Participation by Areas

Partnership in Enterprise 62

„It is definitely useful to ask for employees’ opinions on day-to-day work, as the employees who are in direct contact with clients know how to improve work organisation.”

In the context of strategic issues, the managers said that only informing takes place and there was no need to increase participation. Only one manager (Case 1) emphasised the importance of ‘convincing’

employees' representatives in the case of strategic decisions. According to the majority of managers, consultation took place in other issues, such as tactical, operational, i.e. at subdivision level, and welfare; two heads of companies believed that they also applied co-determination (see Figure 4.5).

Strategic

Tactical

Operational

Welfare

Information Consultation Co-determination 2 1

3 4 5

6 7 8

1 3 4

7 8

5 6 2

1 3 8

6 2

5 4

7

1 8 2 6 4 7

3 5 Employee

Influence Importance of

Decisions

Figure 4.5. Managers’ assessment of the intensity of employee participation in their company (figure presents case numbers with the extent of employees´ influence in each category of decisions) Source: Interviews, compiled by the authors

On the above figure, the companies are placed, at large, according to the theory (see also Figure 1.1):

the greater the importance of the decision for the company the less can employees influence it. Thus, companies that have employees' representatives do not probably have more intensive participation because of the latter, but more likely because their participation process is more formalised and clearer. We can say that the existence of an employees' representative does not reflect whether and to what extent the manager gives importance to participation and how can employees get involved in the company in reality. Bonner and Gollan (2005) have come to the same conclusion in a slightly different context. They claim that employees’ influence depends more on how employees and management communicate and less on whether there is a trade union present in the company.

As a final note on participation intensity, managers assessed participation intensity in an average Estonian company similarly to their own company.

Partnership in Enterprise 63 In all the companies the employees responded more actively about participation in the following decisions:

• Changes in working hours,

• Changes in work remuneration,

• Holiday schedule,

• Training plans

Questions about other areas were frequently answered as ‘have not come across such decisions’ or were not answered altogether. This refers probably to the fact that it was difficult for the employees to differentiate between the decisions in such detail and to determine their own level of involvement. The same applied when employees had representative(s): it was unclear to the employees how much influence their representatives actually had on different decisions.

When we look at Figures 4.6, 4.7 and 4.8 we can see that according to employees they were most involved in the area of holiday schedules. As to remuneration and working hours, the employees rated their involvement opportunities significantly more modestly. On the one hand, the reason why employees believed to have small involvement in work remuneration decisions could be that the changes had probably been only upwards and the employees agreed to this employer’s decision by default. On the other hand, it can also reflect the general discontent with pay (see also Figure 4.4). It shows as well that in employees’ opinion the employees' representatives’ role as negotiators of pay rise in collective bargaining is relatively small.

Figure 4.6. Employees’ assessment of their opportunity to have a say in holiday schedule decisions (companies listed according to the extent of consultation)

Source: Employees’ survey, compiled by the authors

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%

4 (aü) 5 (aü) 2 (aü+ui) 3 (aü) 1 (aü+ui) 6 (aü) 7 8

if employee (reprsentative) is agree employees representative is asked informed in advance find out after decision is made not informed of the decision at all no response or have not come across

Partnership in Enterprise 64

0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%

8 4 (aü) 1 (aü+ui) 2 (aü+ui) 5 (aü) 6 (aü) 3 (aü) 7

if employee (reprsentative) is agree employees representative is asked

informed in advance find out after decision is made

not informed of the decision at all no response or have not come across

Figure 4.7. Employees’ assessment of the opportunity to have a say in decisions on changing working hours (companies listed according to the extent of consultation)

Source: Employees’ survey, compiled by the authors

Figure 4.8. Employees’ assessment of their opportunity to have a say in decisions on changing work remuneration (companies listed according to the extent of consultation)

Source: Employees’ survey, compiled by the authors

0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%

5 (aü) 8 1 (aü+ui) 2 (aü+ui) 4 (aü) 6 (aü) 3 (aü) 7

if employee (reprsentative) is agree employees representative is asked

informed in advance find out after decision is made

not informed of the decision at all no response or have not come across

Partnership in Enterprise 65 The order of companies varies on the above figures. If we consider that decisions on changing holiday schedules and working hours are greatly dependent on the nature of production, then it is once again interesting to observe that in the case of work remuneration changes the participation is greater in companies with different forms of representation present, including the lack of a representative. The same applied to least participation: there are companies with and without employee representation.

In their responses to strategic issues, such as company’s economic activities and bigger investments, 60% to 80% of employees in nearly all companies chose the option ‘have not come across’ or left it unanswered. Thus, we could not make any conclusions on the basis of employees’ questionnaires and had to limit it to interviews, where both managers and employees' representatives believed the participation to be minimal. Technology renewal, however, was one exceptional management issue, as even though the authors would classify it as a strategic decision, many managers considered it very important to consult employees in this beforehand.

An interesting issue is how differently the parties perceive participation. One example of this could be collective redundancies in which case employers are by law required to consult employees' representatives. In one company where there had been extensive redundancies some time ago both the manager and employees felt that there was little employee participation involved. The opinion of the trade union representative, however, differed radically, as she believed that redundancy decision was made with the consent of the employees' representative (i.e. herself).