AWA – Issue #4
No employee of any business, public or private, should have complete autonomy; even employees at the highest level of management require some supervision.
The issue whether employees of an institution be given complete autonomy or not is a debatable one. On one hand, some say that they should be given complete autonomy so as not to hinder creativity by means of red tape bureaucracy but on the other hand, some argue that the employees require supervision to control any wrongdoings as well as to monitor and gauge their progress. I believe that some supervision is required for employees of both public and private businesses for many reasons.
Firstly, in the past years we have seen top executives of many public companies like Enron and WorldCom caught doing illegal activities for the sole motive of making money. They have been known to fudge company results to increase their share prices and make profits by selling them. All these can be stopped if their activities are closely monitored by higher bodies like IRA, FAA and etc.
Secondly, if the employees are not monitored there will be no gauge of their performance and whether they are executing their tasks as necessary. The employees, of all ranks, can start taking their task very casually thereby neglecting the goals of the company because there is no one to monitor them. Agreed that we need to give vent to their creativity but at the same time we need to check the resources and finances of the company providing support to these employees. Classic example of this scenario is Google where employees are given a free reign to give life to their ideas, but at the same time there is someone who monitors all their creative outcomes from a close perspective.
Lastly, to make an employee accountable he or she needs to report to a person or a group of people so that his performance and productivity can be measured and improved if necessary. Presence of a board of governor is a necessity to achieve this goal for employees who rank very high in a company. We have seen examples in companies like GE where each person is accountable in terms of his targets that he sets out in the beginning of the year. Because of this accountability, GE ranks among the top 10 companies worldwide.
Thus, even though we need to provide some autonomy to the employees to make sure they do not feel ‘looked-upon-their-shoulders’ but at the same time there are long term benefits for both the company and the employee when their is some supervision and accountability involved.
