Module 1: Selecting Your Team

Employees Participation and Influence

Introduction

Employees are the resources of an organization in the same way as material assets but they are also the firm’s stakeholders. The concept of employees as stakeholders refers to the interest employees have in the success of the company and the fact that actions taken by the organization directly affect the employees.

Employees’ stakes in the company are economic in the fact that their livelihood comes from the firm, psychological in that they derive pride from their work, and political in terms of their rights as employees and citizens.

The best way to incorporate employees' stake to improve an organization's performance is through employee participation and influence.

Open book management

Open book management empowers employees with the information they need to see the reality of the organizational situation and to give relevant and helpful input.

Open-door policies

Similar to open book management are open-door policies, where management makes it clear that employees can informally raise issues or give input at any time

Feedback programs

Feedback programs, sometimes implemented in the form of employee surveys or through direct employee-management interaction, can be a less expensive way to get feedback from employees concerning specific programs or policies. Surveys are particularly economical, especially when done online using free survey programs such as SurveyMonkey.com.

Team mechanisms

Team mechanisms such as quality circles, work teams, and total quality management teams provide employees with the ability to synthesize their individual input into a better solution to organizational problems.