More than a third of large organizations experiences transformational changes ✻. Bain & Company 2024. “88% of business transformations fail to achieve their original ambitions; those that succeed avoid overloading top talent.”These transformations aim to make better us of employees’ creative potential, supporting organisational agility and adability to societal demands. With a new generation of workers challenging hierarchical decision-making, organisations shift towards more open and innovative workplace cultures that values employee voice ▾. Employee voice is the ability of employees to express ideas, concerns, or suggestions to influence decisions and shape the workplace. It involves actively speaking up about issues or opportunities and contributing to discussions that affect the organization. Effective employee voice requires awareness of workplace dynamics, confidence in one’s ideas, and a sense of fit within the organization. It is supported by open communication, psychological safety, and leadership that values and responds to input. Voice is not just about speaking up; it’s also about being heard and having a real impact on the organizational context. Numerous studies have shown the advantages of encouraging employee input and harnessing their innovative capabilities in fostering creativity ✻, Zhu et al. 2016. “Relationships Between Work Team Climate, Individual Motivation, and Creativity.”improving engagement, enhancing efficiency and effectiveness ✻, Mohammad et al. 2023. “Employee Voice: A Systematic Literature Review.”increasing retention, and boosting adaptability ✻. Jiang et al. 2022. “Career proactivity: A bibliometric literature review and a future research agenda.”
Many employees have reasons and ideas to improve their work environment; however, are they
motivated to do so? Employees are
unlikely to go beyond their job description without sufficient motivation and might even take a more defensive approach when met with change,
remain silent when asked about their opinion, and ultimately leave the organisation
✻Morrison 2014. “Employee Voice and Silence.”. An established way to better understand employee motivation, is through the three components of
self-determination theory: competence,
autonomy, and relatedness ▾.
Intrinsic motivation comes from doing something for its own sake. According to
Self-Determination Theory, developed by Richard Ryan and Edward Deci, employees are more
intrinsically motivated when their needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness are
met. This theory highlights how social and contextual factors influence these needs,
driving engagement and reducing job detachment. Across cultures, meeting these needs has been shown to
improve well-being, job satisfaction, and workplace profitability.
Ryan and Deci 2000. “Self-determination theory and the facilitation of intrinsic
motivation, social development, and well-being.”
Identifying what supports or hinders these elements is a
great starting point for understanding why people voice ideas and concerns or not.
Access to opportunities to voice ideas are rarely equal. I have seen various organisations creating opportunities and motivating participation without considering the indviduals' situations sufficiently. For example, an open door policy is only valuable to those who have the time and ability to actually go there, potentially excluding and further silencing employees who juggle caregiving roles or those further removed from management. Additionally, whether employees believe voicing ideas is worthwhile depends on their assessment of the ‘efficacy’ and ‘safety’ of sharing their ideas ✻. Morrison 2023. “Employee voice and silence: Taking stock a decade later.”Simply put, they contemplate (1) whether their input will be valued and acted upon, and (2) whether they are safe from repercussions for proposing ideas. This evaluation largely depends on previous experiences of sharing ideas.