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Module 2
Discover how we "turn on" employees' willingness to participate.
- Do our management practices expand employee involvement?
- Discover practices that cause employees to want to get involved in meaningful, productive ways, improving quality and performance.
If organizations are going to succeed in today's economy, their leaders and managers must involve their employees; they must allow them to "participate" in work-related activities; and that they must "empower" employees as a way of increasing commitment and promoting creativity. Successful employee involvement requires that leaders/managers initiate and maintain the process of involvement and provide access to resources that people need in order to contribute. It is only when involvement is practiced effectively that human commitment and creativity will fuel process improvement.
No one would disagree with these objectives, but a nagging concern remains - How do you do it?
A major component has to be the willingness effectively invite involvement from others allowing them to participate. Willingness, however, is only one part of the process. In promoting employee-involvement, managers actually have two jobs to perform:
- They must initiate and maintain the process of involvement and collaborative practices through effective "Managerial Gatekeeping;"
- They must manage the work structure to provide "access" to the resources (both technical and personal) that people need in order to make opportunities for collaboration meaningful.
This module is centered on the two jobs of "Managerial Gatekeeping" and "Access Management" and is designed to identify the specific practices needed to make involvement meaningful and productive. This module provides an in-depth look at one's personal practices and how these, in turn, impact the involvement process. The emphasis is on individual management practices and their effect on productivity via employee involvement within the workplace.
Module 2 helps to:
- Create opportunities for participation
- Refine interpersonal skills
- Provide support structure for collaboration
Specific Objectives for Module 2:
- To identify the specific "conditions" that must be managed in order to promote and maintain "involvement" within the organization. By doing so, we can move from the abstract to the concrete by pinpointing the specific managerial behaviors, which must be performed to make involvement and empowerment a reality;
- To introduce the organizational and structural concept of "Access Management" and to provide personal feedback on how managers see themselves addressing the issue of "Access Management" in promoting employee involvement;
- To examine feedback from direct reports/co-workers helping the participant focus on specific areas where his or her practices may need to be modified.
- To introduce a tool that can be used during planning meetings with team members to help assure the involvement process will be effective and carry the learning to the real world of work;
- To help participants set S.M.A.R.T. goals related to improving employee involvement practices and form specific action plans related to these goals, turning learning into action.
- To coach participants on how they can conduct a meeting with those who gave them feedback. Participants are encouraged to get together with those co-workers who have rated them in order to share the concepts learned in the module, opening up effective discussion and creating a forum for action planning with their team concerning the subject matter of this module.
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