Tuesday, 4 May 2010

Communication and Involvement

Employee Participation Verses Employee Involvement

Employee participation can be related to the pluralist approach to working. It understands that there are different groups and view points in the organisation (Befort, 2009). Therefore employee participation exists to reduce conflict.
It is achieved by giving employees opportunities to have a say in what decisions are made. New legislations now exist to ensure this is the case, giving employees in all organisations the right to receive consultations with employers or comities. The company must keep its employees informed of any important changes within the company.

Employee Involvement focuses more on encouraging all employees to think in the same way, and want the same results that the management want. This is a unitarist way of looking at organisations. Employers will look for individuals who will put commitment over conflict.

There are many good ways that employers can motivate their employees through involvement in decision making.

When a company issues staff with their own shares in the company, the employees may find they become entitled to a right to vote on company share holder decisions. Tesco reward their staff with shares, to motivate them, and make them feel more involved in the company.

Some companies will discuss the topic of work-life balance with their staff. The organisation may then find ways to improve this balance for the employees. For example, some larger organisations will run crèches and nurseries for the parent workers, so that they have a more convenient working life.

Corporate social responsibility creates a community within an organisation. Companies that agree to get involved and promote employee activities make their employees feel valued. The employees recognise that a wall has been removed between them and management, when the full organisation shows support in their interest (CIPD, 2010).


Social Networking

‘Twitter’ is a networking site which gets used by businesses for recruitment and communication. It has an application called ‘promoted tweets’ (Arthur, 2010). The application works a bit like the Google search engine, in that people can search Twitter for posts which relate to their needs.
Businesses have gotten on board with this. By creating profiles with notifications about certain needs, people can find the business, and get in contact. Also, the employer’s current employees can follow the businesses profile, and be updated about any new information in the company.


References:

Arthur, C (2010) Twitter unveils ‘promoted tweets’ ad plan. [online]. Available from: http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2010/apr/13/twitter-advertising-google [Accessed 4 May 2010]

Befort, S. F. (2009) Invisible hands, invisible objectives. 1st ed. Stanford: Stanford University Press

CIPD (2010) Employee communication. [online]. Available from: http://www.cipd.co.uk/subjects/empreltns/comconslt/empcomm.htm [Accessed 4 May 2010]

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