The Meaning of Participation to Managers PAULA K. MOWBRAY
DairyProductsInc is a milk and cream processing facility located near one of Australia’s largest capital cities, employing approximately 250 staff. The facility is approximately 60 years old and in need of capital expenditure. However, the site’s new owners are reluctant to spend money on capital upgrades as the site’s future is uncertain, with one major supply contract recently lost and another supply contract up for renewal. In the past six months, the entire senior leadership team has been replaced, with many of the previous managers moving to a nearby dairy processing company. Many of DairyProductsInc’s employees have also left and been employed by the competitor. Given the production downturn, the senior managers from the site were in discussions with staff regarding redundancies. Understandably, many of the employees are concerned about their job security. The new senior management team have held a number of forums to discuss the redundancies with staff and have invited staff to ask questions at the forums. Staff has been told that they can ask their line managers any further questions, and the line managers have been directed to discuss those questions with senior management. Senior management are conscious that the right information is provided to employees and so they want to provide the line managers with the correct response to give their employees. The new senior leadership team is also trying to improve the organisational culture to reflect the culture of the organisation that owns DairyProductsInc. The previous senior managers had a dictatorial leadership style and employees were used to being told what to do, whereas the new leaders are trying to instil an achievement culture into the business and to encourage their employees to contribute to continuous improvement initiatives and to speak up with their ideas to improve DairyProductsInc.

To enable this, a lean manufacturing process has been implemented, with employees working in self-managed teams and expected to be involved in problem-solving issues and finding solutions. One strategy senior leaders is using to encourage employees to speak up and be involved in the process is to walk the shop floor regularly, which they believe helps develop trusting relationships with their employees.
However, many of the staff are dissatisfied with the lean manufacturing process and don’t believe it is their job to make suggestions. It also appears that many of the line managers feel this way and they are not supportive of implementing the lean manufacturing process or encouraging their employees to speak up. The line managers rarely walk the factory floor and, in fact, in some instances it seems that they are afraid to do so. Other line managers appear to engage in horse-play with their employees, modelling what senior managers consider ‘bad behaviour’. Therefore, senior managers see that the interaction and relationships between line managers and their employees seem to be an issue. It has also come to the attention of the senior management that there is a ‘no dobbing’ culture, which means that grievances about other employees are rarely raised and there is reluctance by employees to formalise any grievances. The majority of employees are employed under an Enterprise Bargaining Agreement (EBA), with the exception of middle and senior leaders and some specialist staff, including engineers. The union is mainly involved in negotiations regarding the EBA and issues concerning penalty rates, for example.

There is a consultative committee comprised of union representatives and management, which was in existence long before the new owners bought DairyProductsInc. According to senior management, this channel is not being used effectively and there is a lack of alignment in how the senior management would like the committee to be used and the type of content raised. Senior managers believe that the employee representatives on the consultative committee have been using the mechanism to push their own individual agenda, and to discuss union-related issues, rather than issues related to the site. Accordingly, there was an effort by senior managers to change the content placed on the consultative committee agenda to include more significant and bigger site issues, such as discussing the ramifications of losing the grocery contract. Senior managers also believe there is a lack of understanding of the participation processes by line managers and employees, and knowing which channel should be used to raise particular issues.

This meant that the processes were duplicating each other, rather than being used for their specific purpose and to deal with specific content and issues. The senior managers are considering setting up a roster committee to involve the employees on the floor in designing the roster shift patterns, to cope with the drop in volume. The senior managers hope that this will provide a structured way to get input from employees, but they also want to ensure that any suggestions made are in alignment with the objectives of the business. Therefore, any changes to the roster shift pattern have to be win-win. Given that the viability of the site is in doubt, senior managers want to make sure that this committee is successful but are concerned that line managers and employees will not use this channel as management intended.
Questions
1 Why do you think the employees have been reluctant to speak up and to make suggestions to improve DairyProductsInc?
2 Do you think that senior managers are using the participation channels as a form of management control or are they trying to provide employee autonomy and discretion for the benefit of employees?
3 How could the lean manufacturing process be implemented better so that employees and line managers are more satisfied working in autonomous teams?
4 What should the senior managers do to ensure that the new roster committee is successful and a win-win for both management and employees?