Employment Relations Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Employment Relations - Essay Example Therefore, this present study seeks to critically evaluate this premise in order to establish whether it is a valid truth or not. While evaluating this statement, relevant theories and evidence with respect to the different formats of employee involvement and participation will be looked analysed, and additionally, some quote examples will be presented in order to illustrate the arguments presented within the paper. To begin with, it is critical to define the three key terms that appear on the title of this essay and this include employee involvement, which has been described by Blyton and Turnbull (2004), as the creation of an environment within the workplace whereby employees have an impact on the actions and decisions that relate with their roles and responsibilities. Bach (2005) on his part described employee involvement as the equal participation of workers in the decision making of how work is to be done, improvement of work performance, setting of objectives, planning and moni toring of their work performance. Secondly, Blyton and Turnbull (2004) described employee participation as a part of employee involvement that is intended to provide workers with the opportunity to influence and in certain circumstances play an active role in the decision making process of issues that affects them. As for employee empowerment, Ezzamel and Willmott (1998) simply defined it as a manipulation tool or management control that is critical in the attainment of full organisational potential. Alternatively, Bach (2005) described employee empowerment as management strategies for sharing decision-making power between the management and the employees. Employee involvement and participation does not empower employees It is noted that in the writings by Bach (2005) the term ‘empower’ means giving power to another party and hence giving the same party some form of independency. The statement suggests that employee do not gain power through involvement and participatio n in the work processes that includes the decision making process. Edwards and Wajcman (2005) lamented that the acts of involvement and participation do not transfer power to the employees. This is because it is still the powerful managers who get to decided and even design how employees will be involved in the actions and decision that relate to their job and to what extent they can participate in the decision making process within an organisation. Therefore, from the simple fact that powerful managers are the ones who get to set the extent or design of employee involvement and participation it definitely means that employees do not even have an actual power in their involvement and participation since it is the managers who set these on their own terms. From the definition of the term employee involvement and participation, it is evidently clear that in the strategies, employees are only meant to contribute or state their opinions or views regarding matters that affect their jobs. Therefore, it is not as if they are taking full charge of matters affecting their jobs, which could have meant that they are fully empowered through involvement and participation. Hyman and Mason (1995) further added that by contributing to a process it means that one does not have full control over the process. With reference to the writings by Lashley (2001), he argued that in the current