Using Employee Involvement and Participation (EIP) to Motivate Employees
Employee involvement and participation (EIP)38 is a process that uses employees’ input to increase their commitment to organizational success. If workers are engaged in decisions that increase their autonomy and control over their work lives, they will become more motivated, committed to the organization, productive, and satisfied with their jobs. These benefits don’t stop with individuals—when teams are given more control over their work, morale and performance increase as well.39
Cultural EIP
To be successful, EIP programs should be tailored to local and national norms.40 Employees in many traditional cultures that value formal hierarchies do not especially value EIP programs, but this is changing. In China, for instance, some employees are becoming less high power–distance oriented. In one study, Chinese workers who were very accepting of traditional Chinese cultural values showed few benefits from participative decision making. However, Chinese workers who were less traditional were more satisfied and had higher performance ratings under participative management.41 Another study conducted in China showed that involvement increased employees’ thoughts and feelings of job security, enhancing their well-being.42 These differences within China may well reflect the current transitional nature of that culture. Research in urban China indicated that some EIP programs, namely, those that favor consultation and expression but not participation in decision making, yielded higher job satisfaction.43
Forms of Employee Involvement Programs
Let’s look at two major forms of employee involvement—participative management and representative participation—in more detail.
Participative Management
Common to all participative management programs is joint decision making, in which subordinates share a significant degree of decision-making power with their immediate superiors. This sharing can occur either formally through, say, briefings or surveys, or informally through daily consultations, as a way to enhance motivation through trust and commitment.44 Participative management has, at times, been considered a panacea for poor morale and low productivity. In reality, for participative management to be effective, followers must have trust and confidence in their leaders. Leaders should avoid coercive techniques and instead stress the organizational consequences of decision making to their followers.45
Studies of the participation–performance relationship have yielded mixed findings.46 Organizations that institute participative management may realize higher stock returns, lower turnover rates, and higher labor productivity, although these effects are typically not large.47 Research at the individual level indicates participation typically has only a modest influence on employee productivity, motivation, and job satisfaction. This doesn’t mean participative management isn’t beneficial. However, it is not a sure means for improving performance.
Representative Participation
Most countries in western Europe require companies to practice representative participation. Representative participation redistributes power within an organization, putting labor’s interests on a more equal footing with the interests of management and stockholders by including a small group of employees as participants in decision making. The two most common forms of representation are works councils and board representatives. Works councils are groups of nominated or elected employees who must be consulted when management makes decisions about employees. Board representatives are employees who sit on a company’s board of directors and represent employees’ interests. In the United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia, and New Zealand, representative participation was originally the only EIP program; it was formed to allow employee representatives to discuss issues outside union agreements and the representatives were all from the union. However, representative groups are now increasingly a mix of union and non-union, or separate from the union arrangement.48
The influence of representative participation on working employees seems to be mixed, but generally an employee would need to feel his or her interests were well represented and make a difference to the organization in order for motivation to increase. Thus representative participation as a motivational tool is surpassed by more direct participation methods.