CIPD - Employee voice

Employee relations

July 2007

This factsheet gives introductory guidance. It:

gives a brief history of employee involvement in decisions at work
describes the concept of employee voice
looks at ‘voice mechanisms’
examines the business case for voice
discusses success factors
includes the CIPD viewpoint.

This factsheet should be read in conjunction with our employee communication factsheet, which goes into greater detail on particular techniques of communication, both downward and two-way.

Go to our factsheet on Employee communication

A brief history

Workers’ control

With the growth of the factory system came the rise of trade unions - see our factsheet on trade union history for more information.

Go to our factsheet on Trade unions: a short history

In some cases, this was accompanied by a desire for workers – in the shape of trade union members – to have a say in decision-making at work. In continental Europe in the late nineteenth century there was considerable interest in syndicalism, that is the idea that unions could be the focus for the creation of a revolutionary working class which would overthrow capitalism by a general strike, bringing about workers' control of industry. Worker-run enterprises would then carry on production without bosses or the wage system.

Co-determination

Although the idea of workers’ control never really took off in the UK and gradually fizzled out elsewhere, the idea that employees should have some kind of role in the management of companies remained in continental Europe. As part of post-Second World War reconstruction, (West) Germany introduced a system of co-determination to enable employees to be informed or consulted on decisions. Under this system, employees in large companies elect representatives to a supervisory board in which they have one third of the seats. The employees also elect a worker director, who has a seat on the main board but can only vote on matters concerning employees. Smaller German companies have a single tier board with a worker representative.

This model has spread to other European countries, with variations. Sweden, for example, has a one-tier board system with co-determination. Because of its widespread nature on mainland Europe, co-determination has also had an impact on the thinking of the European Commission.

However, there was little interest in co-determination in the UK until the mid-seventies, when it grew in the UK as a result of accession to the European Union and a proposal from the European Commission for worker participation under the so-called ‘fifth company law directive’. A controversial report¹ proposed radical changes in UK company law to bring about so-called industrial democracy with union representatives on company main boards. However, this was never implemented and the Thatcher years saw interest in employee involvement of any kind disappear from the agenda, at least as far as public policy was concerned.

The United Kingdom: collective bargaining and joint regulation

In the United Kingdom, in contrast with continental Europe, collective bargaining was seen throughout most of the twentieth century as the most significant means of regulating relationships between employers and employees via trade union-led negotiations. The headlines around collective bargaining focus on pay negotiations, but its role in setting other working conditions is equally important. Collective bargaining necessarily contains an element of negotiation, which distinguishes it from consultation, and the academic Allan Flanders defined it as a process of rule-making leading to joint regulation².

The perspective here was of conflict, in which union representation was necessary in order to reconcile the different interests of employees and employers. Collective bargaining was thus argued to give employees a say in decision-making, although of course this was only the case in unionised establishments. The decline in union membership since 1979 and changes in industrial structure have meant a corresponding fall in collective bargaining, although it remains an important influence, especially in the public sector.

Joint consultation

Alongside collective bargaining, in many establishments joint consultation committees (JCCs) existed (in unionised establishments, the employee side normally consisted of union representatives) which enabled managements to inform and consult with staff on matters not covered by collective bargaining. Regular meetings would be held monthly or quarterly. Subjects might range from the relatively trivial (for example, showers or locker facilities) to the more strategic (for example, prospects and plans for the company). In some cases (perhaps where relations with unions were seen as unsatisfactory), non-union representative might be included alongside shop stewards, or parallel consultation arrangements might be made for non-unionised staff.

JCCs continue to exist in many establishments, although in the last two decades of the twentieth century they tended to be replaced or to decline in importance compared with more direct methods of communication.

Recent legislation

The legislative changes of the 1980s had left British workers with fewer rights in terms of workplace consultation than their counterparts in other EU member states, and before 2005 there were no requirements on British organisations to inform and consult employees. Europe, however, has had an impact and now the Information and Consultation of Employees Regulations 2004 (SI 2004/3426), based on an EU Directive, lay down obligations – see our factsheet on the regulations for full details of their requirements.

Go to our factsheet on Information and Consultation of Employees Regulations

In addition (and this is where co-determination has had a limited impact on the UK), European Works Councils which bring together senior managers and employee representatives from a numbers of sites across Europe have given a new transnational impetus to consultation in British-based multi-national - see our factsheet on European Works Councils for more information.

Go to our factsheet on European Works Councils

More recent initiatives

There was a growing realisation through the eighties and nineties that organisations that involved and engaged with their employees were likely to benefit from increased motivation and commitment. Initiatives on teamworking and quality, which involved employees directly and often originating from Japanese manufacturing practices, grew and were seen to succeed - see our factsheets on Quality standards and approaches and Teamworking.

Go to our factsheet on Quality standards and approaches

Go to our factsheet on Teamworking

So what is ‘employee voice’?

Thus, in the last two decades of the twentieth century, initiatives that directly involved employees and (significantly) sought to promote higher performance were tending to replace or supplement indirect means of communication like joint consultation. Gradually this process of two-way communication became known as ‘employee voice’. It appeals both to those seeking greater business efficiency and to those looking for employee rights.

CIPD research³ suggests that organisations that seek to promote voice are those that believe that ‘employees want to contribute to the business’ and that ‘for employees to have an effective voice, the important part of the communication process is not what the employer puts out but what it gets back. Good managers recognise that much of the knowledge required for businesses to be competitive is actually in employees’ heads.’ Voice is ‘defined most typically in terms of two-way communications, an exchange of information between managers and employees or "having a say'" about what goes on in the organisation.’

However, there are differences in interpretation. Some managers see voice as enabling all employees to represent their views to managers, and for those views to be taken into account. Other managers take the more limited view that voice is not so much a dialogue or two-way exchange of ideas as a mechanism to transmit ideas to managers in order to improve organisational performance.

Mechanisms

There is a range of different and often complementary mechanisms for employee voice. The CIPD research referred to above put them into two broad categories: upward problem-solving and representative participation.

Upward problem-solving

Upward problem-solving refers ‘to any technique that managers use to tap into employee ideas and opinions, either through two-way communications channels or through specific systems that are set up for employees to express their voice…the structures are management-initiated and operate directly between managers and employees rather than through employee representatives.’

Techniques include:

Electronic media – disseminating, sharing and seeking of ideas via electronic means as opposed to face-to-face; for example, by using e-mail to raise questions that have to be answered by a senior manager.
Two-way communications - disseminating, sharing and seeking of ideas face-to-face between managers and staff for whom they have responsibility; for example, by regular meetings every few weeks.
Suggestion schemes – under which employees put ideas to management, who then reward those whose ideas are implemented.
Attitude surveys – questionnaire surveys (electronically or paper-based), designed to discover staff’s levels of satisfaction with particular aspects of work.
Project teams – groups of individual employees brought together on a regular or ad hoc basis to discuss (for example) quality or work organisation.

Representative participation

Representative participation refers to schemes under which employee representatives meet managers on a regular basis in the case of scheduled committees, or through more ad hoc arrangements. ‘The essential characteristic…is that participation is not direct between individual employees and their managers but is mediated through representatives.’ Three of these methods have already been mentioned and the final two in the following list might be characterised as ‘traditional’:

Partnership schemes – here ‘the emphasis is on mutual gains and tackling issues in a spirit of co-operation rather than through traditional adversarial relationships.’ It includes ‘a high commitment to information-sharing’.
European Works Councils – see above.
Joint consultation - ‘to consider issues that are deemed to be of common interest or of key importance to the parties’ and existing at non-union as well as unionised workplaces.
Collective representation – negotiations leading to joint regulation of pay and other conditions of employment between employer and employee representatives, usually but not exclusively union representatives. Episodic in the case of pay, but continuous and ad hoc in the case of other matters, for example grievances.

All these mechanisms are formal. But informal mechanisms – in effect, simply having a word about a problem to a manager who listens and takes action if necessary – can be a very effective form of voice. Informal mechanisms may be relatively more important in smaller organisations where fewer formal structures are needed.

Benefits: the business case

For employers

Why should organisations look to involve employees more fully? In so-called ‘high performance workplaces’ (see our factsheet on High performance working for more information), knowledge and skills are developed and better utilised, leading to high-value enterprises and an increasingly knowledge-based economy.

Go to our factsheet on High performance working

With a greater voice for employees, in principle:

employees’ skills and knowledge can be better used, leading to higher productivity
employees feel more valued, so they are more likely to stay and to contribute more
the organisation gains a positive reputation, making it easier to recruit good employees
conflict is reduced and co-operation between employer and employee is based on interdependence.

For employees

Employees in turn should benefit from:

having more influence over their work
higher job satisfaction
more opportunity to develop skills
more job security if their employer is more successful as a result of ‘voice initiatives’.

Success factors

The factors that make for success are broadly those that are relevant in other HR initiatives:

Leadership: without active commitment from the top, initiatives will not succeed. Further down, managers also need to lead by example, while employee representatives (whether union officials or others) must also be effective leaders of those they represent.
Training: many middle managers brought up in a top-down tradition of communication may find it difficult to adapt to a more open way of doing things and may need to be trained in communication skills. Similarly, employee representatives may need training.
Trust and openness: initiatives will not succeed without honesty in communications, even when messages may not be palatable.

By and large, the potential barriers are the reverse of the success factors. Absence of leadership and lack of commitment from middle managers are cited as reasons for failure. There is also an issue of employee commitment: do all employees really welcome the opportunity to have a voice?

In the past, union opposition might have been an obstacle, but with unions today having greater interest in business issues, union support can give added credibility to management messages.

A study by Bryson⁴, based on an analysis of data from the 1998 Workplace Employee Relations Survey (WERS), suggests that ‘perceptions of management were no better among employees with voice – whether it be union or non-union, representative or direct – than they were among employees with no voice…this was nowhere more apparent than in…what might be viewed as the decisive test of effective voice, namely employees’ perception of “fair treatment” by management.’ However, Bryson concludes that ‘the use of particular types of direct voice – notably regular meetings between senior management and the workforce and problem-solving groups – tended to increase significantly perceptions of managerial responsiveness, while team briefings did not…direct voice was particularly effective in a union setting.’

CIPD viewpoint

Measurement of the effectiveness of employee voice is difficult because it is hard to separate the impact of ‘voice mechanisms’ from that of other factors. A range of mechanisms needs to be used; such mechanisms will tend to blur into one another, and will evolve over time. Success may be limited unless there is leadership at all levels (including employees), and openness and honesty exist as part of the organisational culture.

Effective machinery for joint consultation requires commitment and trust on both sides. WERS 2004 suggests that trust is higher between employers and non-union representatives than between employers and union representatives. There is no evidence that the Information and Consultation of Employees Regulations 2004 (see above) have so far led to any reversal of the trend for employers to rely more heavily on direct and less on indirect (representative) forms of employee voice.

References

BULLOCK, A (Baron). (1977) Report of the Committee of Inquiry on Industrial Democracy. Cmnd. 6706. London: HMSO.
FLANDERS, A. (1969) Collective bargaining: selected readings. Harmondsworth: Penguin.
MARCHINGTON, M., WILKINSON, A. and ACKERS, P. (2001) Management choice and employee voice. London: Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development.
BRYSON, A. (2000) Have British workers lost their voice, or have they gained a new one? London: Policy Studies Institute.

Employee voice