The Hindu Business Line : Unions among knowledge workers

A look at five positive actions that organisations and employers should take to prevent the potentila need for unions. They should proactively manage the situation rather than not do anything based on the belief that nothing will happen.

Ganesh Chella

Talking about unions among knowledge workers seems as much taboo as talking about sex in public. This is especially true with some of today’s CEOs and HR leaders who have never seen or experienced unions in all their work lives.

In my opinion, not talking about it will not prevent its occurrence. In fact, a healthy discussion will help surface the real issues and dispel some of the myths that surround the subject.

A good way to start this discussion would be to read Albert O. Hirschman’s classic book, Exit, Voice and Loyalty: Reponses to Decline in Firms, Organisations and States (Harvard University Press).

Hirschman argues that members of any organisation have two possible responses when they perceive that the organisation is demonstrating a decrease in quality or benefit to the member: they can exit (withdraw from the relationship); or, they can voice (attempt to repair or improve the relationship through communication of the complaint or grievance).

While exit is associated with free mobility through the market, voice, on the other hand, is by nature political and at times confrontational.

Loyalty represents a feeling of attachment to an organisation and its presence effectively increases the cost of exit.

Loyalty is not seen as faith but as a calculated and somewhat rational behaviour where one believes that “over a period of time, the right turns will more than balance the wrong ones”. Thanks to today’s buoyant labour market, whenever employees are unhappy with what they get, they seem to be using the “exit” option rather than the “voice” or “loyalty” option. In that sense, the labour market has helped diffuse potential problems.

What is making the debate about unions important is the fear that the same extent of free and gainful exit is not likely to be available in the days to come and as a result employees are likely to choose to voice more often and may do so either individually or collectively.

To add to this is the fear that they may also remain loyal, more for reasons of convenience and less for reasons of faith and trust.

It is therefore important for us to understand what we can do to proactively manage the situation rather than not do anything based on the belief that nothing will happen.

I see five clear positive actions that organisations and employers should take to prevent any potential need for unions:

Choicefulness

When employees feel choiceful, they are truly empowered and take personal responsibility.

The most important aspect of this choice relates to career growth. When employees see opportunities for growth they feel choiceful. History is replete with examples of how frustration about lack of opportunities led to unionisation. Even being able to exercise the choice of “exit” is important. Employees can do this only when they remain truly employable.

Contributing to employability is therefore important. With more and more organisations dropping the entry bar and also deskilling, the employability factor might be compromised.

If employees choose to remain loyal and wish to voice, organisations must make it easy and safe for employees to voice. Inability to show dissent can lead to disruptive action.

Balance

Employees must be able to strike a balance between what they are expected to do and what they are capable of doing. Imbalance leads to stress and in the world of knowledge work, the nature of employee stress is a lot more psychological and a lot less physical.

Dave Ulrich uses the term Employee Depression to describe this condition of mismatch between the demands made on employees and the resources made available to them. In fact, in the name of employee engagement, “discretionary e ffort” is quite often demanded! Today’s lack of balance is certainly a cause for concern.

Communication

Communication needs to go beyond the perfunctory group mail or open house by the CEO and must include sharing of business-related information that will help create a sense of pride and responsibility, creation of channels for upward communication and “voice”, creating forums to discuss issues that are inhibiting task accomplishment and mechanisms to help employees “wake up and smell the coffee”. Communication after the start of a conflict is quite often ineffective. Proactive communication, on the other hand, can avoid conflicts.

Fairness

This is a very critical need. Employees need to see fairness in the way work is assigned, performance is evaluated, and pay and rewards are determined. Employees must also see fairness and care in the way working conditions and terms are designed and implemented including hours of work, leave, other policies, physical facilities, and so on. Employees must also experience a physically and psychologically safe workplace. Today’s mindless pursuit of differentiation and poorly implemented performance management systems are potential sources of trouble.

Treatment

Finally, the way the employee is treated by his or her immediate manager can make or break the entire deal. Many difficult employee relations situations can be traced back to a bad manager.

In addition to training managers to manage his or her people with dignity and respect, organisations must also step in swiftly to deal firmly with managers who transgress any of these boundaries. The number of young, inexperienced and untrained managers worries me no end.

The coming days will require leaders to push the agenda of cost, efficiency, productivity and all other aspects of performance much harder. In achieving this, we need to ensure that we also do well on all these five dimensions so we can preserve the gift of freedom and flexibility that we have come to enjoy this far. We certainly cannot keep wishing that all the unhappy employees of the future will choose to “exit” and go elsewhere!

The author is the founder and CEO of totus consulting, a strategic HR Consulting firm. He is also the co-founder of the Executive & Business Coaching Foundation India Limited. He can be reached at ganesh@totusconsulting.com

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