Not all employee voice serves the same purpose
When organisations think about employee voice, they often view it as a single concept. In reality, there are different types of employee voice and each serves a different purpose.
Two types of employee voice
Researchers typically distinguish between two forms of employee voice: promotive voice and prohibitive voice.
Promotive voice focuses on improvement. It is when employees offer ideas, suggestions and recommendations to help the organisation perform better.
Prohibitive voice focuses on protection. It occurs when employees raise concerns about behaviours, practices, policies or decisions that could harm the organisation, its people or its customers. Rather than seeking improvement, prohibitive voice seeks to prevent harm.
Why prohibitive voice carries greater risk
Both promotive and prohibitive voice challenge the status quo so in essence, they both carry a degree of risk for employees speaking up. But prohibitive voice often carries a higher personal risk. Employees may worry that raising concerns will be viewed as criticism rather than commitment. For some, previous experiences of speaking up have resulted in negative consequences, ranging from being labelled difficult or disruptive through to more serious concerns about personal safety, reputation or career progression. As a result, many choose silence over speaking up.
Intent matters
Both promotive and prohibitive voice are usually driven by positive intent. The employee suggesting a new approach wants to improve performance. The employee highlighting a concern wants to prevent harm.
The challenge for organisations is that prohibitive voice rarely arrives freely or neatly packaged. It often requires active effort to create the conditions where employees feel safe enough to share it.
A recent example
At MI-Say, we recently worked with an organisation that deliberately sought prohibitive voice.
The leadership team knew there was a sensitive issue that required deeper exploration. Engagement survey data had highlighted concerns and leaders recognised that something needed attention.
The organisation partnered with MI-Say to create a safe, confidential and independent channel through which employees could share their experiences. This reduced the personal risk associated with speaking up and enabled employees to discuss issues openly. Employees were given the opportunity to share their experiences using a survey or have a deeper conversation with an independent interviewer.
The result was a much deeper understanding of the challenge than could have been achieved through survey data alone and there were very clear actions emerging from insight built from deeper statistical analysis than simply reporting the feedback.
Most importantly, the Executive team worked with MI-Say to interrogate the findings, develop a shared understanding of the issues and mobilise around a collectively owned plan that addressed both practical and cultural challenges identified through the research.
Some employee voices require more intentional effort to understand than others.
Promotive voice helps organisations improve. Prohibitive voice helps organisations avoid harm. Both are valuable. Both are acts of commitment to an organisation’s success. Both deserve to be understood.
The difference is that prohibitive voice often requires organisations to go beyond feedback collection and actively create the conditions that make honest conversations possible.
Because if employees do not feel safe enough to raise concerns, organisations risk losing access to some of the most important insights they need to improve.
