Independent work

Plant and office as communities
Plant and office are more than just geographic locations. They are like communities. People speak meaningfully of the prevailing environment of an office or of a plant. People study the culture of office or of plant. People speak of designs of formal or informal organization as well as of prevailing values, of career ladders. And though there are great differences in degree between the most authoritarian and the most impersonal plant and office, all are expected to discharge community functions. In other words, there is a work community. For making the employees achieving they are also to take substantial responsibility for the work community.
Plant and office need governance. The power dimension is an inherent and inescapable dimension of the organization. But not all decisions within the organization are inherent in its purpose and mission or directly related to its performance. There are decisions which, while necessary, have their origin in the needs and realities of the work community rather than in the mission, purpose, and performance capacity of the organization itself. They are incidental to the purpose of the organization rather than integral to it. It is a law of governance that it restricts itself to the necessary decisions. Any management is more effective, and more powerful, the more it avoids decisions it does not have to make.
An incidental decision which does not materially, add to the performance capacity of the organization takes just as much time as a basic and necessary one. Incidental decisions block the governing machinery, load down the governing and decision-making group, and detract it from the important things. At the same time, authority over such decisions is not in effect legitimate. Such decisions are not grounded in the purposes for which management is required to function. However, these decisions are needed to be made. But the organizational management is the wrong authority for making them.
Work-community decisions are those decisions which are to be decentralized. However, these are not those organizational decisions which are made by the decentralized managements. These are social decisions, or decisions regarding the affairs of the work community. Hence, these need to be lodged in the work community. The principle behind this is not very different from the principle behind decentralization of decision-making.
If management makes work-community decisions, it loads itself down with matters which appear trivial to the management, though they are of great importance to the plant community itself. Examples of these are decisions on the canteens, on leave schedules, on running of recreational activities outside working hours, and so on. In those organizations where the management deals with these things, they are costly, inefficient, and a constant cause of friction and dissatisfaction. In these organizations, these activities are run poorly and the decisions are made badly since for the management the areas are not important and do not deserve a high priority and are not accorded respect.
However, these are important matters for the work community and its members. If these things are run badly, they impede morale. But running them superbly well adds little, if they are run from the top. The responsibility for these activities and decisions needs to be placed squarely on the work community.