and flows, and
come in different shapes and sizes. This approach offers a
multi-causal explanation of EI, taking into account the
pressures in the product market and not just the need to
accommodate labour militancy.
So …. EI and HRM
Employee involvement and participation are often
seen as central to the practice of human resource
management. This can be:
• - business driven: in terms of securing a closer
connection between the performance of work and
production requirements and business objectives, or
• - employee oriented: through the perceived
contribution of EI schemes to enhancing employee
commitment
Forms of EI
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
In their major study of EI, Marchington and colleagues identify four types of
employee involvement practice (see Marchington and Wilkinson, 2000 for a
further variant on this)
a. Direct communications with employees: team briefings, company
communications, the use of noticeboards, video communications, email.
b. A more active problem solving approach, which is designed to tap employee
knowledge, expertise and opinion:
Upward forms of individual communication, such as suggestion schemes and
opinion surveys;
Group forms, such as quality circles, TQM and customer care committees;
Forms of actual task participation and ‘self management’, such as team working
and TQM
c. Financial participation, which is aimed at involving employees in wider aspects
of organisational performance
d. Representative participation, which takes place through structures of employee
representation: For example: joint consultative committees, collective bargaining,
works councils, worker representation on company boards
Different views/perspectives:
(a) Whether they are direct or indirect
• direct methods communicate with or involve
employees directly – This tends to occur at
lower levels of the company (e.g. Team
meetings)
• indirect methods tend to take place at higher
levels and here employee involvement in
decision making occurs through their
representatives.
b) Whether they are
Task- or power-centred
• task-centred methods operate at the level of the job,
and are usually concerned with the organisation and
performance of work – (e.g. Quality circles,
teamworking, TQM)
• power-centred methods are concerned with more
fundamental issues of management authority and
decision-making, and determine the framework
within which decisions are made - ( e.g. works
councils with rights, co-determination)
c) Thirdly and finally, issues of
Information, involvement or influence
• This gives some idea of the depth of involvement and
the extent to which employees or their
representatives influence the decision making
process:
• involvement – involves more upward communication
(making suggestions, giving opinions = one-way,
weak forms of EI)
• influence - joint decision-making = employee rights
of veto, collective bargaining, co-determination
4. Politics, Context and Outcomes :
(a) agents for change
Workers and traditions of representation:
•
The key concerns will focus on issues of job control, control over work
organisation, control over change e.g. new technology. But also concerns of
broader business development - effects job security and future incomes. Unions,
by their nature, will have a preference for collective forms, based on
representation: European Works Councils, national company consultation,
specialised committees on organisational change, even involvement on the board.
Employees will have a preference for direct influence over their jobs (this desire
for influence can vary depending on the morale and concerns of the employees)
The state:
The interests of the state lie in:
•
•
•
Averting labour conflict, and securing industrial peace through labour inclusion or
sense of financial/organisational involvement
Using forms of EI&P as a form of regulation at different times
The state as an agent for developing models of HRM (Martinez Lucio and Stuart,
International Journal of HRM, 2012)
Management and participation:
management style
-
commitment versus command
avoidance, adverserial, co-operative
(Boxall and Purcell, 2011: 184)
extent of management learning
-
employment relations
communication skills
line management and participation
(b) Context and Outcomes:
why participation and how?
Cultural Dimension
Economic Dimension
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
removing demarcations
flexible working practices
higher capital productivity
better quality
more local responsibility
more decentralised decision-making
inspection and maintenance part of operator job
support new and flexible technology
make people identify with company
achieve a common outlook
more solidarity between employees
climate of trust
commitment
management and labour share goals
improve absenteeism & labour turnover
Social Dimension
•
work more satisfying
•
higher earnings
•
less isolation
•
opportunities to acquire more skills
•
less physical strain
•
better ergonomical arrangements
•
longer job cycles
•
reduced machine pacing
•
better health and safety
Mueller (1994) on teamworking
Conclusion
• Need for awareness of purpose and history of
participation
• Context – economic, cultural and social
• The drivers of participation
• ..And the choices and the types
• Importance to a people-facing HRM
• But pressures to develop EI growing