Zimpapers Logo

Employees’ participation is key for any organisation’s progress

Peter Sibanda
Employee voice explains the extent to which employees make meaningful input into corporate decisions; their degree of autonomy or control in the workplace.
It is a key component of industrial democracy largely explained under the broader term employee participation.
One friend approached me for an opinion on how to get rid of a workers committee clique which has become a liability in his organisation.

I liked his idea, because I figure it is not uncommon for many bosses to share the same thoughts.
But then I quickly reminded him however, that employee opinions matter, and every time.

Employee contributions in organisations leads to better quality decisions.
Yet many organisations shun forms of employee participation and claim not to see anything good coming from these.

As a result, the platforms for employee voice are at times criminalised to the extent that speaking out and challenging management where appropriate, joining membership to employee organisations; from workers committees to trade unions,supposedly communicates opposition and employee resistance.

Organisations then fail to realise the value of employee participation.
How about changing our perceptions of employees and employee voice in general?

When management-employee relations have soured to this extent, managers have accumulated fundamental error, which explains their inability to domesticate conflict resolution on labour issues.

I consider these as results of poor leadership, which may be evidenced by the absence of consistency on the treatment of employees, lack of transparency, poor or inadequate communication systems, the absence of fairness, lack of respect for employees as key stakeholders of corporate governance, or worse off . . . managerial arrogance.

It is not only the ideas of those at the top rungs of the organisational hierarchy that matter, but everyone, including lower level employees, because they have a potential to support or supplant strategy at both formulation as well as implementation.

If they are not allowed to participate, managers will have to pay through their noses; more adversarial relations with unions, more collective actions, sabotage, turnover, resistance and eventually, failure to achieve effectiveness.

Every employee needs to be heard and know that they are more than just cogs in machines at work. They want their concerns, decisions, opinions etc. to be heard and understood by management.

And leaders should not treat these concerns as essentially ‘employee’ concerns, but rather, organisational concerns because of their influence on labour productivity and performance.

At the same time, employee voice enhances the dignity of employees at work while providing management an opportunity to tap into the wealthy of information and ideas that employees have.

Employee voice also gives managers feedback about their decisions, policies and actions.
When we take a look at the various work-related disputes that pervade organisations, we can tell that by and large, employees make genuine concerns that require management attention, but are rather given a lip service.

Alternatively, a lot of labour disputes may be traced back to leadership, with many falling squarely on one or a couple of leaders that are not transparent or consistent in their dealings with employees, from a workshop manager in a manufacturing plant, to a section engineer in a mine, to a finance executive, to an HR Manager whose hiring practices are highly questionable and suspicious etc.

When business leaders do not search for employees’ views, when they do not listen to and see that employee opinions count and make a difference, they are just missing half of what they should know to make relevant people, and organisational decisions.

Instead of being arrogant, the hubris of which only exposes their weaknesses and vulnerability, there is rather a need to listen to employees, both individually and in their organised fora.

One principle that I hold in the management of people resistance is that ‘if language is proving difficult to communicate, then try images’.
Try being transparent in your communications with employees, respect employees, listen (and listen more), be fair in your treatment of employees, create synergies with them and be straightforward in all your dealings with employees. Stop bullying.

Can you be trusted by employees?
Do you have relationships with employees?

Or are you making attempts to build them? You have an option of either swimming together with your employees, or sinking separately.
Remember these are your employees.

If you do not give employees a voice, then you are just buying your own cemetery plot.

Peter can be contacted on 0772906050 or email [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>