One company takes employee involvement to the extreme

Dan Herman reports on the Wiknomics blog this week, about a South American company that has set up complete transparency around all of its decision making. Every employee gets a vote in major decisions, such as a mergers, acquisitions or moves. The employees even get a voice on the board where there are two employee seats available. Herman says they must be doing something right because they are a growing and profitable company and he wonders what other companies can learn from Semco, a Brazilian industrial manufacturing company, where employees set their own wages and even get to choose their own managers. That's taking employee involvement to a new level.

Companies considering using Web 2.0 to simply provide a way to democratize content creation and selection in a company would be wise to look at a company like Semco. Many companies, it seems, are afraid to even let their employees publish to a blog or wiki because they are afraid of giving employees too much power, exposing company secrets or legal liability.

We are more than three years into the Web 2.0 revolution, now. We have seen the power of collaboration and knowledge sharing. There is plenty of evidence and there are case studies galore. If Semco can give all decision-making power to its employees and remain profitable, surely your company's executives can loosen the reins a bit and allow your employees to use to Web 2.0 tools, to improve communication in your organization.

For more information on Semco:
- see Dan Herman's Wikinomics blog entry

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