Importance of “Employee Voice” in an organization.
There has been an increasing trend
of researches and discussions on the subject of “Employee voice” since the 1980s mainly
under two aspects, HRM and Organizational Behavior. Employee voice in relation
to HRM is fundamentally about how employees are able to influence the
organization’s decision-making
Why “Employee Voice” should be considered seriously.
Not paying sufficient attention or
neglecting Employee Voices could lead to a disastrous situation for a company shaking
the very sustainability, no matter how big and reputed the company is. A good example
is (# Google Walkout) which happened in November 2018 when Google employees around
the world made a walk-out protest to show their dissatisfaction related to
certain policies of the company
Employee Voice at DHL
It can be seen companies like DHL
has already taken steps to better manage Employee Voice internally by introducing
mechanisms such as training front-line supervisors to resolve employee
grievances and hearing employee opinions through surveys encouraging employees
to resolve issues internally without external parties’ involvement and DHL names
it “power-line” as it is supposed to make employees feel empowered
Benefits of Employee Voice
According to Dundon (2009, as
cited by Armstrong, 2014) the Employee Voice will result in improvements in
three area: employee involvement, performance and management systems. Researches
indicates Employee Voice can positively impact organization to open doors for
new products, offerings and even better policies
Some Examples of Employee Voice
can be seen in below Figure 2.
Conclusion
It is evident that unheard Employee Voice can become detrimental to the company, equally, it can act as company’s development driver if managed properly according to the context of the business and by creating open-door culture and establishing methods for employees to raise their concerns and share their ideas, opinions and suggestions, and importantly HR together with management should take an action plan to respond to employee voices. This will provide better performance to the company at the same time employees will feel empowered leading to increased job satisfaction.
References
Alfayad, Z. & Arif, L. S. M., 2017. Employee
Voice and Job Satisfaction: An Application of Herzberg's Two-factor Theory. International
Review of Management and Marketing, 7(1), pp. 150-156.
Armstrong,
M., 2014. Armstrong's Handbook of Human Resource Management. 13th ed.
London: Kogan Page Limited.
Hirschman,
C., 2008. Giving Voice to Employee Concerns. [Online]
Available at: https://www.shrm.org/hr-today/news/hr-magazine/pages/0808hirscman.aspx
[Accessed 28 July 2021].
ISE
Magazine, 2016. Employee voices and social sustainability. [Online]
Available at: https://www.iise.org/ISEmagazine/Details.aspx?id=42235
[Accessed 28 July 2021].
Oak Engage,
2021. The Importance of Employee Voice in the Workplace. [Online]
Available at: https://www.oak.com/blog/employee-voice/
[Accessed 28 July 2021].
Singh, S.
& Vanka, S., 2019. Voice matters: why HR should listen to employee voice.
STRATEGIC HR REVIEW, 18(6), pp. 268-271.
Wilkinson,
A., Gollan, P. J., Kalfa, S. & Xu, Y., 2018. Voices Unheard: Employee
voice in the new century. International Journal of Human Resource
Management, 29(5), pp. 711-724.
Very well explained Fayaz. Employee voice is important for sustainable success of an organization. This occurs when, facing dissatisfaction in the workplace, employees’ voice their concerns openly and honestly rather than leaving the organization. Then there’s participative management. The extent to which employees have input into the decision-making process. In this movement employers need to hear the voice of employees if not it will become a grievance and employees get fed up of the company. I have prepared a blog on employee grievances. Thanks for sharing this useful article.
ReplyDeleteThank you for your comments Harsha
DeleteHi Fayaz, this is nice subject to initiate a conversation from an organization point of view. Because as per the case study from the UK and republic of Ireland on “Changing pattern of Employee voice” emphasized that employee voice having a massive scope as well as an impact than previous. (A. Wilkinson et al., 2004)
ReplyDeleteAs you correctly said, most of the leading organizations have taken an advantage from the employee voice to improve the standards as well as performance through some interesting approaches. And that supported build confidence and trust on employees regarding the company.
Thank you for the comments Duminda
DeleteHi fayaz, Most important topic for the todays world. Latest Theories found that leaders' voice assumption and employees' voice job insight intervene the connection between transformational leadership and voice behavior. Moreover, found transformational leadership strength employees' very own relationship with the leader, which turn, as a mediator, enhances the proposed Pygmalion measure.(Duan, et al., 2017)
ReplyDeleteThank you for the comments Parami
DeleteInteresting topic. Most of the organizations have created unique platforms for employees to come out with their voice. However in third world business context still it is very rear to have a space. And also this can lead in to some unethical issues by opening up the employee to the society more than that should be. Therefore thia should be managed very sensitive manner. Thanks for sharing
ReplyDeleteThank you for the comments Oshadha
DeleteIt sounds simple to say that people need to find their voice but actually this is a lot harder to achieve than it sounds. For various reasons, most people in most organisations do not contribute actively to team or organisational discussions. For many of these people the main problem is that they do not feel they have anything worthwhile to say. Modern tools and approaches for generating employee voice provide the opportunity for organisations to change much more easily and naturally than has been possible before.
ReplyDeleteHello Fayaz nice article,
ReplyDeleteEmployee voice is especially important when it is linked to an organization's values, What employees are talking about can be analyzed using analytics, determining which of the values is most frequently mentioned and which are not, possibly indicating which are stronger or weaker in the organization, or how behaviors differ in different parts of the organizations provides a much better foundation for a company to take action to influence how things work.so it means employee voice is an important factor to an organization.you have justified your conclusion through this article.Well written article.
There are two types of employee voice, both essential for sustainable success. The first thing happened when, in the face of dissatisfaction at work, employees expressed their concerns more freely and honestly than they left the organization. Then there is the management involved. The level at which employees participate in decision-making.
ReplyDeleteWhen it comes to employee voice, it is commonly defined as providing people with the opportunity to express their ideas, concerns, and perspectives authentically and without fear of social or workplace consequences. As a result, employees have the ability to influence decisions at their place of work through their feedback. Employee voice can only be effectively encouraged across the workplace if employees feel empowered to speak up and share their honest feedback. To do so, they must first build trust among themselves
ReplyDeleteThe vast majority of today's job searchers want to work for organizations that value their employees. They want to be appreciated by their employers at all stages of their lives and to progress professionally. In today's environment, it's more important than ever to pay attention to your employees.
ReplyDelete