WORKPLACE : Corporate America Learns to Listen to Workers : Today’s Employees Expect to Share Decision-Making With Management

Talk to me. Better yet, listen to me.

Sounds pretty simple. Yet many companies, whose approach has been to run dictatorships rather than democracies, find it hard to communicate with employees and involve them in decision-making.

Often the problem is that the boss has a closed-door policy. Or employees are discouraged from developing their own ideas about their jobs and the company. Or, worst of all, the company thinks that it has policies to promote communication when nothing could be further from reality.

But unstoppable forces such as changing technology, the crumbling of boundaries between industries and intense competition are causing an increasing number of companies to listen up these days. And employees are demanding to be heard.

“There’s a whole new kind of work force that has high expectations of being listened to,” said Allan Cohen, professor of management at Babson College in Wellesley, Mass. “It’s a new model of leadership built on shared responsibility and teams.”

Some of this shift toward encouraging employee input showed up in a recent survey done by Wyatt Co., an independent consulting firm.

For example, 36% of companies now consider themselves to be moving toward more participative workplaces, up from 18% three years ago. In 1986, 70% of managements considered their decision-making style to be from the top down, while now only 60% do. And 50% are paying attention to employee input to help make decisions, as well as to prevent problems rather than react to them.

Several Ways Used

“Participative management is definitely a trend,” said Robert Ellis, a communications consultant with Wyatt. “It really is happening. Employers are asking employees for their input, and they are actually doing something with that information.”

For some companies, this involves written communication on pay, benefits and performance. But more effective is a mix of formal and informal communication that includes managers who make it their business to walk around and mine employees for information. Some schedule breakfast meetings with the chief executive. Some conduct “audits” of employee attitudes that take their temperature on a variety of issues.

United Technologies Corp., for example, built its 1987 annual report around its employees’ accomplishments. Chairman Robert F. Daniell told shareholders that the “people of UTC” are “being encouraged to take the initiative, to make suggestions, to contribute in their own way to the bottom line.”

Five years ago, United Technologies started a program called PERL--positive employee relations leadership. Combined with leadership training, the point of PERL is to “create an atmosphere where workers are comfortable making suggestions and pointing out problems to their supervisors,” said Kenneth Turpin, manager of employee communications.

Easier said than done for most companies. In fact, the problem with most employee communication programs is that they’re either condescending to employees or they concentrate more on form than substance.

The most successful attempts, experts say, are those that improve productivity and performance and, in the process, make employees feel rewarded and positive.

Made Major Changes

UTC recognizes employee efforts with awards such as the one it gave to Carrier, one of its divisions, for a facility in Ellijay, Ga., that launched two products in one year.

Some companies, such as USG Corp., become believers after they fend off a raider or go through a restructuring.

USG went to a more decentralized form of management after beating back two takeover attempts. The company got rid of a slick internal magazine and went to a bimonthly tabloid that goes out to all employees. Everybody now gets the same medical and pension plan. A new profit-sharing plan was put in for all workers. One-on-one communication is encouraged between managers and workers.

“If we are to be successful . . . we need everyone pulling in the same direction,” said H. E. Pendexter Jr., USG vice president of human resources. “It’s just a more open climate.”

But even companies that have been working at it for a long time find cutting employees in on the action can be painful.

“When you get used to being able to decide without having to listen and the corporate culture reinforces the idea of control, it’s painful,” said professor Cohen, who helps companies learn how to communicate internally.

Indeed, much of the success of new communication programs is tied to managers, some of whom are now being evaluated on how well they communicate.

“We recognize that change is difficult,” said United Technologies’ Turpin. “But middle management is beginning to accept that this is here to stay.”