New Organization
Opens Doors to Improving
Employee-Employer Relations

Several years ago a group of management and labor practitioners met to discuss their frustrations with the inefficiency and high cost of resolving problems in the workplace. Their search to find a "better way" led to the formation of The Workplace Institute, based in Sacramento.

Challenges to Meet

Dramatic shifts have been occurring in and around the American workplace, and change has become the order of the day. The focus of our economy has moved from national to global. Market demands for products and services have moved at dizzying speed. The nature of work itself has changed, with jobs involving greater complexity and use of high technology.

The workplace typical of past eras, where employers and employees relate as adversaries, is utterly unable to cope with requirements of today. Many employees feel disconnected and disaffected. Waves of downsizing have often caused those remaining in their jobs to live in fear of the next round while bearing greater demands as a diminished workforce. Workers' compensation claims and workplace violence are on the rise. Prolonged bickering and disputes over "rights" cost all parties involved a great deal of money and time. Employers may end up unable to deliver products or services of sufficient quality and quantity, become less competitive, and even go out of business. Our experience shows this to be especially true in the agricultural industry, where change has become commonplace.

Such developments call for new approaches to workplace relations. A few workplaces on the forefront of change illustrate new models that successfully rise to the challenge. At the core of these models is the development of more collaborative relationships, partnerships between employers and employees. An engaged and committed workforce, together with managers who highly value the human resources they employ, create a synergy that breeds exceptional success.

Innovations in Response

Transforming a traditional workplace is a major undertaking. But American employers, both unionized and not, have innovated to revitalize their organizations. In the non-union sector, a growing number of companies, including Intel, Packard Bell, Motorola and others, have developed participative management styles and successfully introduced programs under such names as "continuous improvement," "TQM," and "self-directed work teams." However, other companies have failed in similar programs because they did not adequately address fundamental relationship issues.

In the unionized sector, a few companies and unions have dramatically departed from the historic rut of labor-management confrontation. Recognizing that the adversarial model of labor-management relations developed in the 1930s no longer served employees or managers well, they found more common than diverging interests and accepted that the ability for a business to compete is key to both profitability for owners and job security for employees. Managers and union leaders in these companies have become partners to improve competitiveness in the global marketplace. Significant examples are the Saturn Corporation, NUMMI, Xerox Corporation, Cinmade Corporation, and Harley-Davidson, working with unions such as the United Auto Workers, the United Paper Workers, and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers.

Developers of successful innovations in all these companies share a few fundamental premises. They recognize that the workplace is a living system and a community, and that people are inherently intelligent, creative, adaptive, and self-organizing. They understand that management systems and workplace relationships that respect these facts will be more effective that those that do not, and that the hierarchical model of workplace organization typifying the American workplace for the last two centuries has stifled workplace creativity and collaboration. They also recognize the need for a new relationship compact that effectively makes employees partners in the enterprise, sharing decision making and sometimes even business risks and profits.

Learning from Experience

There is much to be gained from documenting, analyzing and sharing results of efforts by innovative companies and unions to develop participative management structures and labor-management cooperation. Other companies and employee groups who are ready and willing to try a different way can be guided by lessons from successful as well as unsuccessful experiments. They need to know what skills and approaches have built effective working relationships, what change efforts have failed, and why.

The federal government has joined those who see the need for workplace innovations. In recent years the U.S. Department of Labor established the Commission on the Future of Worker-Management Relations and the Office of the American Workplace. The Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service has been promoting the use of non-adversarial workplace relations and offering assistance in this area. Some of the most successful initiatives, however, have not involved government help. For example, the private California Foundation for Improvement of Employer-Employee Relations (CFIER) has midwifed the creation of innovative labor-management partnerships in California school districts.

Needs in this area far exceed assistance available. Managers and employee leaders in California often want to obtain help uncomplicated by concerns about a provider's pecuniary agenda or fear of government involvement. They need resources for skills development, ideas and encouragement, and means for connecting with each other and with people who have expertise in creative labor-management relations. The Workplace Institute is such a resource.

Building New Skills and Relationships

Innovations in some companies amount to no less than a complete change of the workplace culture - a shift in the paradigms or mental pictures which underlie management-employee relationships. Fundamental shifts like this are accomplished slowly and seldom smoothly. They require a long-term commitment and patience.

The first and most critical step toward transforming a workplace culture is realizing that there are better alternatives to the old organizational models. After taking that step, employers and workers need to examine how conflicts have arisen from their underlying assumptions and mental pictures of one another. They need to learn new skills in problem solving and team building, and to develop norms of behavior conducive to relating as a partnership. And they generally need significant assistance to do so.

The Workplace Institute, a nonprofit public benefit corporation, supports these workplace change efforts. It was founded by a coalition of private sector labor and management representatives, attorneys, professional neutrals, and consultants, who share a common concern about the future of private sector labor relations. The Institute's mission statement describes its purpose and direction:

The Institute supports transformation of private sector workplaces in California, empowering employers and employees to resolve conflict, solve challenging problems and forge new partnerships through interest-based and principled negotiations and relationships. The Institute provides and arranges for training, facilitation, consultation, communications, research and development, and long term support services in order to achieve its mission. The Institute also serves as a clearinghouse and a source of leadership in its role as an advocate for change.

The interest-based model of problem solving that we promote is quite different from the traditional offer and acceptance (positional) model. Parties using it begin by together defining the problems or issues they want to resolve. Then they identify all the stakeholders in the issue, stakeholders' individual and shared interests, and numerous options for resolution. The parties go on to jointly evaluate all options and select or synthesize one that best meets their individual and mutual interests.

Experience has taught the Institute founders that breakdowns in employee-management relations are more often due to process problems than substantive differences. We therefore emphasize developing strong and sustainable working relationships based on shared norms of behavior, trustworthiness, full disclosure, mutual respect, pursuit of full understanding, and acceptance of the other party's interests.

Here to Help

In September 1997, The Workplace Institute became one of twelve Labor-Management organizations in the U.S. to receive a $100,000 grant from the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service. The grant is to support the initiation and long term success of labor-management cooperation and workplace partnerships in Northern and Central California.

The Institute serves the non-represented sector as well. Agricultural organizations, both union and non-union, have found this "better way" of resolving workplace problems effective in enhancing productivity.

Activities and services now available through the Institute include: ongoing local leadership roundtables; establishing labor-management committees; helping labor and management build partnerships for change; referral to training providers; a speakers bureau; training for new team members; an annual conference; and information on best practices. On May 19 and 20, the Institute is conducting a two-day workshop on Interest-Based Problem Solving in the Workplace in Selma, California, near Fresno. (See "Events," page 23.)

Ed Miller is Executive Director of The Workplace Institute. Until 1995 he was Vice President of Human Resource Management, Tri-Valley Growers.