Making My Workplace More Participatory

As an Administrative Assistant of Flooring Ltd, I have always realized that my job is very different than the jobs of my friends who work for minimum wage at such establishments as fast food restaurants and grocery stores.  I have been an employee at Flooring Ltd, which sells and installs all types of flooring (including carpet, tile, and vinyl), for seven years now.  It is a business run out of my aunt and uncle’s home (the co-owners), with the office upstairs in the attic, and the showroom in a garage adjacent to the home.  Flooring Ltd employs eight people that work in the office and showroom (including my aunt and uncle), three warehouse workers, and approximately nine installers.  Therefore, I would classify it as a small business in a competitive market.

I believe my workplace has a Scientific Management organizational structure.  This assumption is based on the fact that my workplace has mostly low (but for some workers, high) autonomy, high role specialization, medium to high standardization, and high centralization.  The employers realize that the office workers are not machines, but rather like to make their own decisions; however, they grant this with some limits.  For this reason, there has been virtually no sabotage or resistance in their 14 years of business.  However, the employers keep a close eye on the installers and warehouse workers, assuming that if they don’t give them a set schedule all of the time, they will simply be lazy and not do the work they are supposed to do.  

In my workplace, there is both high and low autonomy, depending on the worker.  For example, the installers have low autonomy because they are told by the employers when they have to install what flooring for which customer.  The warehouse workers also have low autonomy because they are given a schedule at the beginning of the day of what they are supposed to deliver where, and at what time; they are expected to follow this daily schedule.  However, the office workers have high autonomy (myself included).  We are all allowed to decide when we want to do something, and it is up to us to know when something should or shouldn’t be done.  Upon my own arrival each week, I decide when and if I am going to do certain tasks.  For instance, the showroom gets vacuumed twice a week, but the tile floor in the showroom doesn’t need to be scrubbed as often, and my employers let me decide when it needs to be done.  Also, I get to decide on which days of the week I want to do certain tasks.  For example, if I want to clean the office on Friday instead of Tuesday, I can. 

At Flooring Ltd, there is high role specialization, meaning each worker does not have many tasks to complete, and the only tasks we have knowledge of are the ones that we do ourselves.  For instance, if my sister (who is also employed there) were to go out of town one week, I would not have the knowledge of how to complete many of her tasks.  My weekly tasks are to clean the office and showroom (including dusting, vacuuming, and putting away flooring samples), make the installers’ paperwork, answer the phones, and do filing.  Obviously, these few tasks (all except making paperwork for the installers) are not very complex, which makes me know that I have very high role specialization.  Another example of this is that each installer only installs one specific type of flooring; the carpet installers only install carpet, the vinyl installers only install vinyl, and so on.

I believe that my workplace has medium and high standardization; that is, tasks must be done in the same way each time.  All of the installers and the warehouse workers have high standardization; the installers must install the flooring the same way each time, so each customer is just as satisfied as another.  The warehouse workers must do the same things each day: prepare and deliver the flooring. However, the office workers have medium standardization.  We get to come up with our own routines.  For example, I do have the same tasks to complete over and over, but I get to decide how I want to do them.  For instance, if I see that the desks are not too dusty, I can do a very quick, easy-over job on them, saving a more thorough job for when the desks get very dusty.  For the tile floors, if I don’t feel like scrubbing them every time, I can just use a wet Swiffer on them every other time or so.  However, some of my tasks must be done in the same way each time in order to promote efficiency.  The task that is foremost in this is making the installers’ paperwork, because if I change the way I copy or highlight it, the installers could make a costly mistake to the business in installing the flooring.

My workplace has high centralization, meaning it has a very established system of hierarchy.  My aunt is the President of the company, and my uncle is the Vice President, and they control whom they will hire (or fire), the wages and benefits of their employees, as well as the hours worked and the tasks expected of the employees.  There is also a Warehouse Manager, who is in charge of the other two warehouse workers, and an Office Manager, who takes care of all of the office decisions, ones that my aunt and uncle do not want to deal with themselves.

Although my workplace employs a Human Resource Management organizational structure, it utilizes some Scientific Management techniques, such as time clocks.  It also has some Participatory Management techniques, such as mutual feedback.

Some technology exists in my workplace.  We have the basic technology that any business would, including telephones, computers, printers, and fax machines.  I like my job because we don’t have any Scientific Management technology employed for any of the workers, including time clocks and machines that managers control.  This allows for more worker freedom; because I don’t have a time clock and instead have a time card, where I sign in and sign out myself, I feel like my employers trust me more. 

Overall, the skills required to do my job are very small.  Anyone could learn to clean, answer phones, and do the installers’ paperwork.  For this reason, I sometimes feel that my job is not important to the efficiency of the business, but, overall, I am very satisfied with my job.

In order to solicit participation from the workforce, my workplace would have to incur many changes.  Autonomy would continue to remain high, but the role specialization would have to decrease significantly.  The workers would have to know how to do a variety of tasks; for example, I could learn how to do my sister Amy’s jobs and perhaps some of the Office Manager’s, so in case someone gets sick or has another reason as to why he or she cannot complete his or her task, the jobs will be covered. 

Standardization would also have to decrease.  One simple way for this to happen is for the employers and managers to allow us workers the complete freedom to do whatever tasks we feel the need to do.  When workers know the jobs expected of them, but have little structure as to how they should be completed, this contributes to the making of a Participatory Workplace.

In addition, centralization would have to decrease considerably.  The employers could let us workers contribute to the major decisions about the workplace, including whom to hire and how to improve the efficiency of the business.  Instead of hiding from the installers the prices of the goods charged to customers, this information (as well as information about coworkers’ wages, and the total gross earnings of the business) would be available to all.  Also, if the workplace were to become more participatory, the workers would be allowed and encouraged to communicate more with each other, and there would be no worker segregation.  Because of the three different areas of work (office, installers, and warehouse), these three groups of workers tend to stick to their “own people”.  Instead of this happening, there should be more worker integration and encouraged communication.  This builds inter-work relationships and contributes to low centralization.  This could be done by having social events to integrate the groups, such as work parties and picnics, which would hopefully eventually move into the workplace.

Besides changing the four characteristics of structure (autonomy, role specialization, standardization, and centralization), power and skill would have to be changed in order to allow the workers more voice in the company.  The power would have to become more shared, and the easiest way to do this is to get rid of the managers and the “President” and “Vice President” titles, and instead make these “higher” people equal to the regular workers (like myself) in the business.  Because all of the employees would have just as much say in the business decisions as the employers, this would allow for collective decisions to be made, therefore creating more job satisfaction.  Then, all of the workers would feel as if their input is important to the functioning of the workplace. 

Also, the workplace would have to be changed so as to allow all workers to have the same amount of skill.  Requiring all workers to know the same amount (hopefully the knowledge of how everything works concerning the business) would cause a more participatory workplace because then all workers would be seen as (and see themselves as) a vital part to the success of the business.  This could be done by having “workshops” that teach the employees all aspects of how the business is run, and what things must be done in order to keep the business being successful.  This would cause them to know that they are an important part in the functioning of the business.

In conclusion, I am rather satisfied with my job at Flooring Ltd.  However, there are a variety of things that must be done in order for the workplace to become participatory.  When the aforementioned items are incorporated into the workplace, it would indeed change from Scientific Management to Participatory Management.