Para concluir: Ciudadanía, institucionalidad y democracia contra el Estado

Recall the following propositions:

Proposition 20: There are signs of employee involvement in Sweco’s QMS development and implementation.

Proposition 21: However, reasons for non-compliance associated with other aspects opportunity is frequently stated, such as:

 Lack of time to learn the system

 Ambiguous demands from managers

 Feeling pressure to skip the system

 The system does not have appropriate tools for everyday operations

The sweco@work platform and most of the routines are developed centrally in Sweden. The tools and manuals, plus a few additional routines, however, are specific to Sweco Norway. According to the president of Sweco Norway, the manuals (previously the routines of Grøner’s QMS) were subject to extensive employee involvement:

“When we became certified and when we started seriously using it, we went through every routine, routine by routine, and discussed them thoroughly, whether they described how we worked and whether there were suggestions for changes where they didn’t and so on.”

Today, the feedback is mainly meant to be handled by the ‘suggestions and improvements’ feature in sweco@work, where employees can register their feedback. The QA-leader notes the following in regards to the feedback to the system:

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“We get feedback from all our colleagues in Norway, and I pass those on… I mean, I can do minor changes that are supplementary to the system… manuals and those sort of things we can develop ourselves in Norway, as long as it does not turn out worse than the template or the norm. If there are bigger issues we bring it to an international level, and then there is made a priority list, year by year, for the things that we want to prioritize and have money to do something with. There is feedback coming in on a daily basis. Some are sensible and others are not. […] I would say that for the Norwegian part, I think we change something every single week, if not every day. Several times a week I’ll go in and… even though they are small changes that you perhaps wouldn’t notice, it is a clarification that hopefully is for the better, based on contributions from colleagues.”

Clearly, there is an element of employee involvement in the QMS development and refinement, which suggests that Proposition 20 holds true. Specifically, several respondents report feeling that feedback from employees has led to the reorganizing of the trade-specific contents which is currently being undertaken. Furthermore, several respondents state that they feel that this is a much needed change that they hope will give a substantial boost to the maintenance and updating of tools, which again will lead to a greater confidence in the contents of sweco@work. With the reorganization into trade-specific platforms (such as for example by wood or concrete structures) instead of by division-specific contents, one hopes to avoid the rather random submitting of content into sweco@work, which has previously been an issue. Now, each platform will have a designated manager who will be in charge of keeping contents correct and up-to-date.

In fact, there are signs of there being, or having been, a lack of trust in the contents of sweco@work. For example, several respondents report having found templates with other companies’ logos on them. In Sweco Barometer (Sweco Norge AS, 2012a), only 56 % agree (4 or 5 on a five-point Likert scale) with the statement “In our unit we

maintain our competitiveness by simple or effective work processes (such as sweco@work or other local processes)”, which may also suggest that employees are

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system does not have appropriate tools for everyday operations’ is a quite accurate description of some employees’ perception of the system.

In section 6.2, we saw that several representatives of the QA-function and top management argued that those who felt that the system was difficult to use had not used it enough. Indeed, several respondents from lower hierarchical levels report feeling that a barrier to system use is taking the time to get to know it. Furthermore, they report feeling that they find it difficult to set aside time to adhere to the system. For example, one assignment manager notes that:

“[Using the system] is simply of low priority. I don’t have the time. When the schedule does not allow it, it is not prioritized.”

The question, then, is why it is not prioritized. Possible answers to that question is indicated several places in this report. For example, it has been discussed that some do not find using it useful or value adding. Moreover, it is plausible that assignment managers find it hard to prioritize the system when it is not demanded of them from their superior. There are a few respondents reporting that they feel some pressure from their manager to prioritize delivering to the customer or making profits over using the system. Moreover, there is a quite high emphasis on profitability in the organization. In Sweco Barometer, 93 % agree (4 or 5 on a five-point Likert scale) to the statement “There is a focus on profitability in the work I participate in” (Sweco Norge AS, 2012a). This is also acknowledged by several managers. For example, the B&C division manager notes that:

“It might have something to do with the industry not having been able to get paid for doing the necessary assurance. I think perhaps that is the main challenge. I mean, which finger are you going to bite, are you going to lose money in the project or are you going to do what the system requires. And then perhaps you take it lightly because… perhaps there is a greater focus on profitability than necessary quality assurance.”

All in all, it is reasonable to argue that Proposition 21 holds true; some employees are finding it hard to take the time to learn and to use the system, which is perhaps

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reinforced by a focus on profitability and a relative lack of expectations of system use from managers.