Blame Company Culture

If Your Employees Aren’t Speaking Up, Blame Company Culture

??

Companies benefit when employees speak up. But employees often remain silent with their opinions, concerns or ideas. There are generally two viewpoints on why: One is the personality perspective, which suggests that these employees lack the disposition to speak out about critical issues, that they might be too introverted or shy to effectively articulate their views to the team.

The second is the situational perspective, which argues that these employees fail to speak up because they feel their work environment is not conducive for it. These two perspectives aren’t mutually exclusive, but researchers wanted to test which one matters more. They collected survey data from a manufacturing plant in Malaysia, surveying 291 employees and their supervisors (from 35 teams overall) about their personalities, work environments, and frequency of speaking up.

The researchers found that both personality and environment had a significant effect on employee’s tendency to speak up with ideas or concerns , but that strong environmental norms mattered more.

If you want employees to speak up, the work environment and the team’s social norms matter. Even people who are most inclined to raise ideas and suggestions may not do so if they fear being put down or penalized. On the flip side, encouraging and rewarding speaking up can help more people do so, even if their personality makes them more risk-averse.

Nisrine Bou Frem

People Practice Hub