Within the first UK Engage for Success
report to the government, employee voice was outlined in the following way:
“Employees’ views are sought out; they are
listened to and see that their opinions count and make a difference. They speak
out and challenge when appropriate. A strong sense of listening and of
responsiveness permeates the organization, enabled by effective communication”
In
simple terms, employee voice describes the various forms of two-way
communication that exist between employers and employees. It can be both formal
(e.g. using surveys and focus groups to capture employee views) and informal (e.g.
an employees willingness to open up to their manager about an issue or
challenge they are facing), direct (e.g. meetings between employees and senior
management) and indirect (collective voice channelled through a representative,
e.g trade unions). Importantly it’s
about listening to, and responding to the voice of employees.
Ensuring your employees have a voice enables them to take part in
dialogue across your organisation about what matters, which impact the current
and future performance of your organisation. It can also lead to better
informed decision making.
If you
have a strong employee voice, conversations will take place, which are
genuinely two-way, and are not about paying lip-service to the concept. Giving
employees a voice provides them with the opportunity to positively impact their
organisation on a variety of levels: the jobs they do, the organisational
culture, your products and services, and the way it feels around here.
There
are some organisational pre-requisites, which help to ensure employee voice is
authentic and effective, rather than seen as yet another initiative. Like so
many aspects of engagement, employee voice at a first glance appears to be a
fairly simple and straightforward concept, which should be easy to implement.
The reality is quite different.
Firstly
there must be good levels of trust and psychological safety within your organisation.
Employees are not going to express their ideas or contribute to the conversation
if trust is low. Employees won't speak up if they feel that their contribution
is subject to negative consequences in any way. Employees need to feel safe to
speak their minds without fear of any repercussion. You only have to consider the
need to reinforce the confidentiality of engagement surveys, or focus groups
for example, to see that trust is often difficult to build and all too easy to lose.
Line
managers also play a critical role in, not only building trust and
psychological safety, but also facilitating employee voice. A report published
by IPA and Tomorrow’s Company, which looks at the role of employee voice to
ensure sustained business success, identified some key characteristics of
leadership that empower employee voice. They list these as:
Openness
Good
communication
Approachability.
The report argues that this style of leadership
helps to encourage employee voice.
In their report, Releasing Voice for Sustainable Business
Success, IPA and Tomorrow’s Company developed a model, which details all of the
critical elements for establishing employee voice within an organisation. The
model, detailed below, summarises these factors, which influence voice, and is
a useful tool when considering employee voice within your own organisation.
The
model highlights:
The purpose of voice: sustainable business
success
The outcomes of voice: engagement, decision
making and innovation
The culture and behaviours associated with
voice: safety to speak, leadership style, values, authenticity & trust,
devolvement, inclusivity and influence
The structures and processes associated with voice: voice channels,
development & training