Employee participation and productivity in a South African university. Implications for human resource management

Abstract

Employee participation refers to giving employees and their representatives opportunities to collaborate in matters that pertain to the management of the organization especially where employees are directly concerned. This research therefore examines employee participation within the context of a university of technology in South Africa. Universities of Technology (UoT) are a new phenomenon in South Africa. As part of the public university system, they are faced with a different set of challenges from the more comprehensive and traditional universities. UoT’s offer practice based learning in the areas of business, engineering and technology, thus suggesting that they have a role to play in closing the gap in skills in these areas. This study asked the question: to what extent are employees of the faculty in question integrated into matters that pertain to the management of the faculty? This main research question was designed to interact with the following sub-questions: Do you think employee participation improves productivity? Are there platforms for employee participation? Do you think management reasonably considers your input in the faculty? These questions have relevance judging from vast research that indicates a significant reluctance by management to accept employee participation as a necessary practice in organizations. Data was collected using the qualitative approach. The interviews were tape-recorded, while in some cases, notes were taken. The population for this study comprized 12 of the 30 senior lecturers in a faculty at a University of Technology in South Africa. The findings suggest that while there is a desire on the part of the academics to be incorporated into matters of concern to them and the faculty, there seemed to be an obvious neglect of the contributions that academic staff make in the faculty.