Is Your Department Ready for Participative Management?
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MANAGEMENT
Participative management, a management style allowing employees to have an integral part in their companies’ operations, sprouted out of the business world and recently took root in several city governments and fire departments.
Participative management has been known to stimulate job interest, provide job satisfaction, and increase productivity levels—consequently increasing the amount of work and job responsibilities. Still, most municipal payroll systems will not support participative management, as salary ranges are fixed, and the poor, mediocre, and excellent employee all receive the same amount of pay within a given position. There are usually no economic incentives for superior work as in the private sector. And rewards and incentives do play an important role in the business world’s participative style of management.
So, why has participative management not only gained a foothold, but actually made strides even in a semi-military-based organization like the fire service? Perhaps because the fire service is not like every other business. Founded on the principle of volunteerism, the fire service and its members do not use dollars and cents as a measurementof a job well done. The challenge of creativity, the chance for personal growth, and the idea of accepting responsibility for one’s own area of performance are viable incentives for maintaining increased productivity levels.
Let’s examine a typical fire department in a small city that has implemented participative management. The fire department, typical of most in the United States, followed the traditional authoritarian style of management in conducting departmental business. Productivity was measured in response times, saving lives and property, proficiency in training evolutions, and fire prevention activities.
But isn’t this productive? Isn’t this what a fire department is all about?
Morale was low. Employees were not utilized to their fullest potentials, disallowed to explore new ideas or to be creative in thought. They reacted to the commands of supervisors, who supposedly had all the answers.
It was obvious that the authoritative management style left little room for personal growth in individuals or growth within the organization.
Economic and special interest groups were demanding more effective and productive employees, creating pressure on the city administrator to make decisions and changes without understanding or researching the side effects of change. Time for a new departmental direction.
“Participative management must be the answer. After all, look what it’s done to the productivity levels in the private sector. Japanese companies are thriving, employees seem content and satisfied with their jobs. Let’s give it a go,” said the city administrator.
No matter how good an idea it might be, before blindly implementing such a style of management, cities and fire departments should study the resulting ramifications and ask questions such as: What will the employees’ reaction be to change of management style? Do we know what we are really getting into with this type of change? What are the associated costs in terms of money and personnel? Will we be the first city to establish this type of change in its fire department? Has another municipal government implemented such a system from which we can analyze the effects?
All are probing questions. However, the first question that should always be asked by department personnel is: “What the hell is participative management?”
On with our story. It took this small department nearly three years before a majority of the members accepted the new management style. However, over time, individuals whose talents were suppressed under the authoritarian style of management now had a chance to practice and develop their skills. Other employees were lost and confused due to new divisions of duties and organizational methods of operations. Also, having to account for cost effectiveness, cost benefits, productivity, etc., was a problem for some. These members, many of whom may have been judged efficient under the old authoritarian style of management, either died on the vine, left the organization, or became mediocre employees.
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Through participative management, the gates of creativity were opened. Individuals were able to use their brains and were assigned to formulate, control, and direct training programs for breathing apparatus, apparatus development and evaluations, emergency preparedness, hazardous materials, medical training, forms and reports, pre-planning, rescue, equipment maintenance, etc. Once given these areas of responsibility, the employee was held accountable for the direction of the program through established goals and objectives which were designed by the employee and his supervisor and reviewed by the chief.
One potential problem with establishing training programs under participative management is that individuals who are held accountable for these programs might soon become mini-experts in their specific field, and their knowledge often will exceed that of management. This is a logical occurrence as management is constantly dealing with the whole picture whereas individuals can specialize.
Managers sometimes forget that most individuals want to do a good job, and once given the green light, they will, for the most part, excel. Management must be ready for this advancement in knowledge and training program development with a true support system; a great amount of flexibility and open mindedness is needed for participative management to succeed.
A possible pitfall with the support system, however, is economics. As individuals develop ideas, can management justify economic backing for implementing these ideas? Whereas private enterprise can invest the dollars necessary to support creativity to gain a profit, city fire departments have to compete for funding to simply exist and provide basic levels of service. Does management have money allocated for incentive programs? Or money to support individuals as they develop better ways to provide services?
Again, city administrators and fire service managers must be aware of the ramifications of embarking on a participative style of management. It has been my experience that city administrators are excited about participative management’s high productivity levels and accountability of employees, but balk at the sustaining costs. If these support systems are not identified, placed into operation, and evaluated prior to implementing participative management, the system will break down.
In participative management, the need for communication is intensified, demanding supervisors to be up front with employees and opening themselves up to question—which can be painful for some. In fact, the communication process is the foundation of participative management. If this communication process does not exist, participative management will not exist.
Departmental supervisors and managers who are responsible for motivating their employees will demand more salary for their efforts. This may seem warranted, as under the authoritarian management system very little if any energy is expended in this area.
The communication process as well as the accountability of employees results in a tremendous amount of paperwork. If controlled and monitored, this paperwork can become the measurement of job productivity.
After considering both sides of the issue, does participative management really have a place in the fire service? I think so.
Participative management is well accepted by the new wave of firefighters entering the fire service. New firefighters want to be part of the organization, to share in the molding of their departments. And despite negative impacts on some employees (i.e., old veterans accustomed to authoritarian management principles), initial costs, and hidden costs in this style of management, participative management makes it possible to harness and utilize one of the greatest resources on earth—people.
