Get Your Employees Participating to Help Steer the Business Through the Tough Times

Employee participation is a tried and true path to enhancing productivity. All (and I mean all) staff have ideas about their job. OK, so some of them might not be so good but others are good and some might be fantastic. Chances are they will also have ideas about how other staff in the business can contribute more effectively, and probably about how the managers could get on with it.

In my experience, there’s buckets of value in staff ideas. The challenge is getting the constructive ones out in the open. It’s not just a matter of putting a suggestion box on the wall prefaced with a big announcement. You actually have to work hard to get valuable ideas.

Fundamentally, there needs to be a culture which supports participation. People need to know that their ideas are important, and that their ideas MUST be important.

And important contributions must be valued by the company .  When found they must be moulded into concrete outcomes – processes, actions and behaviours which change the way work is done.

Sometimes managers are afraid that encouraging employees to contribute ideas about work will undermine their own status.  These managers are control freaks who want to be seen as the sole responsible driver of their business outcomes.  They put themselves under a lot of pressure to all the decisions without real coal face knowledge.  If your a control freaks are often perceived as arrogant when they really lack perspective and confidence.   And in the end they lose control.  When staff learn that their manager is a control freak they start side-stepping him/her to get the things done vital to their job.   

The best managers in my experience searched their staff for issues and ideas, recognised the good ones and set about moulding them into concrete action.  They quizzed and prodded staff with problems, what ifs and vital outcomes.  Sometimes things would get pungent as staff argued the pros and cons of every detail.  The great manager kept them on track, sometimes road blocked stupidity and enforced rigorous goal directed thought.  In the end they always gave credit to the staff who divined and nurtured the idea.  Idea ownership was a secondary issue for them.  Their ego and survival depended on outcomes.

Most importantly, the staff loved making a contribution – it gave them purpose, made them feel valued – that they belonged.

So if the your business is finding tough, reach in and share it with everyone.  Get them to take responsibility for coming up with the solutions and coach their participation to success.