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29 Sep 09

Missing Voices: Why Employees Are Afraid to Speak Up At Work

"So why aren’t employees speaking up? And when they do, what are they saying, and to whom? And what’s the danger to the company when it’s not listening to employee voices?

Burris sought to answer these questions in an ongoing study in which he and his colleagues are surveying more than 3,000 employees at 11 different credit unions around the country about their experience in speaking up at work."

blogs.mccombs.utexas.edu/...are-afraid-to-speak-up-at-work - Preview

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“There’s lots of research that shows when employees don’t feel involved in the workplace, they tend to withdraw. They don’t engage in all the extra activities that aren’t required for the job, such as helping a coworker, staying late or taking on extra responsibilities. It’s not the formal, required part of the job, but it’s certainly necessary for the organization to succeed.”
Many employees say they don’t speak up to their boss because of fear of repercussions. But are workers just being paranoid? Burris’ research says no.
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- “I found that employees who speak up and challenge the status quo are viewed as less competent, less dedicated to the organization and more threatening compared to those who support the way things are,” Burris says. “They are also rated as worse performers, and their ideas get less support.”
- “A lot of managers think that if they treat their staff respectfully and tell them ‘My door is always open,’ that should be enough to make their employees trust them,” Burris says. “But our research shows that employees need more than that in order to feel safe to speak up.”
- “Formal, transparent follow-up is very important,” Burris says. “It’s counter-productive to ask an employee for feedback if you never do anything with that information. If staff see their ideas just disappear, they’ll stop offering them altogether.”