This is a briefing paper to board of directors audience. A review of different approaches for harnessing employee voice and engagement has been provided. Adopting the definition of CIPD (2021), employee voice is the capacity of employees expressing their views, opinion and concerns while making suggestions and scope of influencing decision making.

1.1 Recommendations of Improving Employee Voice and Engagement

According to Gyensare et al. (2019) the employee voice and engagement is people practice professionals role of ensuring appropriate positioning of their employees in their roles execution. These recommendations include;

Recommendation 1- In a period of 24 weeks, REBU need to make sure as part of their employee lifecycle, they integrate employee voice and engagement strategies. This is particularly what Heinänen (2022) recommend on the necessity to integrate detailed recruitment and onboarding approaches. Also, since REBU currently face immense issues in their roles, the outcome of the recommendation would entail 70% of improvement in working conditions. This is with recognition approaches encouraging and supporting the engaged staff and actively being engaged in organisation operations.

Recommendation 2- In a period of 1 year, the REBU would ensure they are measuring the level of success and outputs. As evidenced in Jha et al. (2019) these success measures and output include advancing an engagement survey before the employees involvement in various organisation activities. The importance of this is to ensure employee voice is recognised and appreciated through engagement of different organisation initiatives. This impact on an increased employee retention of approximately 80% within a timeline of 5 months. This can be promoted through introduction of exit interviews in REBU for appropriate use of data and successful operations.

Recommendation 3- Within a timeline of 10 months, REBU ought to adopt different social media platforms for controlling employees (now and future) for their varying views expression. This is supported by Nugraha (2021) identifying a surge in popularity of the Glassdoor and LinkedIn defined by the necessity for responding to posts and supporting the employee voice and engagement process.

1.4 EV and Organisational Performance focusing on High-Performance Work Practices

From the reviewed literature, it is clear that employees voice is strongly correlated with performance level. For instance, Ullah et al. (2010) note that an increase in the employee voice is involved actively in making decisions to promote organisation performance level. Considering the high-performance work practices, Miao et al. (2020) note that EV contribute to the employees gaining a feeling of being highly valued, high-level trust and influencing organisation operations. This lead to an increase in job satisfaction and performance issues managed.

A second example of EV and organisation performance is evidenced by Weller et al. (2020) as influencing high-performance work strategies which include capacity development approaches, strategic rewards, resourcing and career development. This is directly linked with high-performance work strategies. For REBU organisation, in current operations, a major strategy which can be put into account is facilitating a development of high-performance working strategy solve this challenge, the employees voice would be promoted by receiving their feedback and. Putting into account of the current employee turnover challenge in REBU, this has an influence on the employees and employers. To evaluating on them.

Therefore, where employee voice is available, Shahzad et al. (2019) note that high performance work system is established. The author defined High-Performance Work Practices (HPWPs) as inclusive of initiatives put in place for improving an entity ability to effectively attract, select, hire, develop and retain high-performing personnel. For REBU case study, this can be achieved through embrace of innovativeness through development of sustainable initiatives leveraging on competitive advantage.

Further, psychological contract improvement is identified by Al-Abrrow et al. (2019) as harnessing employee voice ability to promote commitment level, expectation and relations appreciation. For REBU case organisation, this positively contribute to encouraging openness and mutual recognition of their input. For REBU, the outcome of this would include being ranked at the Sunday Times 100 companies preferred by employees (Faulkner, 2018).

1.3 Range of Employee Voice Tools and Approaches

Surveys– As evidenced in Singh and Vanka (2019), surveys are identified as a research-oriented, standardised practice of obtaining data on employee voice. The main feature of this include independent from the researcher, free from any bias and implemented through online and physical platforms. In REBU, this can be implemented to collect data on employees satisfaction for instance on rewards, work-life balance and health and wellbeing initiatives. The obtained data from surveys would be used in making recommendations on best practice of implementation.

The advantage of surveys include increased employee engagement as it source information on issues and discovering what motivates employees. In regard to disadvantages, these include immense response rate and time. As a result, Bizfluent (2022) note that apart from a phenomenon where the employees are offered with a reward for answering the surveys, they may never answer it. A second disadvantage is inaccurate information being sourced. This is since the employer do not have an appropriate control on who is filling the questionnaire.

Suggestion Schemes– Adopting the definition of Mehrajunnisa and Jabeen (2020), this involve gathering employees suggestions on ideas for mitigating or avoiding specific issues or improving work environment. An active practice of this method for REBU could entail using Kaizen event to generate and implement appropriate employee ideas. The outcome of the information sourced through suggestion schemes entail costs savings attained/product quality improved, efficient workplaces and working conditions. The advantage of this approach include an increased motivation. Also, there is a significant control since the suggestions are able to obtain an increased respect from the employees. The disadvantages include having a lot of expectations. It is not possible for the suggestion schemes to offer solution to all issues affecting an organisation. A second disadvantage include lack of a clear guide by management teams on the suggestions sourced and issues affecting the employees.

Team Meetings– This is identified in Mroz et al. (2018) as core for prioritising an active collaboration and teamwork approaches. The practical implementation of this approach include promoting teams cohesiveness and readiness to execute their roles in the organisation. The outcome of this include positive changes among the people professionals ability to improve productivity and performance. The advantage include a more open communication with all issues highlighted. However, for the disadvantages, the process consumes immense time for pursuing the regular meetings. Further, for the employees raising negative issues in the meeting, it often contribute to negative implication on their overall productivity.

1.2 Difference of Employee Involvement and Employee Participation and Building Relationships

Adopting the definition of CIPD (2021a) employees involvement prioritise on individual employees and designed for producing workforce commitment hence contributing to efficient operations of the organisation. This is supported by Classic Motivation Theory identifying employees involvement in ensuring employees exert more efforts and working efficiently if they possess a feeling of full control of their roles (see figure 1);

Figure 1: Classic Motivation Theory and Employee Involvement

Further, Hussain et al. (2018) define the employees participation as inclusive of activities and measures adopted for obtaining employees for participating collaboratively in a practice intended for achieving a common goal. This is supported by McClelland’s Human Motivation theory which identify the employees involvement as characterised by needs achievement, affiliation and power.

The first difference of the two concepts include the employee participation identifying the extent in which employees participate actively in advancing an organisation goals. This is with involvement identifying understanding of the employees on steps undertaken in implementing the organisation operations.

The second difference is that the employees involvement entail influencing decision making directly as opposed to engaging representatives. This is with employees participation entail coming up with appropriate approaches of employees working, reviewing their performance and involvement in the capacity development. A summary of the differences is as illustrated in figure 2;

Figure 2: Employees Involvement and Participation differences

In building the employee relationships, for REBU, as part of implementing their Gig Economy, they would promote the employment relations. This is by mitigating challenges linked with favouritism and promoting objectivity in all stakeholders operations. According to Franca and Pahor (2014), an increase in employees involvement and participation has a positive implication in lowering high turnover levels of employees. For REBU, all the employees would be actively engaged in sharing knowledge on Gig Economy. This is while opening up ideas of accepting other employees ideas and leading to sustainable relationships .

1.3 Conclusion

In CIPD (2019) good work quality report, it identify good work as people securely making a good living. This is by offering relevant opportunities for skills development and career growth offering employees with an appropriate sense of fulfilment. For REBU organisation, in order to achieve mental and physical work practices, the best practice would be as illustrated in figure 3;

Figure 3: REBU Mental and Physical Work Practices

As evidenced in CIPD (2019a), considering REBU characteristics, a trust-based approach would be used to develop and establish relevant workplace changes. Particularly, as a result of COVID-19 pandemic, issues which influence the likely strategy for creating relevant work lives. This is while employers ensuring they achieve an increase in encouragement of raising all issues and concerns.

Hence, to design appropriate working lives in modern organisation, there is a need to engage policy makers, employers, staff to enhance performance. This is core for REBU in their operations in the Gig economy.

Task 2- Training Session (Presentation Pack and Supporting Notes)

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