Employee voice is a critical enabler of employee engagement. Engage for Success define employee voice 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.”
They describe employee voice as the cheapest smoke alarm you can ever install in an organisation. Giving your people a voice ensures that you can spot issues before they become major problems.
Ensuring your employees have a voice enables them to take part in dialogue about matters which impact the current and future performance of your organisation. 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, 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 within your organisation. Employees are not going to express their ideas or contribute to a conversation if trust is low. Employees won’t speak up if they feel that their contribution is subject to negative consequences in any way. And there has to be psychological safety. Employees need to feel safe to speak their minds without fear of any reprisals. You only have to consider the need to reinforce the confidentiality of engagement surveys, or focus groups, 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 within an organisation, 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
How to establish 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 of establishing employee voice within an organisation. When looking to establish and build employee voice you need to consider:
- the purpose and outcomes of voice – why are you looking to establish employee voice and what do you want to achieve? This might involve building trust, or putting in place an ‘early smoke alarm’ mechanism. You might want to harness and use employee ideas and innovation, and ultimately contribute towards increased engagement. Getting clear about the purpose and outcome of employee voice will enable you to design an approach which will deliver these.
- the culture and behaviours associated with voice – consider how you develop a culture that ensures psychological safety, so that employees feels comfortable and confident sharing their views. It has to be safe to speak for any employee voice approach to be successful. Your leadership style also plays a critical role in developing a culture where it is safe to speak. Is conversation encouraged, so employees feel that others actually care about their views and opinions? Your values can contribute towards creating a culture where employee voice will flourish. In addition pay, attention to the overall employee experience.
- the structures and processes associated with voice – you need to make it simple and easy for people to make their voice heard and feel listened to. This is so much more than simply running regular surveys. Consider all of the ways in which employees can make their voice heard from focus groups, to yammer, from think-tanks, to innovation sessions they are involved with. In addition to the formal mechanisms, are the informal ways in which people have a voice, and this of course links back to your culture. Is there a culture of listening to others, getting curious and seeking out different views? The informal mechanisms are just as important as the formal voice channels.
Download our two-part guide to employee voice guide today, to help you understand how to develop voice in your organisation. Or if you have any questions about employee voice, including how we could help you, then get in touch for no obligation call.
