Employee Voice and Google: An Analysis of Management Practices

This essay analyzes the concept of employee voice and its significance within organizations, using Google as a case study. It explores the literature on employee voice, including definitions, classifications, benefits, and disadvantages. The essay delves into Google's management practices, particularly focusing on the challenges and failures in addressing employee concerns, as evidenced by the employee walkout. It examines the five demands made by the employees and argues that Google's management faltered in effectively managing employee voice, leading to a loss of trust and a negative impact on its brand image. The essay recommends improvements such as fostering a culture of open communication, implementing a participative leadership style, and establishing an effective whistleblowing policy to regain employee confidence and improve organizational effectiveness. The essay references relevant literature to support its arguments and provides a comprehensive analysis of the topic.

Running head: EMPLOYEE VOICE
EMPLOYEE VOICE
Name of Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Table of Contents
Introduction..........................................................................................................................2
Literature review..................................................................................................................2
The concept of Employees voice and employees engagement........................................2
Significance of Employee voice management.................................................................3
Classification of the employees voice.............................................................................3
Benefits and disadvantages of Employee voice in organization.....................................4
Argument about Google’s management of employees voice..............................................4
Conclusion...........................................................................................................................6
References............................................................................................................................8

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Introduction
Employees voice includes the different means by which employees communicate their
voice to their employers and therefore influence all those matters affecting them at their work. In
other words, employee voice means the ability of the employees to write or discuss about
anything that they find is important within the organization (Liu et al. 2017). Organizations that
can provide proper opportunities to the employees for placing their voice in front if the top
management help in building trustworthy and open relationships in the organization between the
employers and the employees. And this relationship between the employees and the employers
can ultimately help the organization in becoming successful. Employees voice also includes the
participation of the employees in the decision making process of the organization (Stinglhamber,
Ohana and Caesens 2017). In order to ensure that the employees get opportunity to place their
voice in front of the management, the employers can carry out employee engagement activities,
encourage regular feedbacks from the employees, and ne open to all the ideas and suggestions
provided by the employees. The company selected for the purpose of this study is Google. The
main aim of the paper is to discuss about the concept of employees voice and importance of
employee voice in organizations. The paper will discuss about the concept of employee voice,
discuss about the employees voice management at Google.
Literature review
The concept of Employees voice and employees engagement
The term employees engagement refers to individuals who have a sense of commitment
and belongings with the organization and therefore they give their best to the organization. There
are different factors that affect the employees engagement within the organization such as the

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employees understanding of the job role, the career development opportunities within workplace,
open communication within the organization and others (Song et al. 2018). An engaged team can
be built with the help of strong leadership, organizational integrity, proper motivational and
support and employees voice mechanisms. Employees voice therefore refers to the ability of the
employees to take part in the decision making process of the organization.
Significance of Employee voice management
It is necessary to give employees freedom to participate in the organizational decision
making such that they can feel engaged within the organization. Employees voice includes- the
formal and informal communication between the employees and employers within the
organization and that determines the level of motivation of employees within an organization.
When employees are unable to voice their opinions they develop a feeling of resentment and
then this feeling stops them from creative thinking, demotivates them and ultimately affects their
performance in the organization (Stinglhamber et al. 2019). Moreover it has been found out that
it is necessary to have a climate where the employees can communicate openly in order to adapt
to the changing business environment.
Classification of the employees voice
Employees voice is raised usually in two main situations- first, when the employees
decide to speak up about any workplace challenge being faced by them and therefore they decide
to speak up instead of resigning from the organization (Alfayad and Arif 2017). The second
situation arises in case of participative management style, where the employees need to be
engaged in decision making process of the organization. Employees raise their voice in the first
case when the organization is unable to provide them with a supportive organizational culture for
open communication, lack of supportive climate and when the organisation has ineffective

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leadership. On the other hand, employees have to raise their voice in the second case, in order to
develop operational activities and also for the purpose of ensuring employees engagement within
the organization.
Benefits and disadvantages of Employee voice in organization
Some of the major benefits of employee voice include- venting up of negative emotions
of the employees, improvement of the organizational agility, it prevents the loss of skill and
knowledge, it can lead to employer branding and acquisition of the customers and it helps in
collective learning and it can also help in engaging the employees in organizations (Ahmad,
Rizvi and Bokhari 2017). When employees are given the opportunity to voice their suggestions
or opinions they feel motivated and satisfied because they do not have to save their negative
emotions and can vent up the same through proper formal and informal channels of
communication. Moreover employee voice can help in improving the agility of the organization
by being able to adapt to the conditions of the external environment more easily through open
communication. On the other hand, some of the major disadvantages of employee voice in
organization includes the risk of inconsistent decision making and more communication lines
within organizations (Chou, Fang and Yeh 2019). Moreover the chances of conflicts within the
organizations will also increase employees are involved in all the decisions of the organizations.
Argument about Google’s management of employees voice
From the above discussion, it is clear that some of the major practices that provides
opportunities to the employees for voicing their opinions in the workplace includes- employees
participation in the decision making process, formal and informal communication between the
employees and the employers, introduction of flat organizational structure, employees

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empowerment can be considered as a criteria for a company to manage its employees voice
effectively and whistle blowing policy within a company (Crain and Matheny 2019). moreover
from the literature review it is also understood that employees usually engage in voicing their
opinion in two main cases that is in case of being faced by organizational issues and in case of
participative management leadership style in organization. Google Corporation recently faced a
walk out by thousands of employees from offices all around the world even by the workers who
were paid well and were rich. The main reason behind this collective action of the Google
employees was the accusations against the top executives for sexual harassment. However their
demands go much deeper than this cause. And the employees were reported of losing their voice
in the organization. The five demands made by the employees included- ending the forced
arbitration in case of any type of discrimination and harassment, commitment of ending
opportunity and pay inequality, a transparency report on disclosure of sexual harassment, an
uniform process of reporting any sexual misconduct anonymously and safely globally and make
the chief diversity officer answerable to the CEO of the company and for making
recommendations to the board (Holland, Cooper and Hecker 2016).
Therefore the employees raised their voice because they felt that they were losing their
voice related to the above mentioned cases. This case shows an outburst of tension among the
workforce that they have been suffering from a long time dur to the inability to voice their
problems. It was the first time that the majority of the employees of the company decided to join
the protest for voicing their tensions (Lee, Hannah and McCarthy 2019). This example shows
that the company is badly managing its employee’s voice. Therefore it is clear from the case that
the inability of the company to meet its five demands shows that the company is incapable in
managing its employees voice effectively. Therefore it becomes necessary for the company to

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improve the present situation such that they can gain their employees confidence once again and
to protects its brand image after the incident of walkout. In order to do the same, the company
can encourage empowerment of its employees such that they can communicate their issues
directly to the top management and such that they can vent up their emptions. From the case
study, ity has been understood that the employees have been saving their negative emotions for a
long period of time and the protest was a result if the same. Moreover there needs to be better
formal and informal communication between the employees such that they can openly discuss
about the workplace challenges that is being faced by them presently (Liang and Yeh 2020). The
organization’s leader needs to develop a culture that supports open communication and
transparency and honesty among the employees of the organization. Such a culture will ensure
that the employers and employees discuss all issues transparently with each other without feeling
the necessity to supress issues (Bodie 2019). The leader of Google corporation needs to adopt a
participative style of leadership wherein the employees will be able to take part in the decision
making process and feel motivated by the same. One of the most important recommendations in
case of Google corporation is that they need to have an effective whistleblowing policy in place.
If the company had the same in place then the employees could have easily informed the top
management bout the issues of harassment taking place in the organization anonymously.
Conclusion
Therefore from the above discussion, it can be concluded that organizations need to
understand the importance of employee voice in order to ensure that the organization achieves its
overall objectives effectively and efficiently while also keeping its employees engaged and
motivated. Moreover, from the paper, the employee’s voice mechanism has been understood that
includes normal communications between the employers and the employees through e-mails.,

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regular feedbacks from the employees, meetings in workplaces and others. Moreover the
employees can also affect the decision aiming in the organizations through their actions such as
absenteeism and turnover and others. Further it has also been understood that those organization
which allows its employees to voice their opinions are the ones which face less employees
turnover. From the paper, the significance of employee voice management, factors affecting the
employees voice management and the advantages and disadvantages of the concept of employee
voice has been understood. Further the paper also discussed about the way employee voice is
managed in Google and recommendation for the same. Moreover it has also been understood
from the paper, that the employee voice depends majorly upon the organizational culture. This is
so because those organization which have a participative culture are the ones which provides its
employees the opportunity and freedom to take part in the organizational decision making.

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References
Ahmad, N., Rizvi, A. and Bokhari, S., 2017. Impact of employees’ voice on employees’
effectiveness. Journal of Business Stretagies, 11(1), pp.79-98.
Alfayad, Z. and Arif, L.S.M., 2017. Employee voice and job satisfaction: An application of
Herzberg two-factor theory. International Review of Management and Marketing, 7(1), pp.150-
156.
Bodie, M.T., 2019. Labor Interests and Corporate Power. BUL Rev., 99, p.1123.
Chou, H.H., Fang, S.C. and Yeh, T.K., 2019. The effects of facades of conformity on employee
voice and job satisfaction. Management Decision.
Crain, M. and Matheny, K., 2019. Sexual Harassment and Solidarity. Geo. Wash. L. Rev., 87,
p.56.
Holland, P., Cooper, B.K. and Hecker, R., 2016. Use of social media at work: a new form of
employee voice?. The International Journal of Human Resource Management, 27(21), pp.2621-
2634.
Lee, L.W., Hannah, D. and McCarthy, I.P., 2019. Do your employees think your slogan is “fake
news?” A framework for understanding the impact of fake company slogans on
employees. Journal of Product & Brand Management.
Liang, H.L. and Yeh, T.K., 2020. The effects of employee voice on workplace bullying and job
satisfaction The mediating role of leader-member exchange. MANAGEMENT DECISION, 58(3),
pp.569-582.

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Liu, W., Song, Z., Li, X. and Liao, Z., 2017. Why and when leaders’ affective states influence
employee upward voice. Academy of Management Journal, 60(1), pp.238-263.
Song, J., He, C., Wu, W. and Zhai, X., 2018. Roles of self-efficacy and transformational
leadership in explaining voice-job satisfaction relationship. Current Psychology, pp.1-12.
Stinglhamber, F., Ohana, M. and Caesens, G., 2017. The influence of perceived organizational
support on employees' attitudes and behaviors: The role of coworkers’ perceptions and
employees’ voice. In 18th congress of the European Association of Work and Organizational
Psychology (EAWOP).
Stinglhamber, F., Ohana, M., Caesens, G. and Meyer, M., 2019. Perceived organizational
support: the interactive role of coworkers’ perceptions and employees’ voice. Employee
Relations: The International Journal.