Participation Channels

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).

Partnership in Enterprise 66 Figure 4.9. Employees’ assessment of the main channels of information on management decisions (3 to 4 most important channels presented) (% of respondents)

Source: Employees’ survey, compiled by the authors 0

5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40

6 (TU) 4 (TU) 8 7 1 (TU+non-

TU-rep)

3 (TU) 5 (TU) 2 (TU+non- TU-rep)

Direct superior Work colleague

Meeting Electronically

Information board Newsletter

Some other representative of management

Figure 4.10. Employees’ assessment on the main channels(3 to 4 most important channels presented) that management uses for asking for opinions (% of respondents)

Source: Employees’ survey, compiled by the authors 0

5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40

6 (TU) 4 (TU) 8 7 1 (TU+non-

TU-rep)

3 (TU) 5 (TU) 2 (TU+non- TU-rep)

Direct superior TU reprsentative Work colleague

Meeting Some other rep.of management Electronically

Partnership in Enterprise 67 There was no significant difference in participation channels that employees used for passing their opinions to management and that management used for consultation or disseminating information (see Figure 4.11). The main clearly dominating channel in all these cases was the direct superior. In two companies, the representative was named as the second or third channel.

In conclusion, all the analysed companies used relatively uniform choice of channels for information and consultation, and the role of employees' representatives as a participation channel was marginal.

Despite the fact that in the role descriptions for trade unions and employees' representatives their main task was considered to be information exchange between management and employees and collective bargaining as the second task, then in reality trade unions and representatives play an extremely modest role in all the information exchange within the company. They do, however, have a certain niche, as expressed by several managers:

„Trade unions have a role when an employee does not get on with his/her manager.”

Trade union representative has the right given by law to access various pieces of information and the employer is required to consult them in discussions of certain issues. According to the interviews, besides their main role in collective bargaining management gives the representatives at meetings with them (if they take place) information on the company’s financial year indicators and general state of the company. However, consultation as such is scarce.

Figure 4.11. Employees’ assessment of the main channels (3 most important channels presented) that they use for passing on their opinions (% of respondents)

Source: Employees’ survey, compiled by the authors

Important information about each company can also be gathered from the responses of these employees who believed that they had no opportunity to make suggestions or that they would not go to anybody with their problems (see Table 4.12). Cases 7, 3 and 2 had the largest share of employees who responded that management does not ask for their opinion or who did not answer at all. The representation situation in these companies was respectively: no representation; trade union; and both trade union and the non-unionised representative. Once again we can see that the presence of employee representation does not seem to be related at all to whether employees are actually consulted or not. At large, the companies on this Figure are listed the same as on Figure 4.10 where cases were listed by employees’ assessment of how informed they were and what were their involvement opportunities. Thus, it appears that the main determinant to whether opinion is asked is the manager’s view on the necessity of participation.

0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50

6 (TU) 4 (TU) 8 7 1 (TU+non-

TU-rep)

3 (TU) 5 (TU) 2 (TU+non- TU-rep) Direct superior TU reprsentative

Work colleague Meeting

Some other rep.of management Electronically

Partnership in Enterprise 68 Table 4.12. Share of employees who cannot give their opinion or who did not respond to which channel is used most frequently (% of respondents)

Company Management asking for opinions

(Q37) Employees giving their opinions (Q38)

Opinion not

asked No response Cannot give

opinion No response

8 6% 4% 2% 2%

1 (TU+non-TU rep) 4% 7% 4% 5%

4 (TU) 10% 2% 10% 2%

5 (TU) 7% 15% 7% 11%

6 (TU) 11% 13% 8% 13%

2 (TU+non-TU rep) 14% 17% 7% 10%

3 (TU) 15% 17% 12% 15%

7 35% 1% 26% 1%

Source: Employees’ survey, compiled by the authors

The above table shows that in the analysed companies it was more likely that the employees could pass their opinion to management if it was their own initiative. It was less often that management turned to employees for opinions on specific issues. This relates well to what one of the managers said as to why he thinks employee participation is sufficient in his company:

„…I always listen [to employees’ opinions and suggestions], if there are any.”

4.5.4. Documents Related to Participation and the Role of a Collective