Importance Of Workplace Democracy In The Workplace

Dundon et al. (2004) claimed that employee voice is a form of contribution to decision-making, an articulation of individual satisfaction or dissatisfaction and a demonstration of collective organisation. Another way of saying, employee voice is the process of employees communicating their thoughts, ideas to employers to provide feedbacks and make improvements. Bryson (2004) described employee voice as a two-way communication between management and employees. This two-way communication between senior managers and employees enables them to exchange ideas. To be more specific, it brings different and new perspectives from employees, give them a sense of ownership towards the decision-making process with relatively higher level of effort and reduced labour cost. Moreover, it has lower cost and reduce risk of disruption due to employee resistance. It is crucial for senior management to understand the importance of ‘employee voice’ since it plays a significant role in constructing a high-involvement working environment and has a crucial impact on organisational performance. There are various advantages of employee voice, however, too strong employee voice will inevitably cause negative impact in the organisation.

Democracy is a “system of government in which political authority vested in the people” (Ch. 1, Pg. 4). Democracy is by far the most challenging form of government, for perhaps both politicians and the people. The term democracy comes from a Greek term which in short means “rule by the people”. The antique democracies in ancient cities, such as Rome and Athens, represent precursors of modern democracies. Like modern democracy, the need for organized rule arose in the midst of power abuse. The democracy we abide by today was created in the 17th century during the Age of Enlightenment, by philosophers such as John Locke, Voltaire… These philosophers created the foundation for our modern democracy. These essential elements such as the separation

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.

Have you ever worked for a company where you felt you had no voice? Perhaps you didn’t feel valued, which ultimately led to your leaving the organization. Employees have needs and there are consequences if those needs aren’t met. Although important, it goes beyond salary and benefits. Employees have voices and want to make a difference in their organizations. Machine operators want to be more than just button pushers and human resource professionals, more than paper pushers. Regardless of the role, employees want to feel valued. It is important for leaders to make their organization a great place to work by encouraging their employees to voice their opinions, thus allowing great ideas to flow and be heard, and then

The other fundamental issue that Charles raises is the treatment that the employees get from both the law and the proprietors/accounts. He says that employees in most instances are treated as property that belongs to the owner of the business and recorded as costs (salary/allowances) and not as assets. This effectively means that they are treated as things that are supposed to be minimized just like any other costs. This is a trend that needs to be changed and the employees need to be treated as cherished community together with the proprietors and the stakeholders. It should be a community that has members who are proud to be members of that particular community, allowed to express their views on issue related to them and the organization and generally have a free environment to

Ever since the industrial revolution, workplaces have always been a controversial topic. The relationship between the workers and the bosses has always been discussed and even compared to tyrants like Xerxes and Cambyses. In the industrial revolution worker’s rights were the last priority of the bosses. Their only goal was to make a profit at the end of the day. Following this many unions including teachers, auto, etc. were set up to protect the worker’s rights. Anderson touched on this topic in the podcast where she mentions how unions have greatly decreased in recent years. Unions have been demonized and have a negative connotation towards them. There are many arguments about them but one thing people can agree on is that they protect the worker. In podcast it is brought up how businesses are run like governments. They are run by people at the top who decide what the business should do. Unlike the government many businesses don’t have checks on the power of the CEO or board

employees are having. This includes the rights of employees to form a union in order to gain

What does Democracy mean? It’s not just the way of running a country, but in this system of governance all qualified citizens get an equal opportunity of involvement in the creation of laws, proposals, general development and it is also preferred Worldwide today, because of the respected freedom that citizens enjoy in executing their choices. There are several features of Democracy which make it more favorable for the people other than any system such as: People elect the representatives for themselves to do the legislation and make policies, an adult citizen have right the vote

Democracy is the “Rule by the People through free and fair elections and other forms of participation” (Collier, 2012). There are several fundamental principles that have been determined to have a democratic government in place. These values were composed by various philosophers around the globe as mutual core components of equal opportunity government (Collier, 2012) . In my opinion, they are all needed to have a real democracy in place. However, after briefly researching each of the principles, I have selected three primary values that I believe to be essential. I have also chosen two that I find to be necessary but a little less imperative.

“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).

It has also been suggested that a basic feature of democracy is the capacity of eligible voters to participate freely and fully in the life of their society.[14] With its emphasis on notions of social contract and the collective will of the eligible voters, democracy can also be characterized as a form of political collectivism because it is defined as a form of government in which all eligible citizens have an equal say in the decisions that affect their lives.[15]

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).

Each employee has the opportunity to vote in the election of the company 's leadership and new initiatives.

Theoretically, democracy is a stable form of government where power is in the hands of the people. In a democracy, people have the liberty to elect officials that best represent their interests, and political institutions exist as a result: Benjamin Constant argues in The Liberty of the Ancients Compared with that of the Moderns that “true modern liberty is

Additionally, in more precarious democratic governments such as India’s, peoples right to power is still recognized. Ronojoy Sen remarks of India’s 2009 elections that, “a handful of successful professionals and entrepreneurs even ran”(cite). Despite implying that only successful peoples were exercising their liberties, elucidated in this article is the potential of any citizen to attain political power, demonstrating true liberal democracy in its purest form. Communism does not give its people these liberties, the party is the “agent for creating political development” (Janos, pg. 2) and there is little need for elections as the outcome is pre-determined. In the case of Nazism, while Hitler utilised democracy to attain power, once in control democracy was replaced with autocracy.