Some organizations integrate employees in decision making process of their goods and services. Discuss the advantages and disadvantages of this.
It is certainly true that some industries involve their staff in crucial decisions regarding various products and services. This engagement inculcates the feeling of ownership along with the threat of divulging vital information and hence is associated with merits as well as demerits.
Firstly, employee participation in valuable decisions not only boosts morale of workers but also gives them a chance to voice their opinion. Therefore, workers consider themselves to be a part of the organization in a heightened manner. For example, many successful companies like Google are already using the strategy. Secondly, industries can utilize the potential of their workforce in an appropriate way, rather than hiring strategic managers with experience to perform the job, since the workers have valuable insights into their workplace. This will provide monetary benefits to the company, which can be used for another purposes.
Nonetheless, not all employees have such expertise and far-sightedness. Therefore, inviting opinion of everyone may lead to lose of valuables time and business. Additionally, involvement in classified decision may raise risk of exposing crucial information to their competitors. For example, Coca Cola lost part of their market share to Pepsi because some of their key staff member leaked important formulae to their rival Pepsi.
To conclude, I opine that employee engagement in arriving at decisions on their end products have many more virtues vis-a-vis drawbacks as is evident from few leading organizations. Nevertheless, such practice should be done with caution to avoid inherent pit falls.