Social Media: An Innovative Employee Voice Mechanism

The process of liberalization, privatization and globalization has reduced the participation in and importance accorded to trade unions. A decline in trade unions means a decline in employee voice because trade unions give employees a voice to protect and further their interests. At the same time from the human resource perspective employee voice is crucial to organizational growth. This paper explores the changes that have taken place with reference to employee voice due to technological advances specifically the rapid growth of the social media. It discusses the meaning and importance of employee voice and makes a comparison between traditional voice mechanisms and social media. It also discusses some of the initiatives taken by organizations to use social media to foster employee voice. It concludes that more such initiatives are required so that vibrant social media can be effectively used to capture the essence of employee voice.