Importance of Employee Voice in the Workplace - Australia - Case Study Example

EMPLOYMENT RELATION IN AUSTRALIA Name: Course Instructor’s name Institution Date EMPLOYMENT RELATION IN AUSTRALIA Background The health service union in Australia is a federal union comprising of individual branches six in number at every territory and state. The branches cover different employees depending on their workplace or job. The health service union encounters a challenge of shortage of nurses and this contributes a nurse to patient ration of one to four nurse to patient ration for many cosmopolitan hospitals. This has in turn contributed to tension in the issues of staffing among the health care facilities. Employee voice The employee voice is what aids worker to communicate effectively their opinions to the management as well as be involved actively in making decisions. The employee voice allows the workers to put forth their concerns, express ideas and aid in solving problems by impacting the decisions of the workplace and choices (Freeman, et al, 2007).The different types of voice which are available presently at the current systems of industrial relations entail both indirect and direct mechanisms. The indirect mechanisms entail the unions, representative bodies of non- unions, consultative communities, lawyers, and the media. The direct voice on the other hand could be outlined as the existence of any double way practices of communication and it entails team meetings and staff, discussions in group, attitude survey, training, suggestion schemes and quality circles. Currently, direct types of voice are favored generally among employers and it is perceived that they give way to the management to respond better to the interests of the employee and concerns, this is due to the fact that there are no intermediary, hence provoking extra cooperation as well as commitment from the workers. It also has been claimed that the voice of union only reflects a skewed conceptualization of the substitute regimes that are available to workers to advance their interests and right at the place of work. Importance of employee voice in the workplace The voice mechanism acts a very significant role especially in negotiating. It has been notice that the employee voice acts an important and active role in the place of work. It is also noticed that while considerable attention deserved being offered to developing the world information and strategies system, the enterprises side of human will seemed to be given low priority or being sighted. This put emphasis on the significant fact in which workers are not always esteemed as the resources that are very or most important in any given business, and their autonomy level can be much constrained, thus restricting their ability to add to as well as being involved in the process of decision making. Involvement of employee as well as voice increasingly is significant in keeping the workers in addition to enhancing the morale of the staff as well as satisfaction in the job (Detert, and Treviño, 2010). In turn, this results to a higher production level and an effective and efficient workplace, that will not only benefit the employees alone but also the employer and at a larger extent the entire system and the stakeholders who are associated or linked to the system. The presence of mechanisms for voice in the place of work can offer a number of advantages to the employees. Voice improves the opportunities of the employees to discuss with the employer over conditions of working. For instance the nurses and the doctors can discuss on the best conditions or environment of practicing. Clean environment, remuneration that match the amount of work that they do, the working hours per day and the number of shifts that a doctor or a nurse can attend to in a given day as well as holidays and other work related benefits. Therefore through the employee voice they can be able to negotiate with the employers over the issues which may be affecting them directly or indirectly. In addition this will offer them a greater chance to share their views as well as opinions and therefore enhance their feeling of autonomy and satisfaction in their medical work or job. Employee voice enables workers to represent their opinions to the management as well as for these opinions to be considered. The mechanism of voice may also be used to as a tool for motivation. By saying this, it till recently that union voice had been the most noticeable mechanism of voice (Ng, T.W. and Feldman, 2012). This is why unions were developed so as to help employees to air their views and opinions as well as expressing their ideas and suggestions towards solving a given issue or problem at hand. For instance the health service union in Australia that is the mechanism for expressing or propagation the views and opinions on behalf or for the nurses and the doctors. Many people have analyzed the use of voice forms that are direct, with the perception that they have got no or little collective strength and access to sources that are not dependent on assistance or advice, and thus are susceptible more to influence of managerial and control. In general employees hold that the goals of an organization are achieved most successfully by that combination of both direct and indirect voice channels because they are the most legitimate and efficient when they are combined and used together. Significance of the decline in trade union representation in Australia  In general, trade unions have declined. Such decline has led to a membership rise for the full- time workers while that of the part- time remaining constant. The decline can be attested to the attitude of the employees during their negotiation with the unions. The decline in the trade unions has also led to the establishment of non- union agreements and seen their rise over time. Some worker take a move of establishing other channels, non- union, for communication and bargaining with the employer. The significance of this move is that the other channels are more flexible and can easily address their concerns (Morrison, 2011). For instance increasing the ratio of nurses to patients so that the work intensity is reduced. Also that the working hours and the shift times can be adjusted accordingly. Therefore having such channels are far better than the trade unions as they tend to be ‘rigid’ when it comes to addressing the employee voice. Why there has not been a significant decline in union’s membership in the health sector The union membership among doctors and nurses has been witnessing an insignificant decline. Over time the country has been facing the challenge of shortage of nurses, this is not only a challenge in Australia but also a global challenge. And as such, the unions has been in the forefront trying to retain the members, by at least attempting to address their issues. The steady change in the system of health challenges the view that a single nurse can be everything to entire people. As such nurses with diverse education and competencies in practice come with varied skills to health centres and they ought to be in a position to practice to the maximum of their abilities (Freeman, and Haynes, 2007). In addition the health care system nature or environment where they practice is a contributing factor that adds to the complexity of recruiting and holding nurses who have already been registered. These reasons give the answer as to why there is a slight decline in the membership of the nurses and doctors in the unions. Further the aspect of recruitment needs to be carefully looked into since its potential influence to international recruitment is active – where a system or organization from a given nation recruits from another country nurses. Therefore the union is still enforcing to help retain its trained nurses and thus their number of membership of the nurses and the doctors are not significantly declining. Changing nature of employee voice Initially the claim for a greater employee voice arose in the 1800s. It was during this time that democracy in the industries would was possible only via the union’s bargaining collectively from without an organization and with the managers within the organization. While it was accepted that bargaining collectively from without an organization by trade unions, the possibility of the workers to get involved require them to possess some specialized knowledge. It was stated that motivating employee voice within an organization who increase their capability of being heard on the matter that entailed labour market, economic on issues of control and power (Detert and Burris, 2007). In the 19970s as well as the 1980s that argument was repeated as the unions started to discover the role of consultative joint committees and work groups that were autonomous inside an organization as a way to minimize the control frontiers between employees and managers. During the 1980s arguments on worker participation changed course from the perspective of politics to the dignity of humanity approach and further to an argument of economic by the employer to who the worker voice was regarded as a way of productivity improvement and performance improvement by employing business processes that were integrated and founded on higher commitment levels on the side of the employees. Hence by to the end of the 1980s, the companies that were at the leading edge had established little hierarchical as well as organizational structures that were computerized in addition to change in the culture of an organization that enhanced teamwork, continuous learning, flexibility and participation. In the 21 century new workplace, and as the knowledge is becoming more pronounced in the issues of competitive advantage in organizations that are high performing, employee voice has continued to increase and seemed to continue to put focus on the aspects of economy in the worker voice (Morrison, 2011). For instance for the nurses they tend to focus more on the pay raise or better pay since also the economic aspects of life has changed and living standards are also increasing tremendously. On the situations that their voice is not heard, some tend to leave and opt to get to other countries that offer a relatively higher pay. This in turn causes the challenge that is facing the health sector of shortage of nurses. Trends in the employer voice Irrespective of the discussion on what entails the world wide sustainable and health sectors that are high performance as well as how such organization develop as well as utilizing the knowledge that is inexistence in the employees heads, there has not been much discussion as to what the employment is required to assist worker voice in the making of decision in an organization (Morrison, 2011). Based on this argument it is perceived that the research touches much on the health sector in Australia. Much being that the nurses exercises their voice by demanding for staffing ratio that will ease the workload. In addition the voice out their opinion in demand for more nurses so that the issue of the shortage of the nurses is addressed. Such discussion also occurs focussing on the employment of technology in the health sector so as to support the networking knowledge in addition to the team roles and community practises as a way of increasing the motivation of workers that is the nurses and the doctors. In addition this contributes to the trust of them sharing their knowledge. Should government establish mechanism to support employee voice? The Australian federal government needs to establish legal mechanism for supporting employee voice in the workplace. This is due to the declining memberships in the established unions for representing workers. In addition the health sector requires higher levels of skills that are employable and also due to the large number of employees that are ever increasing (Farndale, et al, 2011). Therefore there is the claim of the relationship between the graduating nurses who are new entrants to the labour force and the worker voice and the results of the relation amid the establishment of new employment framework relation. References Detert, J.R. and Burris, E.R., 2007. Leadership behavior and employee voice: Is the door really open?. Academy of Management Journal, 50(4), pp.869-884. Freeman, R.B., Boxall, P.F. and Haynes, P., 2007. What workers say: Employee voice in the Anglo-American workplace. Cornell University Press. Morrison, E.W., 2011. Employee voice behavior: Integration and directions for future research. The Academy of Management Annals, 5(1), pp.373-412. Ng, T.W. and Feldman, D.C., 2012. Employee voice behavior: A meta‐analytic test of the conservation of resources framework. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 33(2), pp.216-234. Detert, J.R. and Treviño, L.K., 2010. Speaking up to higher-ups: How supervisors and skip-level leaders influence employee voice. Organization Science, 21(1), pp.249-270. Farndale, E., Van Ruiten, J., Kelliher, C. and Hope‐Hailey, V., 2011. The influence of perceived employee voice on organizational commitment: An exchange perspective. Human Resource Management, 50(1), pp.113-129. Read More