 Developing a participative culture
Developing a participative culture
Adoption of a suggestion policy enables organisations to maximise their employee participation and potential.
Key Learning's:
Performance of employees as well as organisations can be enhanced immensely by instilling a participative culture
The suggestion scheme is one of the most proven and successful techniques which helps inculcate a sense of participation among employees
Motivating to perform at e-Soft
Viren Bhatia has been working as the Performance Manager at e-Soft Solutions, one of the leading software developers in Pune since 2002. Though the company's performance has been growing at a pace much ahead of the industry standards, Viren feels that his employees were not using their potential optimally. The problem was compounded by a high attrition rate , which in turn affected productivity.
Viren decided to initiate some confidence building measures among the employees to stem the rot. The measures included a more transparent performance appraisal system, better working conditions, higher fringe benefits and better pay package across the different levels.
However, these measures had scant effectas the employees continued to suffer from lack of motivation. It was in late 2004 that Viren decided to focus on one of the most tested practices for performance enhancement - suggestion scheme.
The primary intention of the suggestion scheme was to increase employee participation in organisational affairs and enhance their sense of belongingness. It was also aimed to understand the employee mindset (in terms of their needs and expectations) better and cater to them in the best way possible.
This extremely cost-effective and easy-to-implement scheme turned to be the masterstroke from Viren as employees willingly took part. Before long, e-Soft not only understood its employee's real problems but also came up with innovative ideas to enhance employee productivity and business processes.
Secret of success
What was the secret of Viren's success at e-Soft? In management parlance, one often comes across numerous concepts, theories, practices and techniques aimed at enhancing employee behaviour and attitude, productivity, participation and commitment towards organisational goals.
The most important among these is employee commitment and participation. At the social level, we are well aware of people participation that made Operation Flood and polio eradication programmes such major successes.
At the corporate level, people (or more specifically, employee) involvement has resulted in various successful management techniques like TQM, 5-S, quality circles, TPM and kaizen.
Ensuring employee participation and commitment is probably one of the most challenging tasks for any manager. In fact, it is one of the most difficult ones to implement.
The primary barriers to its implementation include the self-image of the middle-level management and lack of support from the top-level management. As a result, human resource assets continue to be the least utilised assets in an organisation.
The suggestion scheme is an effective tool in ensuring employees participation. The scheme marks a win-win situation for both the employee and employer. The suggestion scheme above all:
Optimises the potential of talent available
Enhances organisational profits
Increases a feeling of esprit-de-corps among the employees
Suggestion scheme: The catalyst to change
Suggestion scheme provides employees an opportunity to reveal their ideas and thoughts to the management for betterment of the processes at the workplace at affordable costs. The proposed changes should be mutual beneficial to the organisation as well as the employee(s).
Such a participative process not only optimises employee creativity but also enables organisations to identify the numerous opportunities that can trigger employee and organisational growth. In addition, it increases the employee initiative and innovativeness. In short it helps to improve processes and services.
Easy to implement
Easy to implement the scheme involves five steps:
Invite suggestions
Gather the suggestions
Collate and evaluate the suggestions
Implement the suggestions
Reward the accepted/implemented suggestions
Some of the major pre-requisites for the successful implementation of the suggestion scheme include
Open and transparent work culture
A continuous learning environment
Positive approach towards learning, irrespective of the source or type of learning
Ascertaining group performance
Instilling trust and respect among employees at all levels, irrespective of the designation and function
Organisations should not thrust the scheme but ensure it is a voluntary involvement. After all, creative thinking and participation can never be forced.
However, organisations should develop a mentally stimulating and cordial atmosphere wherein employees are encouraged to express their ideas voluntarily.
This is best possible when employees can relate their contribution with the organisation's objective, welfare and growth. In other words, employee participation and suggestion scheme are interdependent on each other.
The suggestion scheme can be extremely beneficial functions or processes such as:
Product design and development
Customer support services
Process upgrade and innovation
Office management and maintenance
Healthcare and medical facility
Safety measures
Repair and maintenance techniques
Cost control
Automation or upgrade of technology
Improvement in quality of work
Enhancement of work environment
Improvement in productivity
Endpoint
As is evident, the schemes enable employee ownership, mutual respect, a sense of belongingness and greater job satisfaction. It also augments the ability of employees to innovate and think creatively for better work performance.
However, the scheme can succeed only with the unbiased support of the top-level management devoid of ego hassles between the superiors and their subordinates.
__________________
Hari Nair
Assistant Vice President - Human Resources
Sona Koyo Steering Systems Limited
38/6, On Delhi Jaipur National Highway 8
GURGAON 122 001
Haryana
Mobile : +91-98-102-89047
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