Affording Employees Opportunities for Participation and Involvement

Employees are recognized as the most important resource of contemporary organizations. An organization’s employees are also one of the three primary stakeholder groups that visionary leaders consider when planning for the present and future success of an organization. Employees play a mission-critical role in preparing and positioning an organization for success resulting from gaining and sustaining a competitive advantage. The fact that employees, like other stakeholders, have certain expectations regarding their affiliation with an organization is understandable. While many of these expectations are obvious and include compensation, benefits, and various terms and conditions of employment, an expectation of employees that is often not as obvious is the desire of many, if not most, employees to be afforded appropriate opportunities for participation and involvement in support of an organization’s mission and goals. Providing opportunities for employee inclusion and engagement is “good business” given the working knowledge that employees have about an organization’s operations and customers. Affording employees opportunities to actively participate in preparing and positioning an organization for present and future success typically results in enhanced motivation, empowerment, and retention of employees.