Today, the working relationship between the various levels of workers and managers is changing totally from what it was a few years ago.

For many years, and in many cases still, the employee is treated as a useful body to perform a task. What a person does outside the company is never considered. They might be the chairman of a school parents committee, or an association of some form. Once that person dons overalls and walks through the factory gate he is treated like a child. He is told what to do and when to do it. He is not allowed to think or pass comment.

Matsushita of Japan’s National Panasonic criticized people in the West because they do not believe in using all the potential brain-power in the company. Every brain that walks in through the gate should be utilized or else it is waste that we cannot afford. The challenge is to create a team framework from which the expertise of all those involved, management, support and operator staff alike, is used to solve problems. The purpose of employee involvement is not only to utilize the brain-power of all employees, but also to develop the employees' skills, create ownership and a sense of pride and enable managers to manage and not to fight fires.

If someone is able to participate in solving a problem, ownership and resulting pride are created. Pride is fundamental to one's ego and, by appealing to it, people can be motivated. Through ownership and by appealing to a worker's sense of pride, the concept of "responsibility at the source" is developed. The aim of this is to shift the day-to-day responsibility of running a work center or cell from managers to those actually involved. Individuals can contribute their own ideas and brainwaves by means of participating in a small group improvement activity. Areas in which employees can become involved are set-up reduction exercises, quality at source responsibilities, preventive maintenance and housekeeping.

The big question is how to go about increasing the employee/s involvement. As usual, the major responsibility rests on management's shoulders. The first step is a change of attitude. Managers must have the attitude that workers, supervisors and support staff can produce solutions. Visible trust and confidence in the staff must also be part of the attitude change.

The support staff such as industrial engineering and quality assurance must act as facilitators rather than independent problem solvers. Their role should be to co-ordinate the activities of workers involved in solving a particular problem and the transfer of technology required. The problem solving must be a team approach with all the parties involved in implementing the solution.

Staff must have access to managers. This does not mean that an employee must go to a director every time he has a problem. It means that in the event that the employee cannot solve the problem with an immediate superior, he has confidence that the system will allow him to have further access. This may seem trivial, but the psychological effect of not being restricted is important in making the worker feel secure.

Incentive schemes vary from industry to industry and country to country. However, as a general rule, individual piece part payment incentive schemes are to be avoided, because they encourage inventory build-up of items that are not required.

Rewards are required to encourage employees to suggest improvements, but these can vary from an opportunity for the employee to explain to management, in front of fellow workers, how the idea originated, to being publicly recognized in the company newsletter for the idea.

Lastly, management must be patient, give encouragement and support to those involved in order to maintain their enthusiasm.
 
 

December 1999