Creating Partnerships with Employees
Managing Partnerships Between Employers and Employees
Partnerships in business are all the rage today for a simple reason: no one organization or individual has all the skills or resources necessary to compete effectively in a complex world. Another motivation to form a partnership is that it implies working collaboratively for mutual gain. Business partnerships are a natural corollary of playing to your strengths and being strategic. Businesses that recognize these principles don’t try to do it all alone. They do what they are good at and rely on others, their partners, to take care of what they are not so good at.
Often, no one business has enough money to fund very costly projects such as developing a new kind of aircraft or taking on a mammoth construction job, so they partner with other companies to share the cost as well as other resources and, of course, the profits. The idea of partnership has been extended recently to characterize relationships between companies and their suppliers and between employers and their employees. However, it is unclear how well the concept of partnership applies to these other relationships.
Defining Partnership
Generally, partnerships are formed between two or more parties with relatively equal power. This criterion applies very well to large companies when they form a joint venture – usually a temporary partnership formed for a one off project. To illustrate the point about equal power, suppose two independent management consultants get together and form a partnership. Let’s suppose they each have similar levels of experience, skill and cash to invest. Theirs is a true partnership because all key decision making power is shared. One partner has no more power than the other. One is not dependent on the other. If the partnership fails, both parties can walk away and work on their own again or form new partnerships.
The Basis of Successful Partnerships
In addition to relatively equal power, honesty is an important success factor. In the case of the two management consultants, the partnership would surely fail if one of them hid important information about clients or resources. In a true partnership, all parties not only join from a position of equal power, they have a full share of power in the partnership. The management consultants’ partnership would also fail if one tried to bully the other or call the shots without consulting the partner.
Partnerships Between Employers and Employees
When companies form partnerships with their employees, they need to make sure they adhere to the honesty principle or their efforts could backfire. This is because, in many cases, the employer has far more power than the employee. Certainly there are exceptions. Highly skilled, scarce knowledge workers who are in great demand from other employers have much more power than employees whose jobs could easily be outsourced.
In situations where the employer has the bulk of the power, especially the right to fire employees who are not so scarce or hard to replace, no true partnership is possible. If such employers describe their relationship with employees as a partnership, they need to be careful to define what they mean to avoid a cynical response. First of all, they should be honest enough to admit the power imbalance. They need to be clear about the benefits to both sides of closer collaboration. They need to be fully open to foster trust. This means being clear about the relative levels of authority both sides will have in the partnership. Otherwise, employees could deceive themselves that partnership means having a greater say in key decisions than is possible or that their positions might be secure even in an economic downturn. More cynical employees might never fully trust the employer or do their utmost because of a lack of trust.
Partnership and Trust
The mechanism of employee partnership is really a motivational tool used by employers to improve employee motivation and, thus performance rather than a true partnership. Employees who see through any cynical use of the idea will never cooperate fully with such an employer. Ground rules are essential and they must be made clear in all partnerships but extra care must be made to foster honesty and clarity when one party has the majority of the power in a partnership relationship. Describing relationships between employers and employees as partnerships is not too much of a distortion of the concept as long as both sides are fully open and clear about what their form of partnership means.
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