Bron: dit artikel is een samenvatting van

• Stories of High involvement, People & self-managing organisations, RSM Rotterdam School of Management, 2024

Een mooi, actueel onderzoek over de stand van zaken van High involvement/ betrokkenheid van werknemers in de besluitvorming - binnen SMO's: Self Managing Organisations. Deze als tastbaar alternatief tegenover good-old Hiërarchie.

Door middel van deskresearch is een database met 300+ organisaties opgebouwd, alle organisaties op enigerlei wijze Self Managing. Hetzij volgens Holocracy, Sociocracy, SEMCO Style, NER (New style of Relationships) of anders. 40 Daarvan zijn diepgaander onderzocht, door 136 interviews, zo'n 60 uur aan het bijwonen van sessies (bijv. vergaderingen) en zo'n 500 documenten.

Dit geeft een bijzondere inkijk in de staat en effectiviteit van Self Managing Organisations. Om ervan te leren wát de randvoorwaarden zijn om te komen tot betrokken medewerkers.

Research question

A whitepaper about first insights from the Pasmo project (People & Self-Managing Organisations) of RSM Rotterdam School of Management. This research explores one of the most common alternative forms of organising: Self Managing Organisations (SMO) and how their approach to organising shapes the lives of the people - and how the same people shape their organisation.

Practical stories/ examples of Self-Management in various organisations, to seek what practices enable people to thrive in SMO's.

Self-Managing Organisations (SMO's) aim to "radically decentralize authority in a formal and systematic way, throughout the organisation". This is done by removing manager-subordinate hierarchies and by distributing decision-making to the individuals doing the work - according to role rather than seniority. Giving people the chance to initiate change when justified.

There are many structured approaches to self-management - such as Holacracy, Sociocracy, SEMCO style, NER Group organisations (New Style of Relationships) and/ or company specific methods. With even within these approaches a lot of variation.

People in SMO's are given high levels of autonomy to carry out their roles - without supervision and have the authority to make decisions within the boundaries of their responsibilities. 

In SMO's there are no line managers. This raises questions about hów to manage people, where traditional models of Human Resource Management don't apply. We know remarkably little about hów individuals are encouraged and supported to be involved in workplace decisions.

Research object: SMO's in practice

SMO's represent a paradigm shift in organisational structures. Where they promise increased transparency, empowerment and adaptability, their effectiveness in delivering on these promises remains unclear.

We know from decades of research that managers play an important role for employee experience: in supporting well-being, career development and in providing clarity and structure. In SMO's many of these tasks that traditionally fell to managers are replaced by processes and procedures.

Research subject: high involvement

A fundamental principle of self-management is - that individuals are involved in decisions that affect their work.

Research on high-involvement work systems explores how work and organisations can be designed to enable people to be involved. Over the years has been shown the value of high involvement for individuals and for organisations. Research suggests that high employee involvement is good for organisational performance because it enhances employee motivation and the extent to which they can make full use of their skills. So, this may speed up day-to-day decision-making, because decisions don't all have to go up the chain.

Employees have high levels of involvement when they feel that they have influence over decisions that affect their work and working lives.

In practice individuals need to have

1. the opportunity to be involved,
2. the motivation to be involved,
3. they need to act on this motivation, and
4. they need to have limited constraints - on their ability to be involved.

1. Opportunity
   Opportunity is a subjective feeling. People should feel that they cán be involved in decisions. To understand whether people háve an opportunity to be involved means: ask them.
   
   
2. motivation
   People are motivated to be involved - when they feel empowered. There are four indicators of empowerment:
   - competence: dó people feel capable to be involved. E.g. do they know hów to raise tensions effectively?
   - meaning do they believe in the value of being involved. E.g. do they feel a sense of connection with the decisions being made
   - autonomy: do people feel that they can choose about what to be involved in
   - impact: do people feel they will be listened to, when they are involved in decisions
   
   
3. action
   In order to act, individuals need to actively raise concerns, tensions and ideas for constructive change. This is known as Voice.
   
   
4. constraints
   Do people feel that they are constrained in their ability to be involved? The most important factor here is "work intensification": do they feel that they have time to be involved in decisions outside of their own work, or do they feel pressure to be involved which is negative for their well-being?

How do we enable high involvement

Organisations achieve high levels of involvement when they distribute Power, Information, Reward and Knowledge across hierarchical levels. These pillars do not operate in isolation but rather complement each other synergistically. Expected is that there are several combinations of practices, unique to the culture of each organisation, that can lead to a high-involvement system. In low involvement organisations Power, Information, Reward and Knowledge are concentrated in the senior management of the organisation.

One of the consistent principles of self-management is: there are no bosses, and in fact 'the myth of a boss less company" is one of the main criticisms of SMO's.

Ís authority to make decisions - distributed among people in the organisation? Giving people control over their work is a cornerstone of a high-involvement system. It is about giving them the autonomy and authority they need to make decisions and drive meaningful change.

A key difference is the extent to which certain decisions are truly distributed. Such as - who do we hire - what can we pay people? - can I buy a new photocopier without bosses' formal permission? E.g. in one organisation, when individuals ask to be considered for a promotion (and related pay increase) this is peer-reviewed by a minimum of five peers, facilitated by a Circle Lead.

A key distinction can be made between operational and strategic roles. Most organisations don't find it hard to distribute roles involved in operational decisions. But distributing strategic decision-making roles is more difficult. Mostly a small number of people - in an "upper" or "company" circle - were the people who make strategic decisions, which then trickles down to the rest of the organisation through goals. Strategy development is done with a core team consisting of people with expertise and the directional leaders.

While most organisations divide traditional managerial roles up, in - coach, - performance evaluator, - circle lead, we also see a lot of centralisation. For true distribution of power - these roles need to be divided among individuals to ensure there aren't concentrations of power with a small number of people.

• open information - actively sharing information

Even in less hierarchical organisations, open information flows are often about top-down communication. One area where open information is important relates to availability of roles. Many organisations have some kind of role marketplace so that anyone who is interested can apply. However, this is part of the picture - because in many cases individuals with role responsibility (e.g. Circle Lead) seek out people for roles. This perpetuates a management hierarchy and restricts the possibility for people to be involved. A critical question is whether the organisation's strategy and purpose are decided at the top or whether everyone is open to critically discuss these.

• passively: transparency of information.
  
  Having information available when needed. Technology is often crucial to transparency in SMO's. Tools such as Glassfrog, Holaspirit or Nestr.io enable - organisational structures, - role descriptions, - accountabilities and - details of who holds each role, to be clearly visible to anyone, at any time.
  

There is a thin line between making information transparent to help people to be more involved in decisions, which benefits the organisation, and transparency being used for a method of management control. One leader told that he trusts people because he has transparency. Individuals who are subject to transparency as a form of control are likely to withhold information and perform worse.

When there is no manager, there still needs to be someone to help people when times get rough.

One of the key differences in terms of transparency relates to pay. Pay transparency means being open about - hów pay decisions are made, - who makes them and may also refer to transparency of pay level at the individual level.

One company explained that, although everyone can access the pay level of every individual, most people don't even look at it. On the other hand, individuals have general preference regarding transparency of pay.

Rewards can be distinguished into intrinsic rewards - which focus on the extent to which the work and work environment is rewarding - and material rewards including pay and tangible benefits.

When we think of material rewards, we mainly focus on pay. Most organisations experiment with different pay levels and plotting roles that are consistently matched to people, to get it right. One of the most common ways to structure pay in SMO's is using a level system such as the Baarda model. Models like Baarda work smoothly because they are clear and structured. The Baarda model is designed to be easily understood by everyone in the organisation. Thereby supporting the principle of transparency ad distributed authority.  

Why should you be punished if you can't negotiate? Research shows that this extravert, tall, slightly arrogant white male - earns significantly more than an introvert, non-Western female. For exactly the same work.  So, we think it's unfair. So, we scrap that from our salary model.

In a lot of organisations, the same person is responsible for making pay decisions and having development or coaching conversations. This ought to be separate roles, but we see quite often that they are held by the same person.

A final consideration when it comes to material reward is the differential between the lowest-median-highest paid people in the organisation.

In self-managing organisations their self-managing principles must be supported by low pay hierarchy. But many organisations don't give attention to this.

Career development opportunities in SMO's - are both a great opportunity and a challenge. For people new to SMO's it can often be hard to see how their career will develop, as there is no traditional hierarchy. On the other hand - individuals can move into new areas of work, develop new skills and knowledge and grew in responsibility because of self-management.

It is not always easy for individuals to see the bigger picture about. Research shows that individuals often need support to think about their career.

People need to be particularly pro-active and self-starting to work in SMO's. Many organisations emphasise this in their hiring processes.

Extensive training and development is needed to help people to be involved in decision-making.