Blog 15- Communication & Involvement

Bratton & Gold (2007) define employee relations as ‘an assortment of employer initiative for improving workplace communications, for engaging employees in decision making and for securing employee compliance with management rules through disciplinary action. Employee relations can be separated into employee participation, employee involvement and employee voice and partnership.

Employee participation stems from a pluralist approach this is where different groups within an organisation have different interests which means that conflicts are more likely to occur. This view encourages people to be individuals and have their say. A common interest employees have is increasing their pay, managers and owners however will be more interested in increasing their profit. Trade unions can often help negotiate a way forward if employees have a problem an example of this is British Airways with its employees striking due to pay. According to Mullins (2010) employee participation allows employees to have their say in some decisions that are made; this gives rights to employees to consult on matters likely to affect the economic status of their employer or any proposed change that might affect employment status.

The last twenty years has seen more employee involvement rather than participation as the union position has weakened. Employee involvement is a contrast to employee participation as it is all about a managerial desire to encourage individual employees to be committed to the organisation. Mullins (2010) suggested that within an organisation employee involvement relates to the unitarist view. This is where all members of the organisation including management and employees have the same goals and interests and will work towards the achievement of a common set of goals. The view sees limited value in having a trade union as everyone is working in the same direction so employees don’t need somebody to fight their corner. Employee involvement includes a few main categories which are sharing information, consultation, financial participation i.e bonuses, quality improvements, individual involvement and the community. The main purpose of employee involvement is to increase employee commitment by making them more involved in decision making.

Not every decision made within an organisations is relevant to all employees however employees can be involved with relevant decision making through a number of different methods. Firstly a discussion using a quality circle could take place, this is where a number of people from different departments get together to have their say. This means that each person is a representative for their department and therefore reduces the number of people in the discussion making it possible for everyone to have their say. A second method could be a suggestion box, although this has had mixed reviews when put into practice, it provides employees the opportunity to have their say anomalously. By making it anomalous it means that employees are more likely to voice concerns they didn’t feel they could say directly to management. The final suggestion would be a ballet vote. Rather than opening decisions up to everyone where there would be too many opposing views to make a decision a ballet vote would be a good alternative as it provides employees with a couple of alternative options. This proves successful as employees feel that they are involved within the organisations decisions but it doesn’t provide the opportunity for lots of opposing views.

Social networking sites are now being used by many organisations as a method of involving their staff. This can be used by both existing and potential recruits. Sites such as twitter and facebook are becoming extremely popular with organisations, these are used purely for the social aspect i.e. upcoming events rather than work issues for example pay and hours. Buckinghamshire New University has a facebook page which can be used by both current and potential students. This proved extremely effective for new students who were able to meet people on their course via facebook before coming to university. Harvey Nash also created a social networking site which could be accessed by potential recruits providing them with an overview of the questions that could be asked in the recruitment process. As well as websites such as facebook and twitter now being used by organisations, private inbuilt social networks such as the intranet are also becoming increasingly popular. One of the reasons for this is that it provides the opportunity to arrange work events. Although using social networking sites in organisations has many advantages it also has a few disadvantages. There has been many issues with people writing things they shouldn’t on facebook about their managers or other colleagues this has in some causes resulted in the employee being dismissed.

In conclusion it has been deduced that involving employees with the organisations decisions increases their commitment to the organisation. As previously mentioned there are also many different methods in which organisations can ensure their employees feel involved for example; social networking sites, discussions, ballet votes and suggestion boxes. 

References

Books

Mullins, L. (2010) Management and organisational behaviour.9^th ed. Essex: Pearson Education Limited.

Websites

Buckinghamshire new university (2011) Home Page [online]. Available from: http://bucks.ac.uk/ [accessed 10 May 2011].

CIPD (2011) employee communications [online]. Available from: www.cipd.co.uk/subjects/empreltns/comconslt/empcomm.htm [accessed 10 May 2011].

Sunday times (2011) 100 best companies to work for [online]. Available from: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/career_and_jobs/best_100_companies/ [accessed 10 May 2011].