The Importance of Participatory Decision Making in Designing Quality Jobs

Good job design is critical in providing workers with satisfying, safe, and rewarding work, and a foundational aspect of designing quality jobs involves incorporating workers’ wisdom and knowledge into decision making, a practice often known as participatory decision making (PDM). PDM has been shown to help improve workers’ job satisfaction and overall well-being. And PDM can help benefit businesses through reduced turnover, higher productivity, and better work quality. In our previous brief on job design, “ Quality Jobs Are a Choice: Why We Need to Think About Job Design ,” we discussed the history and current state of job design and made the case that designing good jobs requires intentionality. In this brief, we dive specifically into PDM, including its history, the outcomes it helps create for workers and businesses, its importance in helping firms navigate technological changes and design work-based learning, and numerous examples including those from employee-owned companies.