Worker Participation and Plant‐wide Incentive Systems
| Pages | 35-38 |
| Published date | 01 March 1977 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/eb055339 |
| Date | 01 March 1977 |
| Author | M.P. Marchington |
| Subject Matter | HR & organizational behaviour |
Worker Participation and
Plant-wide Incentive Systems
M P Marchington
Senior
Research
Officer in Industrial
Relations,
University
of Aston Management
Centre
Abstract
Worker participation in management remains a subject of
much interest, particularly as legislation may well be expected
in the near future. With most of the literature and the par-
ticipative systems in operation, the understanding of the sub-
ject
is
severely limited by a concentration on providing oppor-
tunities for the individual to participate without considering
how he may be rewarded for so doing. Since participation is
expected to increase efficiency, the distribution of increased
rewards
is
clearly very important to the individual. This paper
considers one particular plant-wide incentive system as a
possible adjunct to worker participation. The system is
described and then assessed. Despite several drawbacks, the
final conclusion is that such schemes are worthy of recon-
sideration since they are more congruent with employee
involvement than more traditional systems.a
Introduction
Despite the numerous articles that have been written on the
subject, the concept of worker participation still continues to
attract a great deal of interest. Indeed, as all parties assess the
final report of the Bullock Committee, this interest seems to
be increasing.1
As with most of the 'basic' literature on the subject,2 these
recent analyses centre around a consideration of the various
mechanisms available for involving employees (and their rep-
resentatives) in the process of management decision-making.
Occasionally there is a suggestion that employees may not be
concerned about participating in decision-making3 but rarely
does this lead on to a discussion of
why
there may be a lack of
interest, and never to suggestions for increasing this interest.
If there is a likelihood of legislation in this field, and most
parties feel there is - then it becomes increasingly important
to examine this particular topic.
So,
why do employees show a lack of interest? Ramsay
suggests that some of
this
may be due to management's unwil-
lingness 'to allow genuine discussion of critical issues' 4 and
this is certainly supported by our own observations of par-
ticipative machinery in operation. Conversely, managers we
have interviewed tend to place the blame more with the
employees for their failure to conceive of organizational
issues in more than a short term calculative manner, resulting
in an inability to offer useful suggestions.
Both points are, of course, related and provide us with
another
view.
That
is,
that conventional participation schemes
are overwhelmingly concerned with setting up machinery
aThis work is part of a larger research project being undertaken at
Aston under the supervision of Professor Ray Loveridge. The study is
concerned with examining the processes accompanying changes from
traditional collective bargaining machinery to schemes of employee
participation. The author would like to thank Grovewood Products
Limited for their help and cooperation in the research to date.
providing opportunities for the individual to participate in
decision-making and never with offering rewards for par-
ticipating; the systems at Chrysler and British Leyland are of
just this type. The literature on the subject is equally lacking
since most definitions concentrate specifically on a sharing in
the reaching of managerial decisions.b
One underlying assumption of all systems of employee par-
ticipation - and particularly those introduced primarily by
managements - is an anticipated increase in organizational
efficiency produced by an increased flow of ideas, more com-
prehensive discussion of alternatives and a greater degree of
acceptance of final decisions. However, if efficiency is to be
improved, the question that automatically arises is to whose
benefit? That of employees as a whole or that merely of the
shareholders?
Consequently, scepticism is understandable among employ-
ees,
whose link with the organization is primarily calculative,
based on an effort-reward bargain.c Since they can anticipate
no reward for extra effort in participating, it is not surprizing
that they show no great interest in these schemes.
Of course, there are exceptions, such as Scott Bader, but this
scheme is unusual in that employees, due largely to their skill
level and rural background, identify strongly with the objec-
tives of the organization;5 their involvement with the organ-
ization is, in Etzioni's terms,6 moral rather than calculative.
For most firms, however, the latter situation is more general
and, therefore, schemes based on a moral involvement are
likely to fail; only by relating systems to current attitudes do
they stand any chance of relative success. As Strauss and
Rosenstein note:
a major reason for the failure of many participation
schemes is their tendency to place emphasis on psy-
chological rewards exclusively. Those plans which have
elicited the most worker interest are those which give the
promise of improving the workers' material rewards.
Perhaps a direct pay-off would make participation more
successful.7
This sets the theme for the rest of the paper; firstly traditional
definitions will be analysed in order to show the generally
narrow approach, and then one particular scheme integrating
participation and plant-wide incentives will be discussed, with
some regard to the disadvantages associated with this system.
What is Worker Participation?
Most definitions follow a similar pattern and can be related to
the various concepts of, say, influence or control possessed by
the employees over the decision-making processes in the
organization. For example, Clarke et al regard participation
as
'including any process whereby workers ... have a share in
bSee
below,
where the definitions are examined in more
detail.
cExcept,
perhaps,
for
organizations such as Scott Bader which is
pre-
dominantly Quaker based and has
a
rural
workforce.
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