LMBS on Voice and Value

The 9th annual ‘Voice & Value’ conference took place on Friday 20 March. It was another well-attended event co-organised by the Chartered Institute of Personnel & Development, the London School of Economics and London Metropolitan University. It brought together academics, management practitioners, government policy makers and trade union officials to continue the debates around employer-employee ‘partnership’ working.

Pat McFadden, Minister of Employment Relations and Postal Affairs, opened the conference. He referred to the current context as 'a pivotal moment' in employment relations. He argued that actions will determine not merely survival through the economic downturn but workforce revitalisation to enable British economic growth.

Ensuing speakers talked of challenges and opportunities for management, employees and their representatives alike to rebuild mutual confidence and communities of interest around a common purpose. The consensus was that the manner in which employees use their voices may be changing radically but both the need for and actuality of it were seen as far from fading away.

Conference co-organiser LMBS Professor Stephen J. Perkins commented:'We’ve moved well beyond consideration of legally driven institution building, that formed the original impetus for the conference series, to sharing understanding from multiple sources about how ‘new’ employment relations are playing out in practice. At a time of worldwide insecurity across the stakeholders in enterprise and service, getting such an influential, well-informed and thoughtful group of actors together in the same place for a day, to explore how truly progressive employment relations may be embedded, is a high value investment in anyone’s language.'

16 April 2009