Mixed reaction to worker shares

Press, 16 April 1979, Page 2

Mixed reaction to worker shares

Industrial reporter ! Few Canterbury firms have formal employee involvement schemes such as works councils or profit sharing, and large numbers of employers are either indifferent or opposed to the idea. These appear to be the [main findings of a survey of I all its members by the I Canterbury Employers’ Association. I The association sent out .about 2000 questionnaires at the end of last year after j the parent federation had produced a booklet on I (employee involvement, but! 'only 192 — 12 per cent —; I replied. However, the association; J points out that a majority of! ! its members are small enterprises with only a few employees, and that they may have felt that employee involvement questions were! not relevant to them. Of the 192 replies only 26 had any formal mechanism pf involvement, such as a ; works committee or profit I !sharing scheme. | A further 70 had a comt bination of formal and informal schemes such' as staff representative committees. I The remaining 47.9 per i j cent of the employers who i replied, said they had no 1 form of employee in- . volvement. i To the question on what ; their plans were for the for.seeable future on in- , volvement, 60 of the 192 t said they wanted to start or > continue a scheme, 122 said 1 they had no plans to introduce any scheme, and 10 '! gave no reply. •j In a report on the survey, !; the association says that it 'lshowed that increasing numÜbers of Canterbury companies were practising some inform of employee int I volvement. ; j “They are making deliber- .' ate efforts to communicate ■ i with their staff, and in many instances 1 involving

them in decisions on many aspects of company business that would have been regarded in times past as matters for management alone to decide,” the report says. “Most companies expressed interest in the sensible development of employee - involvement methods developed to suit the particular needs of each company. They were not, however, Impressed by the record„of worker participation schemes, for example in [European and Scandinavian countries where it is now 'evident that legislation and industrial democracy schemes are causing enormous industrial relations; problems. “These same laws and participation schemes that were previously held up as shining examples for the rest of the world to follow seem to have tarnished very quickly. “The message from the (survey is that there is considerable interest among (employers in companies of 'all sizes, especially larger companies, but it is a matter for firms to suit their own needs and aims, to decide for themselves what type of employee involvement they should develop for the future and at what rate they can progress.

“It was a strongly held view that Government involvement is not needed as the concept of increased employee involvement in management is evolving naturally and that Government intervention to promote or enforce involvement schemes would be the worst possible step that could be taken. “To work, involvement of employees in company management must be voluntary and carefully tailored to meet the needs of each particular company,” says the report. | After the Canterbury Employers' Association survey, a national survey of a I cross-section of employers

with a total of 150,000 employees was undertaken by the Employers’ Federation. The findings confirm the main findings of the Canterbury survey that increasing numbers of companies in New Zealand are practising some form of employee involvement. The • national survey achieved a 72 per cent response rate, covering companies employing a total of 150,000 people or 18 per cent of the work-force. The findings are: Almost three quarters of the respondent companies (covering 135,000 employees) [have one or more forms of employee involvement in operation. The most popular forms are staff meetings and consultation committees or works councils. Companies appear to be using information passage through staff meetings and employee annual reports as their first steps of involvement. Larger companies are more active in most fields of structured involvement.