European Company Survey 2013

This report studies practices in EU establishments for direct and indirect employee participation in decision-making. Indirect employee participation is the involvement of employee representatives in decision-making processes, while direct employee participation describes direct interaction between employers and employees.

Workplace innovation (WPI) refers to practices that enable employees to participate in organisational change in such a way as to improve the quality of their working life and organisational performance. This report examines the motives behind the adoption of WPI and describes its implementation across companies in Europe. It analyses the impacts of WPI from the perspective of the different players – organisation, management, employees and employee representatives – in 51 companies across 10 EU Member States.

The third wave of Eurofound’s European Company Survey was carried out in 2013. It surveyed management representatives in over 24,000 establishments; where available, employee representatives were also interviewed – in 6,800 of these establishments.

The third European Company Survey (ECS) maps practices in establishments with 10 or more employees across the EU28, and in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Iceland, Montenegro and Turkey. In all, over 30,000 establishments were surveyed by Gallup Europe, with a target sample size per country ranging from 300 to 1,650. Topics comprise work organisation, human resources (HR) practices, employee participation and social dialogue, and how these practices support ‘smart growth’.