Stanton, Pauline, Bartram, Timothy and O'Donoghue, Peter (2004) Employee Participation in Victorian Health Services: The Rhetoric and the Reality. Employment Relations Record, 4 (1). pp. 67-80. ISSN 1444-7053

Abstract

This paper sets out to explore employee participation in the Victorian public health system, specifically in the Melbourne metropolitan major health services and Victoria's community health centres from the perspective of senior health management. We analyse the views of key health sector managers such as the chief executive officers, human resource directors and general functional managers concerning their experiences and perceptions of employee participation and extent of participatory practices in their organisations. Findings suggest that community health centres reported higher means on the presence of employee participation practices relative to their larger health service counterparts, including the metropolitan health services. However, all levels of managers across the entire health sector reported the absence of formal employee participation practices such as a formal joint consultative committee and employee suggestion schemes at the organisation. We also found that different hierarchical managers held quite different views concerning the use of employee participation practices. Implications are drawn for managerial practice and further research.

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