The first thing that came to my mind was, just how transparent is WorldBlu? Do they share everything with their employees? The answer to those questions is quite simple; Traci Fenton, CEO and Founder of WorldBlu, has made the entire organization transparent down to the salaries of employees. Even though this came as somewhat of a surprise, it immediately eliminates any cultural differences regarding acceptability of sharing wages and salaries among employees. Also, trust and responsibility become imperative amongst employees when provided with a wealth of knowledge about the company that includes company earnings, budget plans, and open book accounting. What do you think? Is WorldBlu putting themselves at risk with this level of transparency or is it a good strategy for building team moral?
Furthermore, WorldBlu uses organizational democracy as a tool to increase innovation. As a part of WorldBlu, all employees end up feeling as though they are partial owner because everyone is always involved in the decision making process. In addition to innovation, research has shown that participative decision making such as this contributes to organizational commitment and ethical behavior. Think about that for a second. Would you act ethically if someone gave you orders to complete a goal or would you act ethically if you participated in setting the goal? How would you work toward fulfilling the goal? Would you cut corners if someone gave you orders to fulfill the goal? If, in fact, you think that you would act ethically when participating in the goal setting, then you are in good company among the paucity of other research participants who act the same way. WorldBlu feels that the added participation "unleashes positive energy in the workplace" and helps motivate employees without financial incentives.
It seems that having a voice in the workplace also contributes to improved job satisfaction and happiness in the workplace. WorldBlu facilitates a simple ball game to assess the happiness of their employees as they leave after a day of work. For example, when exiting for the day, employees grab a tennis ball out a large bucket and then place the ball in a happy ("H") bucket or an unhappy ("U") bucket to indicate their feelings about the day. This is not only an ingenious and simple way to assess employee affect, but it is also an excellent way to draw correlations with employee affect, performance, and productivity. Moreover, independent variables possibly affecting the happiness of employees can be correlated with employee affect. For instance, are employees leaving happy because the company was more profitable today or are they leaving happy because it was an easy day? Either way, this type of transparency allows for employees to be proactive about finding solutions to the problems. If someone is unhappy and starts slacking at work, then other employees are at liberty call them out and enforce accountability.
This style of leadership is somewhat new to the business field and it definitely contains the ability to make the workplace uncomfortable during its inception. People aren't used to the transparency, accountability, and innovative style that organizational democracy has to offer. Instead, people grow accustomed to their own self-serving biases that discard accountability and potentially excuse mistakes. Conversely, organizational leadership rids the business of hierarchies, sheds light on mistakes and subsequently uses that mistake as a way to innovate and grow in the future. In fact, "the business world talks about innovation around technology, but rarely talks about innovation with regard to how we do our business. Democratic companies will continue to have a competitive advantage in the future, and we will eventually get to a place where employees demand it." So, what do you think? Is this the type of company you would want to work for?
Matthew Fowles
Analysis based on:
http://blogs.forbes.com/glennllopis/2011/05/16/corporations-must-bring-democracy-into-the-workplace-a-conversation-with-worldblu-hcl-technologies-and-groupon/
and
http://blogs.forbes.com/csr/2011/05/25/worldblu-spreading-workplace-democracy-through-happiness/
While the idea of organizational democracy seems fantastic, I have to wonder if it would be possible in a large corporation like Google or
ReplyDeleteApple. I think the idea would have major drawbacks as decisions are made the the majority and not by those who know best. For instance, would Steve Jobs want his salesman making decisions on which chip to use in the iphone5? While this is an extreme example, you get where i'm going. It seems like a great idea for the smaller family type company, but for large corporations i have my doubts.
Chase Behrendt
I don't know if I would like others to know my work salary. I feel like this would make for more competition, which isn't necessarily a good thing. I also would think that the work dynamic would be a bit awkward. You have those people who work above you in the company, but to know how much money they make, seems like a blunder. Obviously there is hierarchy when it comes to who makes the most money and so on down the line of employees, but if you are doing the same job as someone else and you are doing it equally as well and you aren't making the same amount of money, there is a equality theory you have to think about. Although, I doubt this is the case with this organization as it also seems to be a way to keep people in line and give others motivation to work harder.
ReplyDeleteEthically speaking, on the question you asked in your post, I would most likely act in favor of the company I work for, no matter what the situation, because it seems to me that karma is a bitch and if you talk out of line or act out of line in secret, somehow and someway the consequences will come back to bite you in the ass.
I'm curious what their employees think about potentially being evaluated almost every night after they leave work. If there is an unusual amount of unhappiness going around the organization, that is cause for a re-evaluation as to how the company is working. Does this scenario keep the employees always guessing and walking on eggshells? I would be worried that my every move was being monitored and thats no way to work either.
I guess I'm just overwhelmed and confused by this idea as its very radical and contemporary. I guess I am just an old fashioned kind of gal.
Angela Minichiello
I agree with Chase - I don't think this approach would work in a large organization. The diversity in a big company along with the differences in how people work make me think that this approach would only work for about half of the people. It's obviously working for WorldBlu - but things like the ball game make me wonder how many employees secretly snicker about this cheesy ritual (I would).
ReplyDeleteAnd Angela, I agree with you that showcasing salaries seems unusual and may even breed unengagement and unhappiness. Personally, I know that I finish more work in an hour than some of my coworkers can finish in a day (yes, I'm very humble here). But I know that these coworkers have been at my company much longer than me and are making WAY more than I do - if I knew exactly how much, I would probably (vomit first, and then) not be inspired to do nearly as much work as I do now. If I can get by with performing at the same level they are and eventually make that much money, why try harder? Perhaps WorldBlu had to reassess their salary model before they went to this transparency, but I just am not sure how I would feel about that. Also, Angela, you bring up a good point about walking on eggshells. I'd be interested to hear more on WorldBlu's efforts at transparency and how they have affected the company.
Traci