Employee voice in a semi‐rural hospital: impact of resourcing, decision‐making and culture

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to understand current employee voice arrangements within a semi-rural hospital and the implications for the engagement of healthcare professionals. The Job Demands-Resources (JDR) model is used to explore how organisational mechanisms (resourcing, decisionmaking processes and culture) provide a voice for staff. We adopt a single case study approach using in-depth interviews with healthcare professionals in a semi-rural public hospital in Australia. The study found that the semi-rural context, characterised by high levels of centralised decisionmaking and resourcing and low levels of confidentiality and anonymity, has limited employee voice and the ability for staff to participate in decisions affecting their work. This lack of voice has consequently had negative effects on engagement levels. We propose that employee voice be viewed as a distinct job resource, manifest through an organisation's resourcing, decision-making processes and culture, to generate a direct and positive effect on employee engagement.

Employee Voice and Employee Commitment Have Become a Global Emergency

“…Nevertheless, this chapter traces how EV was viewed across nations, including outcomes such as challenges and meanings of EV, which were extracted from seven recent articles that were vigorously selected for this review, meaning that some studies were excluded because they did not meet the inclusion criteria. The seven studies were Almeida et al (2020), Eibl et al (2020), Kong et al (2020), Nwuchi and Oshi (2020), Soomro et al (2020), Van Gramberg et al (2020, and Waeraas and Dahle (2020). The selected studies were conducted in Australia, China, Germany, Nigeria, Norway, and Pakistan.…”

“…Again, these could be considered as more accurate and objective since questionnaires were close-ended, making the results of these studies valid to consider as a point of reference (Saunders et al, 2019). Almeida et al (2020) established that EV was shaped by the structure of semirural culture that depends on centralized decision-making in Australia. This qualitative study was managed at a semirural public hospital in New South Wales, a region in Australia, as a case study.…”

Keep your mouth shut until I feel good: testing the moderated mediation model of leader's threat to competence, self-defense tactics, and voice rejection

“…Organizations should encourage members to question each other's decisions by embracing a diversity of voices. To this end, HR policies and practices need to facilitate an organizational environment where decision-making mechanisms generate a trusting partnership between management and employees to achieve set organizational goals (Almeida et al, 2020).…”

Employee voice in the Asia Pacific

“…Almeida, Frino and Milosavljevic’s (2020) study of voice in Australia, points out that doctors and nurses face varying challenges in their job roles, which are exacerbated in a semi‐rural hospital setting with stressful job demands and long work hours. The Job Demands‐Resources model is used to explore how organisational mechanisms (resourcing, decision‐making processes and culture) provide a voice for staff.…”