Employee Voice and Engagement: An Assessment of Greek Organisations

The concepts of employee voice and engagement have become significant areas of interest in both employment practice and research. Arguably, this reflects the change in the industrial landscape and the nature of the employment relations evolving from one dominated by highly unionised, blue-collar workers and the manufacturing industry to white-collar knowledge and service sectors. This growth in interest can be linked to increasing globalisation, deregulation, and a search for competitive advantage in the current challenging environment. Furthermore, the move from a collective to an individual approach to managing the workplace has seen an increasing focus on direct communications between employers and employees at all levels, but more so in less unionised workplaces. This chapter assesses the state of employee voice and engagement within Greek organisations by reviewing recent publications that focused on these concepts within the Greek context. The Greek context was chosen to examine the subtleties of employee voice and engagement because weak institutional foundations characterise it in terms of employment policies, employment protection, industrial relations, and social protection. These have become even more salient in the role they play for voice and engagement in Greek organisations because of the decade-long economic crisis, compounded by the COVID-19 pandemic and consequent cost-of-living crisis. Finally, managerial implications and future research avenues are discussed.