Employee participation in the Australian Taxation Office : a study of middle and frontline management responses

There is increasing interest in employee participation in the workplace. This has in part been attributed to support for the process by Government, employers, unions and tribunals. During the 1980s, legislative support was provided by the Federal Government in the form of the industrial democracy provisions of the Public Service Reform Act 1984. Since the late 1980s, the federal industrial tribunals have encouraged the adoption of participation as a vehicle through which change might occur, such change being driven by the economic imperatives of global competition and its importance to the Australian economy. The Australian Industrial Relations Commission (AFRC), in 1991, required the parties to include provisions for consultation in their enterprise agreements and insisted on enterprise bargaining being conducted in a consultative manner. Employee participation has thus become an important management tool in the application of human resource policies and policy objectives. Past research has shown that middle and frontline management commitment and support for employee participation programs are key factors in determining the effectiveness of such programs. This study explores middle and frontline management responses to the implementation of employee participation within the Australian Taxation Office and the impact of that program on middle and frontline managers in that organisation. Adopting a case study approach, the study uses evidence from two branch offices of the Australian Taxation Office to show the responses of middle and frontline management to the adoption of employee participation as a means of introducing a performance management program and the impact of that initiative on middle and frontline management in those branches