A Better Workplace — Meridian Group's Newsletter, Number 48, 9-15-05

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Employee Involvement Out of Control!

Employee involvement programs, like any culture change effort, should start small, tap into an existing readiness or enthusiasm, and be carefully controlled. If not, involvement programs can become monsters.

A few weeks ago I had dinner with four managers from a major international manufacturer. We discussed how I might help them improve their employee relations efforts. With plants in over a hundred locations they had tried many different approaches, with mixed results. Their experiences sounded familiar:

1. Managers were open to all employee suggestions without discrimination; e.g. "build a new multistory parking garage" got as much attention as a recommendation for an immediate solution to a production line problem.
2. There were too many teams with too many opinions. Overwhelmed managers couldn't follow up on suggestions. Employees then became even more disillusioned and demoralized.
3. Supervisors were not trained to properly respond to employee's on-the-floor comments, nor to manage open, problem-solving discussions.
4. At one location an external consultant had been on-site for two years with little to show.
5. Managers were under great pressure to reduce costs. Many saw employee involvement as encroachment on their precious production time.

Small is Beautiful

The September 2005 issue of Scientific American broadly surveyed problems facing people and our planet. One article mentions a simple person-powered treadle pump that lifts well water for irrigating small farms. The pump is operated by a person walking in place on a pair of treadles made of locally available material. One-and-a-half million Bangladesh farmers have bought these pumps at $25 each—which includes drilling the well—and quadrupled their farm production.

Another simple irrigation device is a short wooden stand supporting a plastic10 gallon water container feeding cheap gravity fed drip irrigation tubing. In Zimbabwe thousands of farmers use these, again with great success.

In contrast to these simple solutions, conventional dams and canal irrigation systems cost 100 to 200 times as much per farm. In between these extremes are diesel fueled well pumps. Thes are popular with local officials but cost 10 times as much as treadle pumps and require government fuel subsidies. These diesel pumps are abandoned by farmers when the government subsidies stop.

Unfortunately simple local solutions such as treadle pumps and plastic buckets are unappealing to western governments and donor communities. They typically prefer large-scale centralized systems such as Egypt 's Aswan Dam and China 's Three Gorges Dam. These mega-projects have real pizzazz (and made many millionaires). I toured the Aswan Dam during its construction. It really is awesome.

It's the Same with Company Culture

Company executives, often encouraged by large consulting companies—where big is definitely better—rarely muster interest in small scale solutions. "Surely spending $3million will get you more than $30,000?" If big plans and budgets work at the strategic, financial, and capital project level, why not at the human or cultural level?

Well they don't. Just as treadle pumps and plastic buckets fit the scale of the small farmer, so do small, self-initiated actions fit comfortably with the manager who is intent on improving his or her workplace. For example, a manager sitting quietly for half an hour once a week with an employee, understanding their concerns and hopes, may not sound exciting to the executive committee; but it will profoundly influence the workplace and the company's success.

What Actions Have Staying Power?

Like the diesel fuel pumps mentioned above, most top-down company programs evaporate when those above lose interest. Like the treadle pump, small scale actions that connect immediately to people's hopes, problems, and desires, often survives waning corporate attention.

Fifteen years ago I started weekly cultural interviews between managers and 400 employees at a northern California facility. People enjoyed them, and the improved relationships and communications jumped plant performance. I haven't been to this plant for 12 years, and upper management has churned many times; but those interviews continue.

Getting Your Employee Involvement Program under Control

Large companies are like supertankers; once underway they take miles to change course. I suggested to the four managers over dinner that they take a fresh approach (that I won't go into here) to their employee relations program. I knew that trying to correct the myriad problems their company has collected would be enervating, take years, and may not succeed.   But if you have a problem like one of those listed above, I suggest the following:

1. Ask employees only for suggestions that will improve their own immediate work process, suggestions that they are prepared to take the lead on implementing. Then help them with your support, and by removing roadblocks to their actions.
2. Initially limit the number of employee teams to two or three, led only by supervisors who are truly interested and prepared to put in the needed effort. Add new teams only after everyone is comfortable with the process. This will take months.
3. To initiate a culture change process, ask the managers or supervisors—as a group—to list what qualities they would like more of in the workplace. With the list in mind, ask them what projects or upcoming plans they have that they might use to build those qualities. Discuss with them how they might involve their employees in their plans and actions. Bring these managers together after one week, and once a month thereafter, to discuss how their projects and employee involvement efforts are going; and to get help from each other--particularly on managing employee meetings.
4. If a consultant doesn't begin actions immediately with managers and employees, they are probably inexperienced in culture change or employee involvement. If they substitute analysis, studies, and reports, for engagement and action, toss them out!
5. The most productive and efficient companies got that way by learning how to engage every employee in improving productivity and efficiency. New ideas are a dime a dozen, but ideas that people put their energy behind—and make happen—flow naturally from an engaged workplace. Company productivity and employee involvement are not contradictory, they are complimentary.

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"Make Yourself Less Accessible!"

That's the advice from Paul Orfalea, founder of Kinko's*, after he realized that his managers were leaning on him too much. If Paul had asked me for help I would have said, "Rather than close your door, coach your managers to answer their own questions, for example by leading them through the 4-Step Decision Process."

*Fortune Small Business, September 2005, p 91.

However, Orfalea's contrarian advice reminded me of a friend and client, the supply chain manager of a major retail company. He initiated a program to reduce store's order-to-delivery time from two days to six hours. With hundreds of stores this was a heavy commitment, highly visible to top management.

Following months of planning, as the week of the changeover neared, and with managers in all parts of the system apprehensive and skeptical, my friend announced that he was taking that week off.

Amazed but inspired by his complete trust, his management team worked with each other and the stores so well that the changeover concluded in half the expected time. The following week my friend returned to hand out accolades.

Barry Phegan

I hope you find the newsletters interesting and useful. If you have comments or questions, please email me barry@meridiangrp.net

If you want new tools to improve your workplace, you will find them in this book. A 187 page toolkit of practical information and examples. For more information on the book, click on the Amazon logo.

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