Description: In a work environment with positive involvement and influence, employees are included in discussions and have input into decisions that impact their respective jobs.
You can access our free workshop materials to engage your team in a discussion about how to increase their involvement and influence over decisions and changes that impact their jobs.
Increase involvement of employees in decisions that impact their work.
- Take steps to include employee input. It’s not possible for employees to take part in every decision. Involve them when you can to improve the decision and their support of the decision.
- Different workplaces allow different levels of control, based on regulation, safety procedures and quality control. Foster a sense of control in employees by talking to them about:
- What needs to be done
- What’s not negotiable
- How they can meet objectives
- Don’t replace face-to-face discussions with emails and other forms of communication when it comes to changes that can affect employees. Explain the reasons behind workplace changes and how they can have a positive impact on the organization and work environment.
- Help employees maintain a sense of control over their work. Do regular priority setting and help them with time management.
- Provide training that supports employees or work teams to operate autonomously, such as self-directed work teams.
Support employees to have some level of influence over how they’ll adapt to changes they have no control over.
- Check out Helping employees to manage change for tips and strategies to help set expectations and introduce a process for discussing challenges related to work and change.
- Talk to employees about how they can influence their own success. A helpful approach is Developing employee plans for leaders.
- Share this video called Help your supervisor support you to help your employees ask for what they need from their leader.
- Engage employees in discussions about their work, and potential changes, to increase their commitment and sense of involvement and influence.
- Performance management provides one approach to asking questions that are within the scope of the employee’s job and that engage them in conversation about how it could be accomplished.
Foster a culture in which all employees have some level of responsibility, autonomy and accountability.
- Avoid micro-management.
- Offer ways to solicit input, such as suggestion boxes or opinion surveys. Encourage employees to submit ideas to improve work effectiveness. Regularly share how you’ve used their feedback.
- Combine these approaches in work-related decisions:
- Top-down
- Leadership-driven and bottom-up
- Employee-driven.
- Engage employees in defining the type of work environment that best supports their productivity. Psychologically safe interactions workshop has workshop materials you could use to facilitate this discussion.
Additional actions and resources
- Ensure all employees have identified a contact person they can reach out to about work-related issues such as a supervisor, office manager or union steward.
- Review Psychological health and safety policy recommendations to see where you can improve psychological health and safety.
- Review Evidence for psychological health and safety for a literature review of studies demonstrating how factors that impact psychological health and safety also have a positive impact on business goals and objectives.
Putting involvement and influence on the agenda provides you with materials to support a team discussion on approaches to involvement and influence as well as materials to support policy review and development.
Adapted from Guarding Minds at Work™
© Samra, J., Gilbert, M., Shain, M., Bilsker, D. 2009-2020, with amendments by Stuart, H. 2022. All rights reserved. Website development and data storage by the Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety (CCOHS).
Guarding Minds at Work was commissioned by Canada Life and additional resources are supported by Workplace Strategies for Mental Health.