Who Gains from Workplace Partnership?
Instinct tells you that employee-employer partnerships are usually win-win arrangements. By workplace partnerships I mean: profit and gain sharing programs; policies that maximize employee security; extensive employee and union consultation; joint problem solving and planning; and flexible forms of job design.
The critical view of workplace partnership is that, far from yielding mutual gains, such arrangements inevitably benefit employers more than employees or unions.
While there is anecdotal evidence that employer-dominated partnerships exist, the weight of research over the years shows positive performance outcomes from most forms of employer-employee partnerships. The latest bit of news comes from William Roche, an Irish academic. Roche was commissioned by Ireland’s National Centre for Partnership and Performance to conduct a telephone survey of more than 5,000 employees in Ireland, asking, Who gains from workplace partnership?
Roche found there are indeed mutual gains, with the same results in both union and non-union workplaces.
Employees: Gains in work autonomy, information provision, job satisfaction, and fairness. No gains in employment security or hourly earnings.
Employers: Gains in organizational commitment and quality of managerial/supervisory relations. No gains in employees’ willingness to accept change.
Unions: Gains in member commitment, influence, and likelihood of union membership. No gains in perceptions of union effectiveness. Roche does have sobering news on this front: “Ominously for trade unions, organizational commitment is found to be negatively associated with union commitment.”
Who Gains from Workplace Partnership?; William K. Roche; The International Journal of Human Resource Management (vol. 20, no. 1, 1-33)
Email me for a copy of this paper: Alan [at] AlanMorantz.com
