Critically evaluate employee decision-making in an organizational context.

Employees are the key sources of an organization. As Marchington (1992) states, employee involvement practices are initiated by management and designed to increase commitment of employees to the organization.

Post Information and consultation charter, there has been an improvement in risk anticipation. Organizations have become more flexible in their approach and workers are given access to training and development. It has come to management's purview that timely information and consultation is the prerequisite for success.HRM practitioners have an active role in administering new information and consultation procedures.

Decision making at senior management level always impacts the employees. 'Employees as stakeholders' has originated as more and more employees have gained a voice in organizational decision making. The concept is political in terms of giving employees their rights, psychological in a way that employees derive pride out of their work and economic as their livelihood depends upon their jobs (Lewis & Sargeant, 2004).

Employees can now influence decision making in many ways, unionization being one of them. There are now participation systems and forums which employees can use effectively to influence managerial decision making. Grievance systems help employees to raise their grievances if they feel they have been wronged by the management.

Some companies implement feedback programs like employee surveys or direct interaction sessions between management and employees which can prove to be a cost effective way of employee feedback on certain policies or news or management. Many companies have quality teams in place which take into account individual employee suggestions, synthesize them and provide better solutions to organization's concerns.

Employee participation has resulted in increased economic efficiency gains. Employee involvement theory permeates through the assumption that employees are a source of untapped knowledge and skill base which can be used if given ample opportunities for growth to the employee. Further it has been observed that employee participation leads to employees getting intrinsic rewards from work. It results in job satisfaction leading to enhanced motivation to achieve higher goals.

Workforce jobs are now designed in such a way that planning and managing are included in order to add value to a job at hand. Thus it can be said that today's employee has been empowered (Gennard, J. & Judge, G., 2005). Workers, now have more insight to management news and information. They are better informed about company's visions and achievements which lead to mutual trust and commitment leading to reduced number of workers leaving jobs. Also, once the workers are empowered, there is a lesser need for intricate control systems. Nowadays employees are also working remotely from their home or any location outside office as the management trusts that work assigned to employees will be accomplished. The impact of the above mentioned developments has led to increased employee autonomy, flexibility and support.

A thinking performer according to Marchington (2005) is the one who sets out his professional objectives along with prioritized plan for time management and delivery of set goals.

Today's employee is a thinking performer as he understands business issues and needs of the organization. He tries to look out for opportunities to add value and make recommendations accordingly. He adopts a continuous approach to learning and development. He not only exhibits understanding of strategies but is also capable of contributing to it. He has 'active listening' capabilities and communicates positively and clearly with others. As a result, management can adopt new methods of working to match new technologies with minimum resistance. Employee involvement provides an opportunity to employees to influence decisions which are likely to impact their work life. Also, when employees are involved, there is improved productivity performance. Voicing opinions and suggestions helps employees to contribute in an effective way. They become essentials of the Human resource system of the organization which helps in increasing the overall quality of human capital. This results in designing effective learning and development plans for employees allowing them to develop, grow and achieve their goals. In the process, able and skilled employees get promoted and influence managerial decisions. Such companies with effective employee influence experience a higher financial ROI. With increased productivity levels, organizations are better able to meet customer needs and adapt easily to rapidly changing environments.

Despite all the pros of increasing employee influence in the organization, employee involvement in decision making is not the norm in all organizations. 'Participative leadership' undoubtedly is gaining importance in today's business world as creative and rational thinking amongst employees helps to solve complex problems. However, Managers sometimes feel loss of power if they ask for team's opinions on critical matters. Such managers feel that they need to be strong and in control to be regarded as effective managers. Also, usually some decisions require quick thinking as pressure from client's end is there. In such scenario, if managers take team's opinions/suggestions, it would result in prolonged time span to respond resulting in unsatisfied clients. Often it is not practically possible to involve all employees in a decision.

Therefore it is very essential to define the scope of decision making of employees in a business. Managers can actively involve employees in decisions. But if they decide not to, then they end up micromanaging their team. Employees can be involved in a 'partner' approach wherein employees with specific skills, attitude, behavior and understanding of critical issues are considered as business partners to the business. Or they can be involved in decisions related to their work area in which they are skilled.

Firstly through assessment methods, involvement of employees needs to be gauged. The kind of management style followed in the organization also needs to be reviewed. Questions like importance of employee influence in a particular organization, benefits to the business need to be understood. Then strategies need to be made to involve employees on a regular basis rather than on occasional times as then they will have a better understanding of the business situations and will be able to take good decisions. Measurement systems need to be built to measure success or failure of employee involvement. People contributing positively- towards cost saving, innovation or newer style of work process should be rewarded and given recognition. Employees negatively influencing decisions need to be controlled as they undermine the organization's energy, efforts, focus, time and morale of fellow employees.

The key is to understand how much employee involvement is enough. Employee involvement should be treated as management and leadership philosophy so that their contribution to organizational success is a continuous process