Promoting a speak-up culture in the workplace has numerous benefits, including better morale and higher engagement and retention rates, in addition to an improved bottom line for employers.
With a backdrop of increased regulatory pressure and media scrutiny, it is that essential professional service firms consider adopting a series of measures to ensure employees feel their voices are heard and can speak up if something’s wrong. Here are several tips employers can consider implementing into their existing business models.
An anonymous suggestion box
Whether you've got feedback, a suggestion, question or idea in relation to working at a particular firm, an anonymous suggestion box provides employees with the opportunity to have their voices heard in a private and confidential manner. It shows employees that those higher up the organisational structure are listening, particularly if there is a policy for the to respond openly. What’s more, an anonymous online suggestion box forms part of a firm’s commitment to listen and respond to employee feedback and ideas.
Establish groups and promote diversity, equality, and inclusion
An equality lead is someone employees can approach with ideas and initiatives to highlight a firm’s commitment to diversity and inclusion and help shape its strategy. An equality lead will also act as a point of contact if employees encounter any issues related to any dimension of diversity or inclusion and provides them with an opportunity to:
- talk about a particular problem on an informal confidential and 'safe' basis
- request informal and impartial advice
- seek signposting and support if they wish to escalate concerns within their team or via HR
- or just provide a sounding board to discuss issues and potential solutions and provide an anonymous channel through which employees can have direct input and influence the decisions that will affect them
Show employees you care about the causes close to their hearts and take key issues like diversity and inclusion, and social mobility, seriously. Internal networking groups create a strong sense of community and encourage togetherness, while celebrating individuality.
They provide an opportunity for discussion, knowledge sharing, activity planning and communication. They will help to reinforce key messages, share knowledge and ideas, and take an active role in the planning and delivering of a firm’s calendar of events.
Assign mental health first aiders to each location
Establishing a panel of mental health first aiders across each office location is key to ensuring a healthy working environment. Mental health first aiders are trained to have non-judgmental conversations, recognise the signs and symptoms of common workplace mental health issues and offer guidance towards the right support.
Conduct regular surveys
These can be longer, more formal surveys ie your annual employee engagement survey, interspersed with shorter pulse surveys 5-10 questions long, which act as temperature checks throughout the year. The most important thing is to make sure you analyse, communicate and act on the results.
Surveys are quick and easy to create, allow for creativity and brand to be showcased. You may consider running a virtual competition which you can incentivise.
Open-up conversations
Strive to embed relationships and ensure team members are comfortable talking about anything whether that be career development and growth opportunities and ambitions or management of work through the likes of the principals of the Mindful Business Charter.
Introducing a mentoring scheme is a great way of being able to accelerate the personal and professional development of team members. This is achieved by providing mentees with guidance, advice and feedback from mentors with more experience than themselves, but it also creates a safe space for conversations too.
Conclusion
The important ingredient in all of this is action. Employee listening tools are great but if you don’t take action when colleagues do speak up (and communicate the action you’re taking), you won’t move the dial/shift culture.
