Employee involvement teams , which

Employee involvement teams , which have somewhat more autonomy, meet on company time on a weekly or monthly basis to provide advice or make suggestions to management concerning specific issues such as plant safety, customer relations, or product quality.46 Though they offer advice and suggestions, they do not have the authority to make decisions. Membership on these teams is often voluntary, but members may be selected because of their expertise. The idea behind employee involvement teams is that the people closest to the problem or situation are best able to recommend solutions. When a large hospital found that it could no longer afford its expensive employee retirement plan, it turned to six employee involvement groups representing 3,000 workers for a solution. The groups analyzed the problem and then worked with retirement consultants (chosen by the groups) to generate new retirement options that were affordable, protected the retirement benefits that employees had already earned and, in the end, were even better for employees.47