Toward a workplace that facilitates civility while encouraging prosocial and remedial voice

Cortina, Cortina, and Cortina (2019) raise an intriguing conundrum—how to encourage civility without simultaneously inhibiting the exercise of voice, particularly in the academic context. We echo their call to pair such civility/incivility interventions with “efforts to protect and promote voice” (Cortina et al., 2019, p. 373). Encouraging voice is inherently difficult, as employees may be concerned about the consequences of exercising voice, even in academic contexts where freedom of expression is a particularly heralded right. Therein lies the challenge. What can organizations do to support, even encourage, voice (both prosocial and remedial) from employees so as to protect free speech rights, as well as learn of and take measures to improve the workplace, yet encourage employees to do so in a constructive (civil) manner? We present a set of recommendations for how these things might be accomplished. Here we primarily focus on prosocial and remedial voice in the context of employment more broadly, recognizing that freedom of expression in academe, including through social media, can also serve both prosocial and remediation goals to the larger community by shedding light on less known points of view or drawing attention to wrongdoing that would otherwise not be identified. Presuming organizations would want to learn about employees’ concerns of potential pitfalls or ideas for improving work processes (prosocial voice), employee voice would be a desirable source of information for employers. Similarly, it would make sense that employers would rather learn about mistreatment from employees themselves (remedial voice) through informal conflict resolution or grievance filing rather than them seeking redress through litigation or exiting the organization, taking the critical information needed to address the situation with them. Indeed, early theory posited employee voice to be a reflection of loyalty, as it offers valuable information to organizations to improve the workplace and operations (Hirschman, 1970). Yet, the empirical research suggests that voice (remedial and prosocial) is not necessarily well received. The labor relations literature indicates employees tend to be punished for voicing, encountering lower performance evaluations and other negative outcomes as a result of their voice behavior (e.g., Klaas & Denisi, 1989; Lewin, 1987; Lewin & Peterson, 1999). Although such punishment effects may in fact be a reflection of experiencing workplace mistreatment (Olson-Buchanan, 1996), particularly for certain kinds of mistreatment (Boswell & Olson-Buchanan, 2004), there is some evidence that lower negative outcomes are associated with willingness to voice informally (Olson-Buchanan & Boswell, 2002). Whether or not remedial voicers are punished, there appears to be the perception that voicing is potentially risky. Specifically, research suggests that, in general, employees are hesitant to voice and may choose to remain silent out of concern it may damage their credibility and have tangible consequences to career-related issues (i.e., negative performance evaluations or being terminated; Milliken, Morrison, & Hewlin, 2003; Morrison, 2011). Also, the perceived potential for retaliation is a consideration for choosing to voice (e.g., Klaas, Olson-Buchanan, & Ward, 2012). Relatedly,