This ends our tour of identifying the correlation between an employee-participatory culture and absenteeism and turnover rates. What we found was that having a culture that focuses on employee involvement relates positively to reduced absenteeism and turnover rates.
This research moved beyond the predominant method of studying employee participation by considering the firm’s culture as a whole. The most common method of research is to compare the absence or presence of mechanisms for participation and see how they relate to factors of production. While it is obviously important to have these mechanisms—because participation can not occur if they are lacking—it is essential to ensure that employees know that the firm values and wants their input.
Understanding the difference between creating the mechanisms necessary for employee participation and the culture needed to ignite contributions from employees is vital to success for a firm. If management of a firm were to embark on a study of how to create a “successful ownership culture,” and if they studied other firms, then some members of management might be apt to study the components. The components would be mechanisms for participation: joint labor/management committees, problem-solving teams, or labor members serving on the board of directors; training: employee orientation, management/supervisor training, or team-building; information: providing financial, safety, or strategic-planning; short-term incentives: gain-sharing, year-end bonuses, or attendance bonuses. Creating these attributes could occur after identifying them within “successful firms.” This approach to implementing employee participation would be but one component of an overall schema.
The difference between implementing employee participation and an employee-participatory culture is phenomenal. Sure enough, a firm must have the above components in order to get an employee-participation model off the ground. However, the next step, if the firm chooses to succeed, is to implement an employee-participatory culture. It is vital to firm victory to know the difference between creating and implementing components of employee participation and implementing an employee-participatory culture.
After reading the prior chapters, it might seem obvious that one needs to implement a culture for participation. However, the point is obviously obscured given that few firms have a culture conducive to contribution. What this seems to illustrate is the difficulty in understanding the minute differences that exist between firms that have profound implications on outcomes.
“La verité reste dans les nuances” (Oakschott 1962). The truth lies within the small little differences that exist between one situation and the next. For example, if members from firm B traverse the corridors of firm A, then they might see that firm A has all of the components necessary for employee participation. What firm B failed to identify is the necessary culture that firm A created that is the igniting spark. Upon firm B’s members returning from firm A, they embark on a magnanimous process of creating the components for employee participation. What firm B failed to identify is the creation of an employee-participatory culture.
The point is best illustrated via an example on transplanting processes from one country to another. A personal friend of mine, who is Macedonian, identified the discrepancy better than I ever could. He stated that many “experts” travel to Macedonia in order to provide the Macedonians with “the model” that will erase all of their problems and get their economy moving in the right direction. These experts tell the political leaders of Macedonia what their problem is, how the model addresses their failures, and provide reams of papers and mountains of numbers to support the model.
What the experts fail to do is to speak to one Macedonian about Macedonia. The Macedonians are a particular people, with a particular history, and understand the world through a specific lens. This lens shapes their understanding and how they view the world. Given that the expert does not even begin to understand the Macedonians as Macedonians, then how can the expert know if a model that works within a particular situation, within a particular time-frame, and within a particular mindset, genre, and framework will operate successfully in Macedonia? The answer is simply that the expert does not and these models continually fail.
Now, the response is generally the same. The experts castigate the implementers for “doing it wrong.” What the experts did, however, was fail to get it right. The outcome is that both wound up losing. Neither side can claim victory.
In understanding how culture impacts firm success, then it is essential to identify the overall argument made within this thesis. The argument is that a firm has a culture. This culture structures how the firm operates. Utilizing a participatory culture as a benchmark tool, the firm either promotes involvement or does not. If the firm promotes participation, then how does that sponsorship correlate with absenteeism and turnover rates? Likewise, how does the failure to promote a participatory culture compare to absenteeism and turnover rates?
An employee-participatory culture is at the heart of this research project. In chapter 2, I identified attributes that need to be present in order for the firm to be labeled as participatory. These points were used as benchmarks within the research portion of the paper. By using these points as guideposts to determine if a firm was participatory or not, one had to make inferences about the culture within a firm.
In order to identify the culture within a firm, I drew upon two bodies of literature: culture and organizational culture. Chapter 3 began by presenting the research of investigators who identified geographical-based cultures. By presenting their findings, we became more familiar with the concept of culture and what an investigation of culture entails. The next section within chapter 3 concerned itself with studying culture within organizations. The main point established was that organizational culture is important, but it is difficult to ascertain. However, by combining these two fields of study, then organizational culture becomes possible through inference.
Inference is the main tool employed by investigators who study geographical-based cultures, and its properties were employed within this project. Given that organizational-culture research states that identifying an organizational culture is difficult, none of the authors provide a mechanism for doing so, and only one, Tichy, establishes guidelines for studying an organization; it was necessary to utilize the tools of culture researchers to identify the culture within the firms.
The basic premise of inference is one interprets statements so as to make generalizations. Asking someone to identify the culture in which they live/work is useless given that most people are unable. To overcome this stumbling block, a researcher determines where and how people place importance. By identifying where and how people place importance, then a researcher can ascertain the values that are held in esteem. The importance of identifying values, knowing to what people aspire, and the importance that management should place on this process is best said by Tichy.
One of the most important and difficult tasks of top management is to decide the content of the organization's culture; that is, to determine what values should be shared, what objectives are worth striving for, what beliefs the employees should be committed to, and what interpretations of past events and current pronouncements would be most beneficial for the firm. Having made these decisions, management's next task is to communicate these values in a memorable and believable fashion which will not be instantly forgotten or easily dismissed as corporate propaganda (Tichy 1983, 133).
The process of identifying a culture is difficult, but through inference it becomes possible. Now, distinguishing one culture from another is not some hodge-podge endeavor that one should take lightly. Therefore, Tichy’s roadmap to studying an organization is employed so as to proceed as carefully and meticulously as possible. First, we need an instrument that measures the culture within a firm. The instrument utilized is that of a survey. The respondents of the survey are human-resource managers. The questions posed and answers presented reveal the type of culture within a firm. Tichy would call this type of evaluation of a firm a “radar scan.” The instrument provides a quick understanding of the organization.
Second, we need to utilize benchmark standards with which we can evaluate the responses made. The benchmarks, the characteristics of an employee-owned culture identified in chapter 2 and presented above, provide direction and allow a researcher to evaluate responses provided from the survey against a priori established guidelines.
Third, we need a method of investigation. The method of investigation is to utilize a multi-faceted approach that provides a quantitative and qualitative assessment. The quantitative assessment highlights conventional similarities and relationships between two variables. For example, how does gain-sharing correlate to absenteeism rates? The qualitative approach reveals the underlying values that permeate the firm. By using the techniques employed by investigators of culture, a researcher can infer a culture. By considering all responses in connection with one another, then certain, overall, relationships begin to emerge.
As found predominantly in chapter 4 and throughout the thesis, absenteeism and turnover rates should be a substantial concern for any firm. From the example that I gave in the introduction and subsequently revised in chapter 4, a first with 250 employees that experiences a turnover of 7% would have a resultant cost of $1.4 million. Ignoring these costs, which is what many researchers state that most firms do especially in terms of computing the costs associated with the issue, is like disregarding an elephant in the living room. There is this huge issue right in front of everyone, but discounting it will not make the issue disappear or go away on its own. If the elephant is comfortable, then it will stay.
From chapter 4, what also became apparent is that there is a connection between an employee-participatory culture and reduced absenteeism and turnover rates. At the basic core, the argument is that organizations that care about their employees have employees that care about their organization. A manifestation of that caring is that there is a reduction in intentions to withdraw from the firm, and the employee is more likely to be present at work and remain with the company.
To determine whether or not the firm created the environment conducive to caring, I evaluated firms quantitatively and qualitatively. This entailed performing two types of analyses on the firm—both shed light on the culture within the firm. However, when comparing components of employee participation to absenteeism and turnover rates, the link was tentative at best. As explored in the introduction, comparing a set of independent variables to a set of dependent variables usually offers little insight into the affairs of the organization. Rather, one must grapple with the overall structure of the firm. The point is that researchers should focus on general conditions in a firm and determine relationships between organizational stressors or alleviators and their impact on organizational factors of production.
Through qualitative analysis, looking at the culture elucidated the hidden relationships that quantitative analysis would fail to find. What was discovered is that organizations can have the components necessary for employee participation, but only those firms that have an employee-participatory culture have low rates of absenteeism and turnover.
The conclusion reached as a result of this research is having a participatory culture correlates to low absenteeism and turnover rates. Likewise, NOT having a participatory culture shows a relationship to increased rates of absenteeism and turnover. However, there are several types of cultures identified via the analysis. The most striking eye-opener was the identification of sub-cultures within the non-participatory category.
The demarcation between non-participatory and draconian and underminer became apparent based, largely, from the hand-written responses and how respondents answered on questions that identified the importance of involvement. Based on a review of each survey, I began to realize that some firms provide the components of participation but fail to have a culture conducive to participation. The delineation between underminer and draconian further exemplifies the difference between them and merely being non-participatory.
Firms in the underminer category are there because they are doing something that hinders participation and involvement. The most striking and hard-hitting point discovered is that these firms have all of the necessary ingredients, but they are engaging in behavior that thwarts participation. A common occurrence in the review is that the firm provides all training listed, shares information, and maintains NO mechanisms for participation. Imagine having all of this knowledge and no place to exercise it. However, if the firm does provide the mechanisms for participation, then they obstruct involvement in other ways. The comments reveal that the firms often consider the employees of little value or state that the employees attempt to engage in too much “participation.” Respondent 33 was the best example of firms within this category when the firm representative responded to the question, “What is the single largest human resource challenge facing your company?”: “How we balance Employee ownership and Employee participation. Without giving the wrong impression to employees about the amount of control employees have on day to day operations.”
The “draconian-management” firm makes explicit that the firm is in charge and the employee is an absolute nuisance. The comments made within the surveys clarify the distinction between these types of firms and others. Consider respondent 18 who actually took the time to write in the words, “f) none” under “vehicles for employee involvement and participation.” Or respondent 11 who ensured that the recipient of the survey knew that the employees did not vote into the affairs of the firm by writing, “No Employee Voting,” to the question: “Which best describes your company’s voting structure?” after circling that the “trustee votes all issues.”
The final category presented is that of the employee-participatory culture. The characteristics of these firms may be similar to other firms, but they have that special spark that makes the whole thing work. The elements of a participatory culture are that the firm provides training, shares information, and maintains mechanisms for contribution. While these types of arrangements may exist in other firms, the necessary spark is a continual focus on ensuring that employees know that participation is accepted, wanted, and promoted. The benefits of a participatory culture seem to be that the firm could move beyond scrambling for people and consider other issues. Instead of scrambling just to ensure survival for day-to-day operations, the focus is on where are we going as a company? What do we need to do in order to stay ahead of the crowd? What are we doing now that prepares us for the future? The hand-written responses demonstrate that the human-resource role can be more than hiring people. This is well expressed in the absenteeism and turnover rates. The benefits of a participatory culture are reduced absenteeism and turnover rates. However, the benefits extend beyond reduced absenteeism and turnover rates. Having employees focused on issues other than that which should be their primary focus, in this case the human-resource managers concerning themselves with issues other than recruitment and retention, is a real achievement. These employees are owners in the true sense. They have moved beyond the issues and wondering whether or not a task is part of their “job description.” The people who work in these types of firms constantly have their eye on the ball. They concern themselves with running a business—as owners.
The benefits of being in the participatory category are astronomical. Consider the feeling of relief in coming to work and wanting to be there. The business papers fill column after column about how to keep employees happy. The key to unlock the door is simple—bring them into the business.
The greatest benefit to management is the ability to focus on issues other than just keeping things going. How many times have we all said: “If I had just a little more time, then I could do the following ________.” The same type of reasoning applies here. Having people work together frees up time for other endeavors. The concerns that confront a participatory firm are how to grow, have employees become more involved within the affairs of the firm, getting employees to think like owners, benefit costs, or health-care costs. The human-resource managers were able to see beyond the routine stressors of finding and retaining employees. They were able to be owners.
The reduction in stress is considerable. People can move beyond damage control and become proactive. The shift of focus from where is the next fire going to be to affairs that affect the business outside of the walls of the firm is beneficial to the firm in terms of health and viability. Simply put, firms that can plan and take appropriate action before danger strikes have a greater likelihood of surviving and growing.
From the perspective of the employee, the firm that creates an employee-participatory culture is one that tells the employee, both verbally and non-verbally, “You matter.” Hired hands who do not care are easy to find. A firm can hire a deadbeat quickly. All firms want employees to create value for the firm. However, from the employee’s perspective, the employee wants to work in a place where the value created is reciprocal. How many people want to be abused? Barring the sad cases where people seek caustic environments, most people avoid offensive circumstances.
The gain to fostering an environment of employee involvement is like a circle inscribed on a horizontal surface. There are neither drawbacks nor declines and then up-swings. Rather, there is a continual infusion of strength garnered from employees and the firm. This reciprocating environment continually feeds itself such that both employee and firm are strengthened and achieve their fullest potential.
As we, the human race, advance, we constantly become aware of our own limits. Individually, we detest this notion. All of us, independently and often in isolation, realize that we cannot do much on our own. At some point, we face the sad realization of our own limits and detest just how minuscule we really are. Just a microcosm away is awareness. This knowledge is that collectively we are able to realize great things. By working together, we can land on the moon, Mars, or one of several of Jupiter’s moons. We can build steam engines in the beginning of the century, and we can map the surface of the ocean floor through satellite imagery in the latter half of the same century. In little less than a few centuries, we can move from discovering what is a cell to performing gene therapy. In less than a half-of-a-century, we can go from wondering what it would be like to speak on a device that carries our voice across great distances to wondering what it would be like to imprinting circuit boards utilizing nanotechnology.
While a percentage of people will work on such lofty projects, the everyday person makes a contribution knowingly or unknowingly. Additionally, only through a corroborative effort were such people as Neal Armstrong able to say, “One small step for man. One giant leap for mankind.” Consider the number of people necessary for one person to land on the moon. The engineering team at NASA is huge. However, the accountants, clerks, administrators, secretaries, metallurgists, or janitors are all necessary members of a team that create the conditions necessary for astronauts to venture into space. We are all members of a team. It is up to the organization to determine if it will go to the moon, Mars, or Jupiter.