Employee voice through Representation

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Representation symbolises ​the third party consisting of chosen employees often known as the 'union'. The union regularly meets the management where it acts on behalf of the employees.

This kind of indirect employee voice can enable the employees to speak up about their issues they might have. For some employees it is much easier to present their thoughts to a union rather than to the manager because of their fear of being disciplined (Avgar et al., 2018).

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In the past using trade union was considered as the best dimension of employee voice. However, in recent years the unions have experienced substantial decline which shows the Workplace Employment Relations Study (Van Wanrooy et al., 2013). 

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History of Trade Unions

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Achievements of Trade Unions

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About Trade Union Decline

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Collective Bargaining and Joint Regulation

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Collective bargaining is the process of negotiation between trade unions and employers leading to a joint regulation (Miles and Mangold, 2014). This negotiation can only happen in companies which acknowledge trade unions. Afterwards, the union and the employer can come to an agreement about how the process will work. It functions as a labour contract between the union and the employer. Collective bargaining is a crucial step for employee voice. It allows the employees to have a say about the decision making and it helps to manage the conflicts.

Collective bargaining regulates:

• Pay and working hours/overtime

• Training

• Health and safety

• Grievance mechanism and many more

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Employee voice through Communication

 

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In 1988 Gorden presented his Two-spectrum model. Although, it was introduced a few years before the Internet, a lot of organisations have still used it. This model was created to measure to what extent the voice is active or passive and to what extent the voice is destructive or constructive (CIPD, 2013).

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Communication can be also divided into upward, downward and horizontal communication.

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Upward and Downward Communication

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Nowadays, the communication is heavily influenced by social media. The organisations' control via dialogue is decreasing. Especially, when the overall communication has become multi-directional because of using social media. Employees can use various elements to express their thoughts which social media offer. For instance "'shout out' their comments" (CIPD, 2012a cited in CIPD, 2013, p. 12). It connects the whole organisation and employees of different levels of position. Therefore it is not available only for the senior management but even employees of lower positions can have a say. Social media had massive impact on employee voice. Comparing to the trade unions employees can reach the management or other employees instantly by writing a message. Moreover, the social media provides the possibility of reacting in a different ways, not only verbally. People can now use emojis, they can rate and react to the comments (Daniel and Camp, 2018). This also increases the level of employee engagement.

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Employee voice through Consultation

 

Consultation can be through: 

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• Digital media – email, social media, etc.            

• Two-way communications - meetings,...             

• Suggestion schemes – reward for the best idea

• Attitude surveys – questionnaire-based surveys

• Working groups – regular or ad hoc basis .       

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Before the Internet was introduced to the world employees had been using suggestion boxes, employee hotlines, surveys or they had been meeting face-to-face. However, the most popular among them all had been surveys which date back to the 1950s (CIPD, 2013). They contributed to the employee voice innovation. But they show a lot of disadvantages.

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Recently the text analysis has become dominant because employers really care about what employees' opinions.

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"Why would you wait months to understand the mood of your employees, when in few seconds you can understand reactions to what is happening, not what has happened?"

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Fairhurst (2011)

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How to created great survey

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