Amplifying employee voice and hearing the unheard: a multidisciplinary study of contemporary working lives in deindustrialised communities

The study will adopt an innovative multidisciplinary approach to investigate whether contemporary workers feel they are kept informed at work, as well the extent to which they feel they have the means to express themselves to influence organisational decision making and improve their working lives.

The research brings together a diverse team of Strathclyde researchers with different disciplinary backgrounds, methodological expertise and sector knowledge, to develop an innovative multi-level study of employee voice and contemporary working lives in a deindustrialised community.

RESEARCH QUESTIONS

Our research questions are formulated with these requirements in mind:

1. To what extent do workers in diverse work settings and occupations with varying access to formal voice structures feel informed about work decisions, and have the means to express themselves and influence organisational decision-making on the issues which matter to them?

2. Have alternative voice channels emerged and if so whose interest do they serve, and do they act as complements or substitutes to more traditional mechanisms?

3. What is the perceived value of voice for employees and what evidence is there that voice is associated with better working lives?

4. What factors influence whether workers speak up or remain silent?

5. How can governments, policymakers and employers devise policies to amplify employee voice for the benefit of workers, organisations and society?

METHODS, ANALYSIS AND OUTPUTS

The research will involve a combination of methods to better understand the realities of voice including labour market analysis, stakeholder interviews, employer case studies, focus groups and longitudinal survey and diary studies. The empirical focus will be the experiences of workers in the west of Scotland. While legacies of deindustrialisation, economic crisis and latterly Covid-19 mean the area is beset with social and economic challenges, the region has transitioned from heavy industry to a variety of employer types including large public sector employers. private sector contact centres, retail, hospitality, transportation and more recently marine/renewable technologies. It also offers access to a wide range of work contexts to study voice, including those with access to traditional union voice channels, as well as 'hard to reach' workers with limited access to formal workplace voice of any kind. The research emphasises accessing to the voices of low paid, minority and disadvantaged workers underrepresented in the mainstream employee voice literature. A particular innovation is the use of the CIPD UK Working Lives Survey (UKWLS) to provide scoping and contextualisation of the labour market under investigation, as well as questions to be added to the YouGov Scotland survey expanding on the UKWLS. This will allow us to produce an original dataset for a nationally representative sample to allow us to examine (1) change in voice channels over time (2) whether employees value such channels and (3) the generalisability of the findings to Scotland and the UK.

Twelve articles will target journals across the disciplines as well as more integrative outlets. Impact will be supported by our research Advisory Group already in place (including CIPD, Acas, CIPD, Poverty Alliance) and will involve stakeholders from business, trade unions and policy communities to support dissemination and maximise knowledge exchange (KE) (see Letters of Support for detailed plans). Participants, community leaders and local authority representatives will be invited to all KE events, and three will be held in locally to ensure activists and participants have the opportunity to contribute to discussions and shape next steps. A final report to the ESRC will summarise all outputs