Skill, Influence, and Group Spirit Helped Key Workers Speak Up

"When employees speak up openly on work-related matters, they aid in the early detection of problems and opportunities… and help their work groups respond successfully to unexpected situations…" write business professors Vijaya Venkataramani and Subrahmaniam Tangirala of the Univ. of Maryland. Their study in the Journal of Applied Psychology asked what factors led key workers to add value through these positive "voice behaviors."

In a survey of branch managers and employees of a bank in India, workers rated how often they interacted with each of their team members to get their jobs done, and how influential within the branch each person was. Managers were asked to rate each employee on "quality of work, accuracy of work, quantity of work, (and) customer service." Each employee also rated how much they identified with the group, using questions including, "When I talk about my [work group], I usually say 'we' rather than 'they.'" For their analysis, the researchers also asked about and accounted for factors that could affect the results such as the number of people in the branch, job tenure and level, and age.

Workers with the highest numbers of colleagues interacting with them—those more "central" to the branch's work processes—were more likely to speak up if they had higher personal influence and higher identification with the group. Influence was tied directly to how well they did their jobs. The authors suggest managers can encourage employees' feedback by improving the skills and team identification of workers.

Source: Venkataramani, V., and S. Tangirala (10), "When and Why Do Central Employees Speak Up? An Examination of Mediating and Moderating Variables," Journal of Applied Psychology 95(3):582.