How To Fix Your Company Culture So Employees Can Speak Up About Issues

The pressure is increasing for organizations to do a better job at hearing from their employees.

Internally, companies want to create great cultures that attract talent and demonstrate company values, and employees want a safe and engaging place in which to grow their careers and make a contribution. Yet too often, companies fail to see the full picture of what’s going in their workplaces, especially when an issue or concern crops up.

Externally, customers today are holding companies to a higher standard than ever. They expect to see not only great products and services but also that the company is being transparent around treating its employees well — especially when the #MeToo and Black Lives Matter movements are calling for increased accountability.

So when workplace issues go unreported and unaddressed, they can not only impact employee morale and productivity, but they can also impact the brand’s reputation and revenue streams. Companies never want to see an internal problem that could’ve been prevented from playing out in the media.

That's why companies not only need to encourage their employees to be more vocal about reporting workplace wrongdoing, but also provide them a way to do so where they’ll feel safe reporting. Because right now, companies are still falling short.

Employees Are Staying Silent About Workplace Wrongdoing — Which Is A Problem

Good companies want to have the full picture of what’s going on in their workplace, which means ensuring that communication from employees about what they experience day-to-day is honest and frequent and that channels are open and easy to use.

But there’s an ongoing problem with issues, concerns or even general feedback never making it to the ear of management. Often the hurdle is that the employee doesn’t feel comfortable doing so and that workplaces aren’t making the right resources available or encouraging reporting in the first place.

We surveyed over 1,000 full-time American workers to learn more, and the findings show that there are still fears and hesitations around reporting issues like discrimination, harassment and bias when they arise. Over a quarter of survey respondents had witnessed an incident yet didn’t report it, and among the top reasons for not reporting are that they thought nothing would be done about it or that they wouldn’t be believed. Considering nearly one-fifth of respondents who reported an incident saw their workplace take no action, it seems obvious why employees would think their report wouldn’t be addressed.

While this is distressing enough, as it means companies are not taking action against complaints or concerns, what’s even more distressing is that employees believe their workplaces won’t believe them if they do report. A Harvard Business Review article details the experiences of 31 women who did report harassment to their managers — and then were told that they should “move on and stop raising the issue,” unless they had proof that their experience was uncommon.

This is why employees choose to stay silent.

Employees also don’t speak up because they fear there will be some kind of retaliation if they do — in the form of demotion or job loss, shunning or shaming — and that fear of retaliation increases with entry-level employees. In fact, close to 14% of entry-level employees we surveyed who did report an issue said it made the circumstance worse for them. This is also distressing, as it means the workplace culture has normalized punishing employees who speak up — and the EEOC reports that retaliation is the most common issue they see reported. This also contributes to employees staying silent.

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