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Employee voice relates to the opportunity employees have to share their thoughts, ideas, concerns, and recommendations within the context of their work environment. [1] Employee Voice plays a crucial role in fostering the growth of an organisation through employee engagement. [2] This article explores the meaning and general understanding of employee voice, its significance in the workplace, how employee voice practices have evolved over time, various forms of employee voice, the benefits it brings forth, obstacles and challenges faced in implementing it, as well as strategies for encouraging employee voice.
Definition and Overview
Employee voice refers to giving employees a platform to share their thoughts, opinions, and concerns at work. It involves enabling them to contribute to decision making processes share ideas for improvement and participate in discussions on work related matters. [3] Employee voice serves as a two-way communication channel that empowers employees to have a say in matters that impact them well as the organisation as a whole. [4]
Employee voice is critical to a thriving organisation for several reasons. Firstly, it fosters levels of engagement and satisfaction among employees. When employees feel valued for their opinions and have the chance to express themselves within the Organisation’s framework, they are more likely to be engaged with their work and committed towards achieving goals. [5] This, in turn results in increased job satisfaction and reduced employee turnover rates. [6] Additionally, when employees are encouraged to share their ideas and suggestions it enhances performance and productivity. [7] By tapping into the knowledge and expertise of the workforce organisation can discover solutions improve processes and enhance overall efficiency [8]
Moreover, involving employees in decision making processes through employee voice leads to problem solving. [9] By considering perspectives and insights from employee’s organisations can identify issues more effectively evaluate alternatives thoroughly and make informed decisions that are more likely to be accepted and implemented by the workforce. [10]
Lastly when employees feel that their opinions are valued through employee voice practices it contributes to their being and job satisfaction. [5] This recognition empowers them psychologically and provides a sense of autonomy. Consequently, it leads to levels of job satisfaction engagement in their work roles and improved overall well-being [11]
Types of Employee Voice
Employee voice can be classified into two categories; collective and individual expression.
Collective voice refers to when employees join forces as a group to express their perspectives and advocate for their rights and interests.Trade unions play a role, in facilitating voice by acting as representatives for employees. They engage in negotiations with employers on behalf of the workforce to establish employment terms and conditions including wages, working hours and benefits. [12] Employee representation systems, such as works councils or committees are structures that enable voice within organizations. [13] These bodies consist of elected employee representatives who engage in discussions with management regarding matters affecting the workforce. They provide a platform where employees opinions can be heard and considered during decision making processes. [14]
On the hand individual voice emphasises the expression of opinions and concerns by employees. Feedback mechanisms, like surveys or suggestion systems offer opportunities for employees to share their thoughts and suggestions with management. [7] These measures can be implemented to guarantee confidentiality encouraging sincere feedback. By providing a platform for individual employees to express their thoughts and concerns organisations can tap into the viewpoints and expertise of their workforce. [15] Adopting open door policies and suggestion systems also cultivates an atmosphere where employees feel at ease approaching their supervisors or managers directly to share their ideas, concerns, or suggestions. [1] This establishes a pathway for individual employees to have their voices recognized and appreciated. When employees perceive that their opinions are valued and considered it can enhance their satisfaction with their job and dedication to the organisation. [6]
To summarise employee voice plays a role, in fostering a work environment and ensuring that employees have influence over decisions that impact them. It can be categorised as Collective voice; such as, through trade unions and employee representation. Individual voice; which encompasses feedback mechanisms and open-door policies. By promoting employee voice organisations stand to gain from the perspectives and ideas of their workforce leading to employee engagement and overall organisational success.
Evolution of Employee Voice Practices
Employee voice practices have evolved over time, reflecting changes in the nature of work, employee expectations, and societal developments. Traditionally speaking for employees was primarily done through mechanisms such, as trade unions or collective bargaining. [16] These mechanisms enabled employees to engage in discussions, with employers regarding topics related to salary working conditions and other aspects of employment. [17] In recent years, there has been a trend towards individual voice mechanisms that aim to empower employees in expressing their thoughts and concerns. This includes methods such as employee surveys, suggestion systems and open-door policies. These approaches provide channels for employees to communicate their ideas and concerns with management.
Benefits and Advantages of Employee Voice
Drawing on communication theory, employee voice is a communication process that “values dialogue, listening and mutual trust” and is a mechanism for enabling employees to contribute to decision-making. [18] Employee voice is generally considered by theorists as a “discretionary, prosocial and challenging behaviour”. [19] Therefore, employee voice plays a positive and key role in enabling members of organisations to feel heard, understood and valued, and improves participation in organisations. There are a range benefits and advantages arising from effective organisational strategies for enabling employees to voice their concerns, ideas and opinions. Benefits for individual employees include a heightened sense of engagement with their organisations through participation in decision-making and problem solving, leading to improved job satisfaction, performance and progression opportunities and enhanced wellbeing. Benefits organisations include improved organisational performance and innovation, improved decision-making and dispute resolution leading to lower turnover rates.
Enhanced Employee Engagement, wellbeing satisfaction, performance and progression
Employee voice behaviour has been established in literature as a means to achieve job satisfaction, performance and engagement. Liang and Yeh explored the effect of employee voice on job satisfaction in a study 2019 and found employee “voice behaviour increases employees’ sense of achievement and work performance. Therefore, when employees gain a sense of accomplishment in their work through voice behaviour, they may experience increased job satisfaction.” The positive outcomes of employee voice behaviours for job satisfaction were also noted by Guzman & Espejo, 2019 in their study of the impact of employee voice on management innovation. They cited previous theorists findings that employees who engage in voice experience benefits, such as higher performance evaluations, [20] higher job satisfaction, [21] more salary increases and promotions (Seibert, Kraimer, & Crant, 2001), and a higher degree of social integration as newcomers. [22]
Significant bodies of research link employee voice with employee wellbeing. Ejaz et al., 2022 noted employees expressing their views and speaking up in accordance with individual beliefs and values mostly transmit positive feelings. [23] Ejaz et al., studied the impact of ethical leadership in employee wellbeing mediated by employee voice and found results consistent with the earlier studies reported that there is a significant relationship exists between employee well-being and employee voice. [23]
Significant bodies of research link employee voice with employee wellbeing. Ejaz et al., 2022 noted employees expressing their views and speaking up in accordance with individual beliefs and values mostly transmit positive feelings. [24] Ejaz et al., studied the impact of ethical leadership in employee wellbeing mediated by employee voice and found results consistent with the earlier studies reported that there is a significant relationship exists between employee well-being and employee voice [25]
Dispute resolution, problem-solving, innovation and turnover
Early theorists argued that employees who are dissatisfied at work they either choose to speak up, or quit. [26] Therefore, employee voice is described as a pre-condition to workplace problem-solving and dispute resolution. For leaders in an organisation to know a problem exists and requires intervention, employees must raise concerns and engage in problem-solving with their managers. “Employee voice is linked to the literature on workplace fairness, particularly that focused on employees’ participation in decision-making leading to a resolution of workplace conflict [27]
A 2019 study by Van Gramberg et al., considered the importance of employee voice as a precondition for effective conflict resolution and, in turn, on employee intentions to quit. They found employee voice has the additional benefit of directly reducing employees’ intentions to quit beyond its indirect effect of helping to resolve conflicts at work.
Identifying and collaboratively resolving problems and the consequential reduction in voluntary turnover reduces transaction costs to organizations. A 2020 large sample study of the cost of employee turnover examined the impact of turnover and performance and found high turnover is associated with lower future financial performance. [28] Estimates of the cost of replacing employees who turnover (both real costs in recruitment and replacement activities, and opportunity costs, such as lost productivity) range from 30% to 200% of the annual salary of the departing employee [29] so the benefits to organizations of avoiding turnover cost is material.
Employee voice also plays a key role in enabling organizations to harness the input of their people into considering new opportunities and implementing innovations. Employee voice shapes behaviors that are aligned with “organizational citizenship that connects change-oriented constructive communication with the aim to improve the situation.”. [30] Guzman and Espejo (2019) studied the relationship between employee voice and management innovation and found that the willingness to discuss ideas was a predictor to the success of management innovation. They highlight the collective engagement of employees through voice behaviours as a critical component of success.
Fear of Retaliation or Negative Consequences
Employees often hesitate to voice their concerns due to a fear of negative repercussions. [31] According to Milliken, et al, 2003 reasons such as fear of retaliation; lack of confidence in organizational responsiveness, and perceived sense that expressing an opinion or concerns is ineffective. [31] This psychological barrier can significantly impact the employees' willingness to speak up. [32] Real-life examples as shown by Near and Miceli (1985) illustrate the consequences faced by whistle blowers can include job insecurity and isolation. [33] From a public sector perspective, employees may be reluctant to voice their concerns about policy decisions, fearing reassignment or marginalization within their Departments if their views differ from their superiors.
Power Dynamics and Hierarchies
Large organizations may struggle to ensure all employees' voices are heard due to their size and complexity. This can lead to feelings of anonymity and disconnection among employees. [34] From a public sector perspective, large government agencies may struggle to collect input from employees' at various levels when formulating policies, leading to feelings of disengagement among rank-and-file public servants.
Similarly, employee voice can also be enabled or stalled as a result of the hierarchy of an organization. This may be largely dependent on how power is distributed. Gao, J., et al (2015) highlights and notes these challenges faced by lower status employees who have limited opportunities to speak up. [35] Equally, Detert & Burris (2016) suggests variability in organizational cultures play a part in challenges employees face when trying to voice their concerns. [36]
Organizational Culture and Leadership
Organizational Culture plays a pivot role in employee voice. Schien (2010) emphasizes that culture is a fundamental and key aspect of any organization. It shapes the behavior, influences the decision making and help reflect shared values and assumptions of employees. [37]
One challenge is Leadership alignment. Various literature has discussed there is a close relationship between culture and leadership, and how they emphasize the role of leadership in shaping organizational culture. [38] However, some managers may resist employee voice, perceiving it as a challenge to their authority. This resistance can stifle the flow of information within the organization. [38] From a public sector perspective, Government officials who resist feedback from lower-level employees may inadvertently prevent innovative solutions to public policy changes.
Resistance to cultural change is another challenge. Schein (2010) argues that transforming an organization culture can be met by resistance, making it quite tricky to create a culture of transparency. [37] Schein (2010) highlights the importance of understanding and addressing underlying assumptions as they are the most resistant to change. An example of underlying assumption that the hierarchical structures and authority should be respected without question. [37] The risk is employees might defer to their superiors and avoid challenging decisions made by senior management. Organizations as noted by Wilkinson and Fay, 2011; Schein (2010) that prioritize trust, openness and an inclusive culture will have employees that are more likely to voice their thoughts. [39]
Lack of Trust and Communication Channels
Trust and effective communication are cornerstones of employee voice. Mayer et al (1995) empathizes that trust involves a readiness to assume risks and be vulnerable. One way to gauge willingness of an individual, is to separate the willingness to be vulnerable from actually being vulnerable. This distinction is important when assessing trust, whether it is done through surveys or other communication methods as it focuses on the individual’s readiness to trust. [40] For example, when a manager takes a risk in a relationship, it can result in a positive or negative outcome with the employee, affecting their perceptions. [41]
Furthermore, Detert and Burris (2016) explores the consequences of inadequate communication channels. They argue that transparent feedback processes mitigate anxiety and encourage employee participation. [36] Detert et al (2016) offers an example where a Vice President of a mid-sized health services firm developed a six-week plan to gather and act on employee ideas for work placement improvements. By explicitly outlining the guidelines and commitments explicit reduced the sense of overwhelm and futility among contributing employees. [36] For that reason, trust in an organization’s commitment to addressing concerns is essential for fostering employee voice. [36] When trust is absent, employees may withhold valuable feedback due to skepticism about the organization's intentions. [31]
In closing, it is evident through the academic literature employees continue to frequently hesitate to discuss organizational issues with their superiors because of being uncomfortable. [31] The reality for employers is they need to embrace the challenge, emphasizing the importance of overcoming these obstacles to support the success of any organisation. Alongside this, Employers need to be mindful that the concept of employee voice continues to evolve in response to shifting workplace dynamics and societal changes.
Promoting employee voice in organisations is crucial for fostering a culture of engagement, innovation and inclusivity. Employee voice is described as the practice of encouraging and enabling employees to express their opinions, ideas, concerns and suggestions about their work and wider organisation. [42] In this Wikipedia update, strategies for promoting employee voice, include creating a supportive organisational culture, establishing effective communication channels, providing training and development opportunities, and encouraging employee participation. These strategies are essential for enhancing employee engagement, job satisfaction, and overall employee performance.
Creating a Supportive Organisational Culture
A supportive organisational culture is the foundation for promoting employee voice. When employees feel valued, respected and safe, they are more likely to speak up and share their thoughts. Much has been written about the importance of senior leadership demonstrating their commitment to employee voice and the benefits to be gained from leaders listening to their employees and acting on their feedback. [43]
In order to provide an environment where employees are safe to express their views, leaders need to encourage opportunities for open dialogue and diverse opinions and thinking are welcomed. [44] Leaders are integral to the culture of any organisation and how they conduct themselves will impact on the culture that develops within their team and wider organisation. Leaders build trust among the employees from which the voice of the employee can be given without fear of repercussion. Promoting diversity and inclusivity in the workplace ensures that all voices are heard and encourages people to offer their opinions, ideas and solutions. Inclusive organisations value the different perspectives that employees can provide and will actively seek and encourage the input of employees from diverse backgrounds.
Establishing Effective Communication Channels
Creating opportunities to facilitate employee voice requires organisations to provide mechanisms though which employees can share their thoughts, concerns and ideas. Holding regular feedback sessions through 1:1 or group interactions where employees can discuss their experiences, concerns and suggestions are important for leaders to gather employee voice.
Employee surveys are another tool to gather feedback on aspects of the workplace including job satisfaction, work-life balance, and organisational culture. [45] Many leaders speak of creating an Open-Door policy that offer employees the opportunity to approach their leaders in an informal way. [46]
Training and Development Opportunities
Providing training opportunities not only enhances employee skills but also empowers them to articulate their thoughts more effectively. Strategies to support employee voice include providing communication skills training that focus on improving techniques to engage with a wide range of customers and teaching active listening. Teaching employees and managers how to give and receive feedback and coaching techniques will help build strong organisational culture. Developing conflict resolution techniques that allow dissention or disagreements to be dealt with in a positive way, foster inclusive cultures. [47]
Encouraging Employee Participation
Participation of employees is crucial to promoting employee voice and must be actively encouraged. Techniques to encourage their engagement should be as diverse to provide opportunities for employees to participate in different ways. Employee led networks and committees allow for collaboration on initiatives and promoting ideas. Digital platforms and suggestion boxes for employees to submit ideas and where others can comment help to foster a sense of ownership and engagement. Diverse and varied ways in which employees have the opportunity to offer their opinions help encourage organisational engagement. Recognition and rewards that acknowledge the contribution of employees provide an incentive for them to actively participate and share their voices. [48]
Conclusion
Promoting employee voice provides strategic advantage for organisations and requires a multifaceted approach to provide different opportunities in which employees can offer their input. Creating an environment of a supportive organisational culture, with strong communication channels, and opportunities for training and development help to encourage employee participation that will result in improved job satisfaction, increased innovation and ultimately better organisational performance. Ensuring that leaders champion from the front to build trust and transparency will ensure high employee engagement and retention in an increasingly competitive operating environment.
Industrial and organizational psychology is the science of human behavior in the workplace and work-life interface. It is an applied discipline within psychology and is an international profession. Depending on the country or region of the world, I-O psychology is also known as occupational psychology in the United Kingdom, organisational psychology in Australia and New Zealand, and work and organizational (WO) psychology throughout Europe and Brazil. Industrial, work, and organizational (IWO) psychology is the broader, more global term for the science and profession.
Remote work is the practice of working from one's home or another space rather than from an office.
A virtual team usually refers to a group of individuals who work together from different geographic locations and rely on communication technology such as email, instant messaging, and video or voice conferencing services in order to collaborate. The term can also refer to groups or teams that work together asynchronously or across organizational levels. Powell, Piccoli and Ives (2004) define virtual teams as "groups of geographically, organizationally and/or time dispersed workers brought together by information and telecommunication technologies to accomplish one or more organizational tasks." As documented by Gibson (2020), virtual teams grew in importance and number during 2000-2020, particularly in light of the 2020 Covid-19 pandemic which forced many workers to collaborate remotely with each other as they worked from home.
Organizational behavior or organisational behaviour is the: "study of human behavior in organizational settings, the interface between human behavior and the organization, and the organization itself". Organizational behavioral research can be categorized in at least three ways:
In industrial and organizational psychology, organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) is a person's voluntary commitment within an organization or company that is not part of his or her contractual tasks. Organizational citizenship behavior has been studied since the late 1970s. Over the past three decades, interest in these behaviors has increased substantially.
Participatory management is the practice of empowering members of a group, such as employees of a company or citizens of a community, to participate in organizational decision making. It is used as an alternative to traditional vertical management structures, which has shown to be less effective as participants are growing less interested in their leader's expectations due to a lack of recognition of the participant's effort or opinion.
Workforce productivity is the amount of goods and services that a group of workers produce in a given amount of time. It is one of several types of productivity that economists measure. Workforce productivity, often referred to as labor productivity, is a measure for an organisation or company, a process, an industry, or a country.
Employee engagement is a fundamental concept in the effort to understand and describe, both qualitatively and quantitatively, the nature of the relationship between an organization and its employees. An "engaged employee" is defined as one who is fully absorbed by and enthusiastic about their work and so takes positive action to further the organization's reputation and interests. An engaged employee has a positive attitude towards the organization and its values. In contrast, a disengaged employee may range from someone doing the bare minimum at work, up to an employee who is actively damaging the company's work output and reputation.
In human resources, turnover is the act of replacing an employee with a new employee. Partings between organizations and employees may consist of termination, retirement, death, interagency transfers, and resignations. An organization’s turnover is measured as a percentage rate, which is referred to as its turnover rate. Turnover rate is the percentage of employees in a workforce that leave during a certain period of time. Organizations and industries as a whole measure their turnover rate during a fiscal or calendar year.
Onboarding or organizational socialization is the American term for the mechanism through which new employees acquire the necessary knowledge, skills, and behaviors to become effective organizational members and insiders. In standard English, this is referred to as "induction". In the United States, up to 25% of workers are organizational newcomers engaged in onboarding process.
Businesses benefit by having diversity in their work force. The business case for diversity stems from the progression of the models of diversity within the workplace since the 1960s. In the United States, the original model for diversity was situated around affirmative action drawing from equal opportunity employment objectives implemented in the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Equal employment opportunity was centered around the idea that any individual academically or physically qualified for a specific job could strive for at obtaining the said job without being discriminated against based on identity. These initiatives were met with accusations that tokenism was the reason an individual was hired into a company when they differed from the dominant group. Dissatisfaction from minority groups eventually altered and/or raised the desire to achieve perfect employment opportunities in every job.
Participative decision-making (PDM) is the extent to which employers allow or encourage employees to share or participate in organizational decision-making. According to Cotton et al., the format of PDM could be formal or informal. In addition, the degree of participation could range from zero to 100% in different participative management (PM) stages.
The war for talent is a term coined by Steven Hankin of McKinsey & Company in 1997, and a book by Ed Michaels, Helen Handfield-Jones, and Beth Axelrod, Harvard Business Press, 2001 ISBN 978-1-57851-459-5. The war for talent refers to an increasingly competitive landscape for recruiting and retaining talented employees. In the book, Michaels, et al., describe not a set of superior Human Resources processes, but a mindset that emphasizes the importance of talent to the success of organizations.
Employee silence refers to situations where employees withhold information that might be useful to the organization of which they are a part, whether intentionally or unintentionally. This can happen if employees do not speak up to a supervisor or manager.
Within organizations people often have to make decisions about whether to speak up or remain silent - whether to share or withhold their ideas, opinions, and concerns ... [The problem is that] in many cases, they choose the safe response of silence, withholding input that could be valuable to others or thoughts that they wish they could express.
— Frances J. Milliken and Elizabeth Wolfe Morrison, Shades of Silence: Emerging Themes and Future Directions for Research on Silence in Organizations
Despite a large body of positive psychological research into the relationship between happiness and productivity, happiness at work has traditionally been seen as a potential by-product of positive outcomes at work, rather than a pathway to business success. Happiness in the workplace is usually dependent on the work environment. During the past two decades, maintaining a level of happiness at work has become more significant and relevant due to the intensification of work caused by economic uncertainty and increase in competition. Nowadays, happiness is viewed by a growing number of scholars and senior executives as one of the major sources of positive outcomes in the workplace. In fact, companies with higher than average employee happiness exhibit better financial performance and customer satisfaction. It is thus beneficial for companies to create and maintain positive work environments and leadership that will contribute to the happiness of their employees.
Employee retention is the ability of an organization to retain its employees and ensure sustainability. Employee retention can be represented by a simple statistic. Employee retention is also the strategies employers use to try to retain the employees in their workforce.
Positive psychology is defined as a method of building on what is good and what is already working instead of attempting to stimulate improvement by focusing on the weak links in an individual, a group, or in this case, a company. Implementing positive psychology in the workplace means creating an environment that is more enjoyable, productive, and values individual employees. This also means creating a work schedule that does not lead to emotional and physical distress.
Work motivation is a person's internal disposition toward work. To further this, an incentive is the anticipated reward or aversive event available in the environment. While motivation can often be used as a tool to help predict behavior, it varies greatly among individuals and must often be combined with ability and environmental factors to actually influence behavior and performance. Results from a 2012 study, which examined age-related differences in work motivation, suggest a "shift in people's motives" rather than a general decline in motivation with age. That is, it seemed that older employees were less motivated by extrinsically related features of a job, but more by intrinsically rewarding job features. Work motivation is strongly influenced by certain cultural characteristics. Between countries with comparable levels of economic development, collectivist countries tend to have higher levels of work motivation than do countries that tend toward individualism. Similarly measured, higher levels of work motivation can be found in countries that exhibit a long versus a short-term orientation. Also, while national income is not itself a strong predictor of work motivation, indicators that describe a nation's economic strength and stability, such as life expectancy, are. Work motivation decreases as a nation's long-term economic strength increases. Currently work motivation research has explored motivation that may not be consciously driven. This method goal setting is referred to as goal priming. Effects of primed subconscious goals in addition to goals that are consciously set related to job performance have been studied by Stajkovic, Latham, Sergent, and Peterson, who conducted research on a CEO of a for-profit business organization using goal priming to motivate job performance. Goal priming refers to the achievement of a goal by external cues given. These cues can affect information processing and behaviour the pursuit of this goal. In this study, the goal was primed by the CEO using achievement related words strategy placed in emails to employees. This seemingly small gesture alone not only cost the CEO very little money, but it increased objectively measured performance efficiency by 35% and effectiveness by 15% over the course of a 5-day work week. There has been controversy about the true efficacy of this work as to date, only four goal priming experiments have been conducted. However, the results of these studies found support for the hypothesis that primed goals do enhance performance in a for-profit business organization setting.
Psychological safety is the belief that one will not be punished or humiliated for speaking up with ideas, questions, concerns, or mistakes. In teams, it refers to team members believing that they can take risks without being shamed by other team members. In psychologically safe teams, team members feel accepted and respected. It is also the most studied enabling condition in group dynamics and team learning research.
Employee recognition is the timely, informal or formal acknowledgement of a person's behavior, effort, or business result that supports the organization's goals and values, and exceeds their superior's normal expectations. Recognition has been held to be a constructive response and a judgment made about a person's contribution, reflecting not just work performance but also personal dedication and engagement on a regular or ad hoc basis, and expressed formally or informally, individually or collectively, privately or publicly, and monetarily or non-monetarily.
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