Employee Voice in the post-COVID economy. Importance, benefits, forms and limitations

Academic Paper from the year 2021 in the subject Leadership and Human Resources - Leadership, grade: 85.4, , language: English, abstract: This essay critically examines the meaning and importance of employee voice in the post-COVID economy. The essay considers the meaning, importance, benefits, forms and limitations of employee voice. It demonstrated the influence of COVID-19 on employee voice and relationship, indicating how organizational productivity was also affected. Employee voice can be described as “the voice of employees being heard, the participation of employees and taking into consideration the views of employees”. Employee voice may come in different formats; employees expressing their grievances, employee playing a part in the trade union while being involved in the process of negotiation as part of a collective bargaining process, employees taking decision making processes etc. While the concept itself can be ambiguous, its nature is defined by the kind of organization and cultures upon which such an organization is founded. As a result, it is most popular in organizations without a hierarchical structure, except in the rare occasion of industrial relations in which trade unions are heavily involved in employee voicing process. Decision making processes are now evolving to adopt more participative styles, which includes employee inputs.