The dangers of speaking at work often discourage staff from expressing concerns
This interesting contribution comes from Michael Skapinker who is a contributing editor to the Financial Times and author of «Inside the Leaders’ Club: How top Companies dealing with urgent business issues.» business»).
Boeing is an employer whose workers are still hesitant to come forward with issues.
Boeing staff are still reluctant to talk about safety issues, even after a door panel on one of its planes recently burst mid-flight and hundreds of lives were lost in two previous crashes, according to an expert report. commissioned by the US Federal Aviation Administration.
The report, released last month, did not comment on these particular incidents. But he said that while Boeing had taken steps to improve its safety culture, staff were still hesitant to voice concerns because they feared retaliation.
The workers do not believe that their anonymity will be protected.
He noted that the plane maker’s «speak out» program, which allows employees to confidentially report safety issues, is being hampered because workers don’t believe their anonymity will be protected.
The shortcomings of Boeing’s 737 Max aircraft program have been hugely detrimental to the company. The fatal crashes of a Lion Air flight in 2018 and an Ethiop Airlines flight in 2019 grounded Boeing’s 737 Max 8 planes for 20 months.
The incident with the door panel of an Alaska Airlines flight 737 Max 9 in January of this year was another big blow
A preliminary investigation found that the plane had left the factory without the four bolts that were supposed to secure the door panel.
Persuading employees to speak up when they see something is wrong is crucial for companies to avoid a disaster
But before the two accidents, Boeing workers had reason to believe there was little point in saying anything.
A factory supervisor told his superiors that he was concerned about the cuts. “For the first time in my life, I regret to say that I have doubts about putting my family on a Boeing airplane,” he said, according to a 2020 US Congressional Transportation and Infrastructure Committee report. He was ignored.
It’s not just about Boeing. It can be difficult to speak up in any organization
Being ignored isn’t the worst thing. They could pass him over for a promotion (which is what Boeing workers feared, according to the experts’ report), deny him a bonus, or even kick him out. As a whistleblower at British bank Barclays discovered in 2016, your boss could try to find out who you are.
Bosses aren’t the only problem either.
Staff who speak out have to deal with the reaction of their colleagues; They may worry about being associated with the person raising the problem.
Good question the author asks: What happens if managers think they are troublemakers too?
People who express uncomfortable opinions in business meetings may find that others avoid their gaze.
Megan Reitz, an associate fellow at Oxford University’s Saïd Business School, says employees are often afraid to raise concerns, even in organizations with supposedly flat hierarchies and collaborative cultures.
Power is always scary
Leaders underestimate the challenge of speaking up, Reitz tells me, and even friendly bosses may not realize that staff don’t consider them approachable. «People having power means they’re scary, no matter what they are like as people,» he says.
An earlier article Reitz wrote with fellow researcher John Higgins in the Harvard Business Review found that even the supposedly welcoming phrase “my door is always open” contains a number of assumptions. “First of all, people should meet you on your territory, not the other way around. Secondly, you have the luxury of having a door. Third, you can choose when to close it or open it.”
So what can leaders do to encourage staff to come forward with their issues?
Reitz says phrasing questions in a non-threatening way can help. Instead of simply asking for feedback, ask for one or two things that could be improved. He adds that formal meetings are usually not the best places to do this, as people feel protected.
The importance of a culture with practical and realistic measures
The FAA experts’ report quoted James Reason, a safety expert, as saying: “A safety culture is not something that emerges from a near-death experience; rather it emerges gradually from the persistent and successful application of practical and realistic measures. There is nothing mystical about it. Acquiring a safety culture is a collective learning process, like any other.”
This can be a particular challenge when a company makes significant job cuts, as Boeing did as a result of the Max grounding and the pandemic.
One of the report’s recommendations was that Boeing ensure that every question raised receives a response
One employee frustration was that those who spoke up about a safety issue didn’t always know what happened next. Boeing said: «We will carefully review the panel’s assessment and learn from its findings, as we continue our comprehensive efforts to improve our safety and quality programs.»
Employees respond to incentives too
If leaders really want to hear what’s going on in their organizations, they should reward people who point out problems to them. They should be praised in company communications; receive bonuses instead of being denied them. They could be saving not only the reputation of the company but also that of its leaders.
Why employees hesitate to speak up at work and how to encourage them
The following contribution is from Kyle Brykman, Assistant Professor of Management, University of Windsor, and Jana Raver, E. Marie Shantz Professor of Organizational Behavior, Queen’s University, Ontario.
Picture this: You notice a problem that could be disastrous for your company’s reputation, or you have an idea that could save you thousands of dollars.
You want to say something but you’re not sure if you should. You’re afraid it won’t turn out well and you’re not sure it will make a difference. You want to talk, but you’re not sure how to express your ideas in such a way that people will actually listen.
You’re not alone. Studies consistently show that employees are reluctant to speak up
And they are even programmed to remain silent: 50% of employees are silent at work. Why is this and how can we help people express their opinions at work more effectively?
To speak or to be silent?
Employee voice (speaking with ideas, concerns, opinions or information) is vital to organizational performance and innovation. On the other hand, silence is the root of many well-known organizational disasters.
For example, the Phoenix pay system debacle in Canada, which has already cost the federal government $1.5 billion, was attributed to a culture that “does not reward those who share negative news.” Employees who raised alarms were told they were not «playing as a team.»
Phoenix Contact of Canada offers innovative products and solutions for all aspects of connection technology, electronics and automation.
The voice of employees is the antidote to this culture of silence
But it is not easy to encourage it. Employees withhold their voice because they think they won’t be heard or fear it could backfire by embarrassing their managers or damaging their own reputations. These reservations are reasonable.
Although speaking up is generally linked to positive career outcomes, in some circumstances it can lead to lower social status in the office and lower performance ratings.
The importance of openness of managers
Both the proactive personality of employees and the demonstrated openness of managers are relevant to overcoming these reservations. While we can’t change someone’s personality, leaders can create more welcoming environments that support and encourage voice.
Encourage workers to express their opinions
For example, employees are more likely to speak up when they believe their leader encourages them and solicits their opinions. By contrast, when leaders punish employees who dare to express their concerns or ideas, for example by publicly reprimanding them, voice quickly diminishes.
Pointing out others’ mistakes or sharing ideas that go against common practice can make things change.
So how can employees find ways to express themselves effectively and have their ideas heard, despite these risks?
Our research sought to answer this question by focusing on the quality of the messages employees express.
High quality voice
We first look at what we call high-quality voice and discover key ways employees can improve their messaging to gain greater recognition. We investigated these ideas with five studies involving almost 1,500 participants.
We identified four critical characteristics of employee voice attempts that make them higher quality:
– They have a solid reason. Their ideas and opinions are logical and based on evidence. Employees should do their homework first and present compelling arguments for their ideas by showing that they have put a lot of thought into them. They should not speak if they have not gathered information or first thought about why their ideas are being implemented.
– They have high viability. Their ideas are practical and have the potential to be implemented. Employees should consider whether their organizations can realistically take action on their suggestions, for example taking into account time or resource constraints and providing details on how to implement them. Employees should not ignore the realities and difficulties leaders face in doing something about their ideas and concerns.
– They have a strong organizational focus. Their opinions are critical to the success of the organization or team, and are not only personally beneficial to the employee. Workers should emphasize the collective benefits of their voice and link it to the organization’s visions, mission, and/or goals, for example by explaining how it will help the organization as a whole. They should not focus on issues that only affect themselves, otherwise they will appear selfish.
– They have a high novelty. Employees are innovative and take into account new perspectives or points of view. They should consider whether their organization has tried (or considered) this idea before and clarify what makes it particularly unique, for example by contrasting it with typical conventions or opinions. They should not simply repeat old ideas or approach the situation with the same frame of mind.
Putting energy into developing higher-quality voice messages takes effort, but our research shows it’s worth it. Employees who regularly presented a higher quality voice were considered more worthy of promotion and performed better at their jobs.
Why don’t employees talk? It’s often because managers don’t encourage it.
Healthy and happy workplaces encourage workers to express their opinions. These positive results were evaluated by both peers and managers. And these findings held regardless of how often employees spoke, whether the evaluator liked them, or considered them competent. Basically, speaking with higher quality messages predicted job performance and promotion prospects above and beyond all of these other factors.
So are there any disadvantages to speaking? Yes, if you do not dedicate time and energy to ensuring that your contributions are of high quality.
When people often spoke with low-quality ideas, their peers reported that they performed worse and were less promotable. Therefore, talking can backfire if employees consume all their airtime by frequently expressing low-quality ideas that offer little help to anyone.
Is it worth talking?
The lesson? It’s worth speaking up and sharing your ideas and concerns (and it can help your career), but if you do, be sure to do your homework first, reflect on the feasibility of implementation, connect the benefits to the organization and/or its employees. and consider what makes it particularly novel.
How leaders can help
What can organizational leaders do to help employees express their opinions more effectively?
When asking for feedback, ask a few questions. For example:
– What is the logic of this idea?
– Is there evidence to support it?
– How could we actually implement it and overcome the barriers?
– How does this fit within the organization’s priorities and/or help other employees?
– What’s new about this idea that we haven’t tried before?
These questions can produce higher quality ideas that will benefit employees, leaders, and organizations alike.
Ultimately, increasing the quality of employee feedback and opinions will help them be heard. It will also result in ideas that are more likely to be implemented and improve working conditions and performance across the organization.
Culture of expression and denunciation
The following contribution corresponds to the Ethical Systems portal, which is based on the conviction, backed by research, that, in the long term, good ethics is good business.
He maintains that his contributors are top researchers (most of them professors at leading business schools) who believe that wise leaders take a holistic, systematic approach to organizational culture to foster greater integrity in business.
Housed in NYU Stern’s Business and Society Program, Ethical Systems’ mission is to leverage the research of academic leaders to transform the ethical practice of business in the corporate world.
The article is signed by Alison Taylor, who is the executive director and who signs in collaboration with Melanie Lange and Brian Harward.
Speaking within an organization can be seen as a risky exercise of employee voice that, like other prosocial behaviors, is more likely to occur under safe conditions.
Helpful and personal information that makes you feel valued
Companies thrive when potentially useful information is freely available and employees feel that they are valued and important members of the organization.
A culture of free speech is crucial on both counts: it means that management can receive important information from anyone who has it, and it means that employee autonomy is recognized and respected. Howev
