Fear or Freedom to Speak?

The CIPD (Chartered Institute of Personnel & Development) recently published its annual report called the 'Good Work Index' which captures the 7 dimensions that define what good work looks like. One of the dimensions is 'Voice in the Workplace'. This relates to how easy and empowered employees feel in speaking up and being able to shape their life at work. The report offers the recommendation that,

"Employers should encourage and empower leaders to facilitate employee voice by developing an open working environment in which staff feel comfortable speaking up and managers know how to enable this" CIPD Good Work Index 2023

I thought this would be a good subject to consider in the context of how it relates to the impact on mind, body and spirit at work.

Let's look at it this way...

Have you ever had something you wanted to get off your chest....... and when you did, how did you feel? Usually, it feels cathartic, like a huge weight has been lifted (because the energy of holding on to it made you feel like you were about to explode). The fact that someone has listened to you leaves you feeling lighter and better able to carry on with your day.

Sound familiar?

Most of us have felt like this at some point in our lives, actually no....many times in our lives!

Now imagine a company full of employees who feel like they need to say something, to get stuff off their chests or simply feel heard. Imagine employees who feel unable, for whatever reason, to express their views, ideas, thoughts, feelings about their work, themselves and what matters to them. And left unexpressed, these energies build up inside leading to anger, stress, disengagement and demotivation. None of these feelings support a healthy body or mind.

A lack of voice is like asking people to shut down a part of themselves. Further, there might be subliminal messages in an organisation that says, 'if you do speak up and show your true nature, you'll get shot down', further forcing people to remain silent.

From a metrics perspective, a potential knock on effect is low performance and productivity and an increase in absence. Then there is the potential for increased toxicity in the workplace when people begin to speak ill of their employer or their manager and complain about work which incites others to do the same.

Employee voice then is a fundamental part of employee engagement. Successful employee engagement is also related to feeling psychologically safe. In order to feel safe an organisation must be able to signal through it systems, process and behaviours that it's OK to speak up.

My reflections lead me to believe that there is a desperate need for Board leaders to recognise that hard strategic goals and metrics are simply not enough anymore. The world has changed and so must organisations. We need to see people as more than 'workers'. We need to see that we are all in this together and find ways that give employees different platforms to speak and feel safe doing so. 'Employee Voice' is just one of the seven dimensions in the CIPD report, there are six more. Tackling one in isolation of the others will have a limited effect. In order to makes strides towards fulfilling all of them requires an emotionally intelligent organisation. It seems only logical that we must move towards making

people-centric goals as important as hard strategic corporate goals

Here are a few examples to mull over:

• commitment to raising emotional intelligence at work
• every employee has a voice
• every manager or leader receives basic people management training
• actively encourage co-operation and collaboration across departments

Every employee comes to work with a mind, a body and their spirit - isn't it time we positively, actively and consciously engaged and worked with all three?

Thanks for reading!