Employee Participation A Myth

Is your company truly worker-involved? Recent research reports gleaned by Cavanaugh, Leahy & Co. Ltd., a consulting firm with offices in Princeton, N.J., and White Plains, N.Y., say no. For example, even though one survey found that 80% of the Fortune 500 companies have established worker involvement, the Work in America Institute research estimates that fewer than 10% of companies have "true participatory management." Similarly, even though 61% of senior managers in another survey said that they thought they did a good job of involving employees in decisions, two-thirds of the non-managerial employees disagreed.