Information for Managers and Experts or Communication with All Employees Within Organisations and Networks – Case HSEQ

Abstract

Planned interplay of tangible and intangible assets are needed for production. Efficient and effective interplay is enabled by both technical and non-technical social skills, leadership within psychosocial work community -in addition to formal management. The whole "continuum of understanding" comprising data, information, knowledge, and wisdom is needed, intra-and inter-organizationally. The above issues are here dealt with an industrial case -a Finnish cluster of big companies that is running a procedure for Health, Safety, Environment, Quality Assessment (HSEQ AP, www.HSEQ.fi). HSEQ AP provides a comprehensive picture of a supplying company's capabilities, consisting of description of Integrated Management System (IMS) and a lot of alphanumeric or categorized performance indicators, to experts and managers. One leadership approach emphasizes following drivers of excellence:(1) all employees' involvement to build motivation, competence and confidence; (2) this participation "provides" humans' all skills then fully available. So, more human-centered communication is needed for managing employees in a wise way, based on HSEQ-style knowledge as well. The main stream of quantitative information only is not enough for effective business and individuals contributing to it. In brief, this paper presents needs and gives examples that quantitative info should enriched with illustrative, qualitative and appealing, affective features, especially when directed to all employees IntroductionProduction is depending on skills and competences used by planned interplay of tangible and intangible assets. This paper deals with efficient and effective contribution of human assets to production. As far as human assets are concerned, holistic quality of work life (QWL) is more and more seen as a key factor for high total quality of companies and work communities. Well-being at work is often used as a holistic concept comparable to QWL, too (Anttonen and Räsänen, 2009). The set of the 10 dimensions in the European Union's (EU) definition for QWL is (Royuela, Lopez-Tamayo and Surinach, 2008): 1. Intrinsic job quality 2. Skills, life-long learning and career development 3. Gender equality 4. Health and safety at work 5. Flexibility and security 6. Inclusion and access to the labor market 7. Work organization and work-life balance 8. Social dialogue and worker involvement 9. Diversity and non-discrimination 10. Overall work performance. QWL together with productivity are continuous challenges within each individual industrial company. In more and more frequent cases of bigger business, the whole value network plays a key role for companies' success, and so do network's QWL and productivity management. The excellent and consistent management of the wholeness requires taking into account the network: a company is purchasing services and doing production together with many supplier employer parties operating in the same premises and sites (shared workplace of multiple employers). Management of knowledge, communication, unity of different e...