Schlagwort-Archive: Participation

What is wanted

The modern workplace is moving. Globalization, information society and digitalization are transforming the working environment powerfully as at the advent of the steam engine. Manual labor shifts globally to where it is the cheapest. The physical values are replaced by informational. Digitalization virtualizes business processes. The remaining jobs provide expensive skilled or precarious less-educated activities. In both cases, the money is no longer sufficient in order to hold the people at work. The management thinks that the workforce desires good remuneration, a safe workplace, promotion and growth, good working conditions, interesting work, compassionate help with personal problems, loyalty to the employees, visible recognition, tactful discipline and active participation. Are these things really what is wanted?

In the following you find some criteria that are relevant for each of us. It is based on these ideas.

  1. Visible appreciation
    The ability to perform is in every employee. Additional amplifiers are praise, acknowledgment and respect. The biggest impact will be achieved, if the appreciation is visible to all. There are always appropriate occasions – at meetings, at the end of a project, at celebrations.
  2. Promotion and growth
    Especially the young workforce is motivated by career perspectives, which have a relatively long effect. Staggered programs that take several years increase on the one hand the operational ability and maintain on the other hand the tension. This includes certificates, education with popular coaches, training courses that interest the employees, and ultimately continuous growth through promotion.
  3. Active participation
    If the decisions are made over the heads of the employees, this dims their performance. Through employee participation, everyone is shaping the future. This reaches e.g. from capital to profit sharing to the joint designing of workflows and working conditions, like continuous improvement processes, quality circles or the learning organization. Important building blocks are the elements of self-organization – the joint development of the strategy, the structures and the processes, as well as participation in decisions that affect one.
  4. Good working conditions
    The working conditions are determined by various factors. The subjective ones are influenced by physical, intellectual, and mental states, which lead to a personal attitude – e.g. positive view, exhaustion, dislike. The factual aspects result from the available technology, the attractiveness of the workplace as well as the official regulations regarding the breaks, flextime or vacation.
  5. Good remuneration
    Even if payment does not have a long-term effect, it represents an important basis for employee satisfaction. In principle, the split in fixed and variable remuneration provides an additional motivator in the form of salary, holiday / Christmas money, and bonuses. It is favorable, if the distribution depends to a large extent on the individual performance. “Socialist” levies on the basis of total success, without consideration of the personal contribution, rev the individual not so much up.
  6. Compassionate support with personal problems
    The most important relationships in everyday life are found in the work environment. This leads to the fact that personal problems are becoming visible over time. If the company offers a trustworthy environment that allows the employees to get advice in case of personal problems, to receive support from the supervisor or even from the HR department, then the workforce is intrinsically committed to the company.
  7. Interesting work
    Interesting tasks are especially encouraging for the particularly powerful employees. For this purpose, the challenges should fit with the interests of the individual, have a certain degree of difficulty or promise additional status. In conjunction with visible recognition, the employees are motivated for a long period of time.
  8. Loyalty to employees
    Active employee retention measures ensure loyalty. For this, you only need fair basic conditions, an open communication culture, backing and, for example, a visible appreciation. Poor personnel management is a central reason for the lack of loyalty. If the company does not realize this loyalty loss, they are surprised by the termination of the employee.
  9. Safe workplace
    Jobs will be safe, if you remain physically and mentally without harm and the place, where you work, is not dangerous. The potential threats of the workplace are overshadowed by the danger of not having one. The flexibilisation of the working world has become possible due to powerful IT programs. The simplified selection and administration of personnel has opened the door for flexible working hours and diverse types of employment. The results are precarious jobs, part-time work and increasing fluctuation.
  10. Perceived self-efficacy
    The freedom that is available for improving the work creates the self-efficacy that motivates to collaborate. As soon as you make intrinsically changes and prioritize the necessary tasks, you take ownership of the improvement. The necessary self-discipline and the respect for each other determine the working environment decisively.

Bottom line: What is wanted in the working day is once again moving. Today’s attitudes challenge tightly organized companies. The workforce wants visible recognition, active participation, compassionate help with personal problems, a safe workplace, good compensation, interesting work, promotion and growth, loyalty to the employees, good working conditions and tactful discipline. The different understanding of what the workforce really wants is reflected in the different prioritization of the management (see in the first section) and the employees (see in this paragraph), e.g. the importance of an interesting work, active participation, or the desire for compassionate support with personal problems. Once the executives take into account what is wanted, the company’s performance will increase – see more here !!

From nothing simply nothing comes

Common sense tells us that anything adapts to what already is there. Spheres, not cubes, come out of a sphere. In closed systems, it is unlikely that something new will emerge on its own. Except: energy is added from outside. The same is the case in human communities – working groups, departments, and firms. If something has to be changed, it needs a push to get momentum. From nothing simply nothing comes.

The following aspects outline some stimuli that the leaders can give in terms of energy supply.

  • Adaptability
    The persistence in the existing of individual people needs a framework that provides the necessary space for the new. In an appropriate atmosphere that gives employees the chance to make things flexibly on their own, to cooperate across borders and to apply new ideas without any effort changes happen. The customer’s needs are adequately addressed that way. If then the willingness to try new things is encouraged by stress-free, fault-tolerant attitudes and openness, collaborative learning takes place. Thus, all are able to adapt.
  • Participation
    Once you understand that the group creates many more opportunities than individual geniuses, you have to take care to put the team in the position to make decisions at the point of action. This requires that the relevant information is available and that, at the same time, all know that they can and are allowed to contribute positively as well as to plan jointly. This puts the team at the center – with all its objectives, distributed balance of power and group processes. The development of appropriate skills is crucial for the employees, as well as for the leaders, who must give up part of their ego. The contributions through participation of all members cumulate to a larger sum than the sum of individual results.
  • Consistency
    The interaction of many interests leads naturally to a wide range of solutions, which even contradict each other in the worst case. For this reason, conditions have to be created that reduce the divergence of the parties to a healthy degree. The well-known fish that stinks from the head has an important exemplary function. Above all, the desired manners have to be put on paper. This applies to the culture with its convictions, values ​​and the collaboration styles, as well as for the established ways of making decisions and agreeing. To ensure that the described behavior is also put into practice, the executives have the responsibility to take ownership of their expectations and to continuously act accordingly. In addition, they affect personally the employees by consistently expressing the common perspective and by coordinating the involved people accordingly. The consistency of statements, behavior and decisions prevent resistance.
  • Mission
    Eventually the clarification of the mission is the formal element in order to be able to cross the door to the new. The formulated snapshot of the future that describes the targeted final stations, shows the raison d’être of the company. Everyone will then develop its idea of the way to the destination. In the interest of joint collaboration, concrete milestones define reference points, which will again and again realign the forces to the common goal. The more the vision, the mission and the strategy are sharpened for the target group, the clearer they lead the employees. The formulated and accessible mission reduces the interpretation space to a minimum.

Bottom line: Even if the world seems to alter on one way or the other, change that is to be done more quickly or more fundamentally, needs efforts in advance. All those affected people must be able and be permitted to adapt themselves. Platforms for participation have to be created. All aspects of the business must be harmonized in a way that uncertainties concerning the right approach are avoided. And above all, a clear direction must be given. However, this has changed nothing yet. But without these aspects changes are almost impossible. Responsible for creating these basic conditions, which are an effort in advance, is the leadership team. Thereafter the actual change follows. From nothing simply nothing comes.