Abstract
M.Phil.
It is axiomatic that democratisation of the workplace as an adjunct of the establishment and further development of political democracy, is an imperative for South Africa to be able to align itself with the global economic environment.
Whereas employee participation is a critical element of workplace democracy, it also has a profound and immediate relevance for ensuring an organisation’s global competitiveness. It is not exceptional to hear of employee participation referred to as worker democracy, co-determination, participative management and workers’ self-management, worker co-operative, joint decision-making, as well as joint consultation. Employee participation in management decision-making is invariably interpreted differently in different countries.
Employee participation may be broadly viewed as incorporating mechanisms designed to increase employee input into, and influence the outcome of managerial decision-making. In this context, commentators normally differentiate between direct and indirect forms of employee influence. Formal influence refers to legally mandated opportunities for employees to participate in the management of the business, with or without trade union intervention, and aims at protecting employees from unilateral management decision-making. Formal influence also includes the creation of structures such as forums and other mechanisms for making decisions that affect employees in the workplace.
On the other hand, informal influence often emanates from management-initiated participation. For instance, a manager may, seek the advice of employees before making a decision concerning the development of a plan aimed at achieving the organisation’s strategic or operational objectives. Whereas, this type of management initiative is often characterised as consultation, the informal participation results in a decision that is not legally enforceable. It is usually designed by management to encourage employees to conform with and adjust to pre-planned management programmes.
The Bank, which is the subject of this research study, committed itself to transformation, in line with the socio-political paradigms propagated by the post-apartheid government that envisaged workplace democracy for South Africa.
This Bank, however, also considered the need for employee participation in management decision-making as a business imperative rather than as a compliance issue. The Bank believed that employee participation would be a key factor in reducing alienation of employees, facilitating a common organisational focus, ensuring labour stability in the workplace, improving labour productivity and contributing to wealth creation.
This research is aimed at analysing those variables, which influence the propensity of employees to participate in decisions that affect their interests. In addition, perceptions of the effectiveness of the participative structures, within the context of the Bank’s employee relations framework, were analysed using a quantitative survey methodology.
The findings suggest that employees seem to have a positive perception of employee participation as a management strategy, and that they show a strong propensity to participate in decision-making in the Bank under investigation. However, there seems to be some variance between the perceptions of the existing structure for employee participation, which is the Standing Joint Committee (SJC), and the perceptions about the effectiveness of the trade union shop stewards. There seems to be a probability that the shop stewards positively influence the decision-making by management albeit only to a limited extent. This suggests that, although the existing structure and the role of shop stewards are put to question, the Bank would do well, to further investigate the matter of employee participation, structures, and processes that optimise employee participation. Based on the findings of the investigation - it is recommended that a programme of training and education, in fact, of re-orientation with regard to employee participation, its antecedents, its legislative framework and the real intent of management could be very beneficial for the Bank.