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Subscribe by EmailProfessor asks student deep questions on his "laboring" blog; George offers shallow answer
In his blog Laboring Away at the Institute, Professor Phillip Wilson has a new post addressed to his students: “First Day of School - MGT 4223″
Phillip solicits student comments on the blog in lieu of quizzes. Although he has thus made student blog participation mandatory in what I find to be a novel and promising use of the blog format (thinking about following suit, Michael?),
as of today there are no comments yet in response to the first question posed:
Do you agree that efficiency, equity and voice encompass the core aspects of the employment relationship? Why or why not?
What other objectives might there be to employment?
I haven’t read the text from which Philip drew this question, but not having done the reading never kept me from participating in class discussion in college, so here’s my shot (posted here rather than on Philip’s site to keep from influencing his students):
I wouldn’t have used any of those terms. But efficiency (productivity?) certainly is important to long-term success of the relationship.“Equity” and “voice” are nice touchy-feely abstractions without which traditional employment relationships have long succeeded, and therefore cannot be considered “core aspects.”
What is
“core” is that the relationship be mutually beneficial.
Most people still work because they have to — to make a living — and therefore wages and benefits are “core” from the employee’s perspective.
Businesses hire people to get the work done — and therefore productivity relative to cost is “core” from the employer’s perspective.
The extent to which “equity” and “voice” are important depends on how competitive the market is. If people are happy just to be employed, they don’t matter.
An employee may work for slightly lower wages and benefits and/or somewhat more productively if given greater “equity” and “voice,” so these concepts are not entirely irrelevant.
But they are not “core.”Looking forward to hearing what Philip’s students have to say . . .
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George - Thanks for commenting. I’ll share your response with my class who, at least so far (class is Thursday night), are avoiding the tougher question in favor of the recent post about Wal-Mart’s PR campaign (sigh).
I’ll post my own thoughts after we discuss things in class, but the the “efficiency, voice, equity” triumvirate are proposed by Dr. John Budd of U of Minnesota to encompass the core aspects of the employment relationship in his excellent new (but somewhat unfortunately titled) book “Labor Relations: Striking a Balance.” I totally agree with your “mutually beneficial” requirement (as someone fond of Austrian economics, I am especially reluctant to cite efficiency as a core principle) and I think Budd posits equity and voice as proxies for ways to deal with market “inefficiency” and to balance (what he argues is) unequal bargaining power between companies and workers.
I think it is a useful way to think about the various aspects of the employment relationship (like you I’d use some different terms), although I don’t think there is any doubt that employees are definitely willing to give up a lot of equity and voice for a good paycheck. At the same time I wonder if you or anyone you know ever quit a “great” high-paying job because they felt like they didn’t have a say at work or were being treated unfairly?