14 DAY TRIAL // A new research literature review conducted by the University of Concordia, in Montreal, Canada, found that giving employees more autonomy at work, makes them happier and more productive.
This is only logical, because this is a way of having more committed workers, who will develop initiatives and become more interested in performing their jobs.
The only issue here is that there is no such thing as a universal definition of autonomy, and people from different cultures perceive the concept differently – what some cultures perceive as workplace freedom, others consider as disorganization.
There are many ways for employees to be autonomous, whether they set their own schedule, choose their own work or set their office at home.
The point is that regardless of the form of the autonomy, people who fell they have latitude, also have very impressive results.
Among these benefits are better performance, higher employee commitment, improved productivity and lower turnover.
Professor Marylène Gagné from Concordia's John Molson School of Business, and co-author of this review, says that “autonomy is especially likely to lead to better productivity when the work is complex or requires more creativity.
“In a very routine job, autonomy doesn't have much impact on productivity, but it can still increase satisfaction, which leads to other positive outcomes.
“When management makes decisions about how to organize work, they should always think about the effect on people's autonomy.”
Strange enough, the completely opposite phenomenon exists too, as some employers actually reduce their workers' autonomy by monitoring their behavior of workplace computers, on the company phone or even in the car.
Gagné says that “autonomy is important in every culture,” and “the perception of autonomy has very positive effects on workers.
“However, managers can't simply export North American methods of granting autonomy anywhere and expect them to work.
“Even in Canada, approaches to giving workers more autonomy need to be constantly rethought as the country becomes more multicultural.
“People don't always react the same way to management initiatives as they did in the past.”
This is one of the main reasons for which is important to carry out cross-cultural research into workplace autonomy.
Until not so far ago, most management research was conducted in North America, but the problem was that managers in other countries did not have enough guidelines to develop techniques that could work in their cultural environment.
So, in order to fix this, Gagné is now focusing on leadership behavior in several countries, including China and Italy.
“We're trying to see how leadership behaviors affect employee motivation, and if the same behaviors in different countries have the same effect,” she says.
“Sometimes, they do not.
“For example, in some cultures, bosses can't ask the opinion of subordinates, because it makes them appear weak.
“So managers in these environments have to find other ways to make people feel autonomous.
“There is no simple recipe.”
These are a few of the conclusions of a new book on workplace autonomy, entitled 'Human Autonomy in Cross-Cultural Context: Perspectives on the Psychology of Agency, Freedom, and Well-Being' (Springer), coauthored by professors Marylène Gagné and Devasheesh Bhave from Concordia's John Molson School of Business.