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In 2007 Texas-based WorldBlu published their first WorldBlu List of Most Democratic Workplaces ™. In their fourth year, the awards celebrate visionary companies successfully practicing organizational democracy.
It seems democracy in the workplace is internationally capturing the imagination with recipient organizations in: India, Canada, Netherlands, United Kingdom, Malaysia, and America.
If you’re thinking this is a list full of philanthropists not earning any money well, take a second look. When first awarded in 2007, the list of 34 Most Democratic workplace winners’ held combined annual sales of $3 billion.
Three years later in 2010 the 44 winners have combined annual sales of $12 billion despite the depth of the global recession.
The foundation of workplace democracy believes democratic workplaces are thriving because they practice on the very first lessons we learn as young children – the importance of sharing. All the award recipients share information, discretion, and rewards with their employees.
It seems globally we’ve become obsessed with sharing. Those of us on Facebook all have a friend who loves to over-share. From persistent status updates to a borage of banal tweets describing our every passing thought, we’ve become a world that feels connected in our sharing. Now are we looking to share a little more equitably with our bosses’ cheque book?
Social Media breeds a sense of empowerment and entrepreneurial spirit. We can now speak our mind in platforms we’ve created that reaches to hundreds (and for some who are interesting or talented millions) at a time. Social media has given the consumer power to dictate new products and entire marketing campaigns – just check out Mountain Dew’s brilliant Dewmocracy campaign. Millions of consumers are voting on everything from the flavour and name of the company’s new drink to pitching and creating TV ads.
Social media platforms have developed a culture of consumer empowerment, while downplaying all of the free market research, publicity and ads major corporations are benefiting from.
The Workplace democracy movement is growing and cultivating a culture of employee empowerment in workspaces. While many may dismiss this as a trend, remember no one expected Twitter to last either; and like social media, this movement presents financial advantages for businesses too.
If companies want their employees to perform like they’re the owners, then making them feel like owners combats workplace disengagement. Most employees rationalize if it was their company “then they’d work harder, but they aren’t working any harder to make someone else rich!”
Workplace democracy may just be the next social evolution to further increase productivity, competitiveness, creativity and ingenuity in the workplace. Most importantly it can help combat workplace boredom which may coincidentally reduce all those banal tweets and status updates.
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