Employment Relations : Employee Voice Can Lift Well Being And Productivity

The development of the different methods used to engage ‘employee voice’ strongly coincides with the timeline that businesses have endured through in the present/ twentieth century. In the UK in particular, the methods implemented could be correlated to the economic and political climate of the country at that moment in time.

This voice often refers to the ability to speak up and out about wages and working conditions without fear of reprisals. This voice is represented in the statement as follows:

Attempts are made to keep employees focused by frequent staff meetings, but people only partially pay attention as managers announce company developments. Management’s perceived need to continually push employees to act right is apparent in the way they handles the missing cover page on Peter’s TPS report. Stress To study stress in the work place, researchers often measure the existing stressors being dealt with by employees. The stressors may be either physical or psychological demands to which an individual responds and, if chronic or persistent, can lead to negative reactions or responses called strains. Physical task stressors include excessive heat, noise, and light, as well as job demands such as a time-pressured work pace, heavier workload, and the amount of hours worked.

When it comes to worker empowerment, Chad believes that “all managers should realize no matter what industry, that when you empower your employees and give them greater responsibility you create an environment that gives employees greater job satisfaction. It has been my experience that greater job satisfaction for employees often translates into better production from the employee which is good for the company” (C. D. Cerkoney, Personal Communication, February

Employees are encouraged to have a voice and to take ownership through a variety of platforms. Managers are trained to seek employee feedback and to foster ownership across all levels. Employee surveys also help to assess how effective the company is at empowering

This article examines union response to employee’s needs and concerns. The writers finding suggests that in the short term, unions adopted a strategy of compliance and requirement through the development of hybrid forms of voice, such as staff consultative committees. They further understand that non-union forms of employee representation may not allow employees to express dissatisfaction with the workplace because of employer retaliation. Unions, the research explain would seek to dominate these committees by ensuring that their members were elected as staff representatives, thereby safeguarding the dominance of union voice. The non-union employee representation that was created, however, was constrained as an expression of employee voice. Despite this constrain unions have actively involved in establishing representative structures that give exposure to a broader set of organizational issues than those normally covered by collective bargaining. However, where unions have been weak or entirely absent from the workplace, employers were motivated to instigate alternative voice mechanisms through non-union representative bodies in order to channel dissatisfaction, facilitate communication

Stressors have been an important aspect of our class journals each week through the semester. Which leads to the question of where do these stressors come from and why? Stressors are a source of strain that has both an objective and subjective view. Objectively, in a work setting it is based on how much you put into the work and the number of hours you are completing. Whereas subjectively, involves more of the perception of the work and how the work is being done. Strain is the response to these stressors, which include behavioral, physical and psychological aspects. Behavioral strain has an impact on a person’s ability to perform in the work place and how their feelings have an impact on the quality of the performance. A physical response is when something is concretely happening to you and you can feel the strain and pressure from the outcome. The third response is almost a final point of how a person feels which is psychological. They are burned out mentally and result in anxiety and

Occupational requirements such as having to work too quickly as in production and assembly line jobs; An overwhelming amount of work in a given period of time and lack of breaks can also be a cause of Repetitive Stress

“Collective voice achieves what a lone voice could never do”. Collective representation is also the foundation of a partnership relationship between employers, employees and unions that bring positive benefits for the business (Prosser, 2001).

Wiley, J. W. (2012). Giving employees what they want can provide employers with what they want. Employment Relations Today (Wiley), 39(1), 45-53. doi:10.1002/ert.21354

In the view of Moen & Spencer (2006), wellbeing is important as it plays an essential role in creating prosperous societies. Focusing on wellbeing in the workplace can facilitate societies by aiding individuals working in offices to feel satisfied, committed and happy. The evidence reveals that people who are successful in achieving wellbeing in the workplace to a good standard are more productive, loyal and creative. They also tend to make efforts to make the customers more satisfied and retain them. In this consideration, Scott, Crompton & Lyonette (2010) stated that the organizations that realise the importance of employee satisfaction make efforts to formulate engagement strategies promoting employee wellbeing. However, engaging employees is only one aspect of wellbeing. Improving wellbeing requires a more comprehensive and rounded approach that focuses on the provision of all the factors essential to an employee. Moen & Spencer (2006) provided the idea that some of the factors that can improve employee wellbeing include: strengthening employees’ personal resources , encouraging employees’ pride in their roles within the system of organization, enabling employees to function to the best of their abilities in collaboration with others and individually, and making the overall experience of employees positive. In this context, Scott (2009) asserted that the most important factor that enhances the employee wellbeing in the workplace is a sense of

Besides, power imbalance between employer and employee in the workplace seems to be unavoidable. As noted by Wilkinson et al. (2014), employees are citizens who have the right to be informed and consulted; therefore, the aim of employee voice is to communicate with management and express employees’ concerns about their work situation. Nevertheless, in recent years, decreasing union density has gradually shifted the form of voice in most organisations and countries from collective and unionized channels to direct and individualized mechanisms (Wilkinson et al., 2014).

The author currently consults in employee relations, organization change, and development. His clients include both private and public sector organizations.

Donaghey, Cullinane, Dundon and Wilkinson (1994) describes employee silence in organizations as those who withhold opinions about their work related matters, to the people who are capable of dealing with these situations. It usually takes place, when employees are concerned about the job, have suggestions for improvement or conflicting views with tasks. An organizations culture and

Occupational stress is an increasingly important occupational health problem and a significant cause of economic loss. Occupational stress may produce both overt psychological and physiologic disabilities. However it may also cause subtle manifestation of morbidity that can affect personal well-being and productivity (Quick, Murphy, Hurrel and Orman, 1992). A job stressed individual is likely to have greater job dissatisfaction, increased absenteeism, increased frequency of drinking and smoking, increase in negative psychological symptoms and reduced aspirations and self esteem (Jick and Payne, 1980). The use of role concepts suggests that occupational stress is associated with individual, interpersonal and structural variables (Kutz and Kahn, 1978; Whetten, 1978). Studies on burnout found that, it is related to exhaustion and work over load factors in various organisations (Green and Walkey, 1988; Chermiss, 1980; Freudenberger, 1977, 1980). Stress on the job is costly for employers, reflected in lower productivity, reduced motivation and job skills, and increased and accidents. The purpose present study is an attempt to investigate and to compare the level of stress experienced by the employees of the Nationalised banks in Chennai. The study aims to ascertain the level of stress and to analyse the various attributes which influence organizational stress on bank employees. III. SCOPE OF THE STUDY United States