1. Employees elected by colleagues to sit on the board of directors.
2. Total quality management
2.1. A committee by management and employees to continuously promote and encourage quality in all aspects of a firm’s operations. All employees work together to create high quality goods and services for consumers.
2.1.1. TQM principals
2.1.1.1. Focus on consumers
2.1.1.2. Employee empowerment
2.1.1.3. Quality assurance
2.1.1.4. Teamwork
2.1.1.5. Continuous improvement
3. Employee empowerment
3.1. Management gives employees a certain amount of independence and responsibility for decision-making in the business. This enables employees to make decisions on behalf of the business without needing permission
3.1.1. Invest in training
3.1.1.1. Ensure employees have the skills to make decisions on behalf of the business.
3.1.2. Rewards
3.1.2.1. Offer financial and non-financial rewards to encourage employees to take on more responsibility.
3.1.3. Trust
3.1.3.1. Create a culture of trust where management believes in the abilities of staff.
3.1.4. Control mechanism
3.1.4.1. Management must be able to monitor empowered staff to ensure that any errors can be quickly rectified.
4. Employee participation
4.1. Work councils
4.1.1. As a part of EU directive, employees with at least 1,000 staff across Europe have the right to set up work councils.
4.2. Work directors
4.3. Employee share purchase plan
4.3.1. Employees can buy shares at a reduced price.
5. Teamwork
5.1. Stages in team formation
5.1.1. 1. Forming
5.1.2. 2. Storming
5.1.3. 3, Norming
5.1.4. 4. Performing
5.2. Benefits of teamwork
5.2.1. Greater employee motivation
5.2.2. Improved communication skills
5.2.3. Better decision making
5.2.4. Faster task completion
6. Reasons for change in a business
6.1. Technology
6.1.1. The introduction of new technology (such as CAD,CAM, and CIM) has increased the speed of production. Technology also allows firms to promote and sell their goods as well as enable faster communication in the workplace.
6.1.1.1. Technology can have both negative and positive impacts for the business it has large capital costs and it requires employee training however it also can reduce business costs as it improves quality and can lead to staff redundancies.
6.2. Employees
6.2.1. Changes in education and skill level of employees had created a need for greater flexibility in the workplace (e.g. teleworking), more varied rewards (e.g. job enrichment), and more interesting and challenging work
6.3. Consumers
6.3.1. Consumers today have more complex demands than consumers in the past, businesses must be able to reacte to such demands (e.g. consumer taste
6.4. Laws
6.4.1. New national and EU laws can change the way businesses operate (e.g. environmental laws)
6.5. Competitors
6.5.1. Businesses must monitor changes introduced by competitors (e.g. new/improved goods and services)
7. Resistance to change
7.1. Fear of Failure
7.1.1. Employees may be afraid they will not be able to cope with changes in the workplace (e.g. introduction of new procedures)
7.2. Redundancy
7.2.1. Employees may feel the change will result in redundancy (e.g. new machinery replacing workers)
7.3. Loss of Control
7.3.1. Change to a regular routine can make an employee feel they are losing control of their work life
7.4. Laziness
7.4.1. Some employees will resist change as it requires them to learn a new system in the workplace.
8. Overcoming resistance to change
8.1. Open communication
8.1.1. Management must communicate honestly about the reasons for change
8.2. Employee involvement
8.2.1. Employees should be encouraged to express their opinions.
8.2.2. Management must show employees that they believe in the benefits of change
8.3. Leading by example
8.4. Training
8.4.1. Staff should be given adequate training to provide them with the skills needed for certain change in the business.