A scandal which, if left unchecked could have bought the company down, was dealt with. In the batch of 10,000 or so emails were the revelations of what a small number of senior people had been doing to allegedly cook the books to make their figures look better than they really were. Public confidence in business probity, and in the whole system goes south.īut when organisations do listen – then employees speak up. Within a week of arriving at Tesco as the new CEO, Dave Lewis asked his employees to email him about their views and concerns. And the consequences have been catastrophic for the organisations concerned. The share price goes down. There was a culture of denial and collusion, from top to bottom, which was extremely difficult for individuals to punch through. None of these organisations were listening organisations.
Too scared – culture of bullying and intimidation. Too disengaged – "just the way it is around here". So why didn’t they speak up, go public, stop the rot? The effects of cost cutting, the results of a win at all costs culture, the results of giving unchecked power to sadists. What did the Salz report into Barclays tell us? The report into how Jimmy Saville got away with his actions at the BBC? The Francis Report into Mid staffs Hospital the reports into Deep Water Horizon and many more, in banking, retail and the care sector? They told us that people in the organisation always knew what was going on. Just consider: what do all the public enquiries into egregious organisational behaviour have in common? And supporting it, enabling it, and listening to it, may provide one of the best returns on investment it is possible to make. Employee voice is probably the best friend a senior manager can have when trying to lead their organisation through change. The only question is – "are you listening?"įrom the water cooler, to Glassdoor, to twitter, employees are telling it like it is – and no attempt to ignore their voices or shut them up will work in the long run. And why would you want to try? It’s not just that employees are an organisation's best asset. Employee voice exists, whether you recognise it or not.
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