Employee Involvement In Australia Essay

Employee Involvement is referred to as the direct ‘voice’ with individuals or teams of employees which are usually management led. An example of employee involvement could be a single employee going straight to the manager for a concern. This one employee can directly go and ask the manager this question because there are probably other employees that have the same concern (Brewster et al 2007). It is typically thought that all employees and management have shared interest to support the success of the business. To have employee involvement be successful, companies need to know how their employees feel about their work environment, management, and their job as a whole (Beugré 2010). Ways this information can be collected or communicated are

However, it was found that women are more likely to be a trade union member than men (2016). This may because of the problems women face in asserting their authority and left felt unheard. (Belenky et al., 1997). In 2016 25.9% of women were members of a union versus 21.1% of male employees. Although, in 2015 and 2016 there was a 4.2% decline in the amount of employees in the UK there were trade union members. The amount of employees in the private sector in a union fell from 13.9% to 13.4%. This drop could represent employment growth as well as a decline in union membership. In addition to the private sector, the public sector fell from 54.9% to 52.7% in 2016. Overall it was found that older, highly educated, UK-born, middle-income earners, and permanent and/or full time employees are more likely to be union members (UK government - National Statistics, 2017). In general, there has been a growth in “non-unionism”, this is could be a result of an increase in flexible working and zero-hour contracts. Flexible working lets employees determine how long, where, and when they work. While zero-hour contracts are contracts in which the employers is not required to provide a minimum amount of working hours and neither is the employee required to accept any offered work. These types of contracts are especially popular among students and around the holidays. As mentioned previously, temporary or part time workers are less likely to join a union and now that the EU Directive on Information and Consultation requires employers with fifty or more employees to have rules for employee voice (Kaine 2012). Topics for voice including the economic standing of the organisation, developments and/or threats to employment, and changes in work organisation. Workers probably feel less of a need to join a union when they can go straight to their manager to resolve an issue with policies such as these put in