Employee voice: Untapped resource or social media time bomb?

The venues by which employees can voice satisfaction, dissatisfaction, and their experiences with the organization have traditionally been limited to internal communication systems that are orchestrated and sanctioned by the organization. However, social media such as Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, as well as blogs and instant messaging, now enable employees to deliver messages to hundreds or even thousands of people with a few keystrokes. . .messages that may or may not be desirable to or sanctioned by the organization. Under these circumstances, employee voice can be an untapped resource for enhancing the organization's public image or a bomb waiting to explode with devastating impact on the firm's reputation. Effective management of employee voice begins with understanding its purposes: contribution to management decision making, demonstration of partnership, articulation of individual dissatisfaction, and expression of collective bargaining. These expressions of voice can be guided and managed to a strategic advantage when organizations provide a proper organizational context along with the appropriate mechanisms for employees.