New Developments in Developing Self‐Directed Work Groups

In the past decade there has been a movement towards “employee empowerment”. Employee/management teams have played an integral part in this change. Recently, the idea of the self‐directed work group has emerged, giving groups of employees both the responsibility over a particular area or function of the business, as well as authority to make decisions and implement solutions in that area. Large productivity increases, high morale, and increased employee commitment are some of the benefits of these groups, but all is not positive. Argues that companies wanting to switch to self‐directed work groups must be prepared thoroughly for the changes that will lie ahead. There are a number of areas which, if focused on now, will minimize the difficulties that can result before and after the process of change has begun. They can be categorized into three topics: preparing the organization(including top management attitudes, organizational structure,compensation systems, and employee‐retention strategies), preparing management (including attitudes, skills training, and vocabulary changes), and preparing employees (including attitudes, communication and group skills‐training, and job cross‐training).