This document discusses how organizations need to adapt to changes in the modern workplace, such as globalization, workforce diversity, and changing skill requirements. It argues that organizations must make their employees more productive through effective employee involvement strategies. These include delegation, participative management, work teams, goal setting, employee training, quality circles, and employee empowerment. It provides details on how these concepts work, such as having employees participate in decision-making, setting goals, and working in teams to complete complex projects. The overall message is that employee involvement is key to improving productivity and adapting to changes in the modern workplace.

1. The changing world of work
K.Vijay Anand
Associate Professor
Electronics and Instrumentation Engineering Dept.
R.M.K Engineering College
kva.eie@rmkec.ac.in

2. The changing world of work
• Globalisation
• Work force diversity
• Changing skill requirements
• Corporate downsizing
• Continuous improvement initiatives
• Reengineering
• Contingent work force
• Decentralized work sites

3. What must organisations do to adapt to
this changing environment?
• They need to make their employees more
productive- effective and efficient
• To be productive, employee involvement is a
must.
What is employee involvement?
A participative process that uses the entire capacity
of employees and is designed to encourage
increased commitment to the organisation's
success.

4. Employee involvement concepts
• Delegation
• Participative management
• Work teams
• Goal setting
• Employee training
• Quality circles
• Employee stock ownership plans
• Employee empowerment

5. The process of delegation
• Determining the results expected from a
position.
• Assigning task to a position.
• Delegating authority for accomplishing
these task.
• Holding the person in that position
responsible for accomplishing the task.

6. Participative Management
• A process in which subordinates share a
significant degree of decision making
power with their immediate superiors.
• It has been promoted as a panacea for poor
morale and low productivity.
For participative management to work- the
issues in which employees get involved
must be relevant to their interest-must have
the competence and knowledge to make
useful contribution-there must be trust and
confidence between all parties involved.

7. The work teams
Team work means working together-generates positive
synergy through coordinated efforts. Individuals
from different specialisation in an organisation are
increasingly required to work together to
successfully complete complex projects.
The organisations give them more freedom, as a result
they are in a better position to achieve the desired
ends
Types of teams
• Problem solving teams
• Self-managed teams
• Cross functional teams
• Virtual teams
Case of IBM and Ford

8. Goal setting
If employees have the oppurtunity to
participate in the setting of their own
goals, will they try harder?
Research indicates that individual goal
setting doesn’t work well on all task.It is
also true that if people participate in goal
setting they are more likely to accept even
a difficult goal than if they are arbitrarily
assigned by their boss.

9. Quality Circles
The quality circle concept is frequently
mentioned as one of the techniques that
japanese firms use that has allowed them
to make high quality products at low cost.
It’s a work group of 8 to 10 employees and
supervisors who have shared area of
responsibility. They meet regulary –
typically once a week ,on company time
and on company premises to discuss their
quality problems ,investigate causes of the
problems,recommend solutions and take
corrective actions.

10. Quality Circles
It is not presumed that employees
inherently have this ability to
analyse and solve quality problems
,therefore part of the quality circle
concept includes teaching
participants,about group
communication skills,various quality
strategies and measurement and
problem analysis technique.