What is a speak-up culture at work
A ‘speak-up culture’ involves creating an empowering environment where employees feel comfortable sharing honest feedback and contributing valuable ideas. This openness not only encourages creativity and innovation but also ensures that people feel heard and valued. When people have the freedom to express their thoughts and participate authentically in discussions, they are more likely to feel connected to the organisation’s goals and engaged in their work. This sense of belonging and purpose can lead to higher job satisfaction, improved performance and a stronger, more cohesive team dynamic.
Speak-up culture can boost employee engagement
Ultimately, fostering a ‘speak-up culture’ can significantly enhance employee engagement while encouraging innovation and creativity. When employees feel empowered to share their perspectives, businesses can gain valuable insights into diverse customer preferences and expectations. This helps organisations adapt and develop products and services that truly resonate with their audience, keeping the business relevant and customer service focused.
There are many reasons why fostering a speak-up culture may be beneficial for employers seeking to boost their engagement levels. Employee engagement levels in the UK have tended to be low. Improving employee engagement is crucial, as organisations with highly engaged workforces have been shown to achieve 147% higher earnings per share.
The framework for a successful speak-up culture
In order to understand what makes a successful speak-up culture, it is important to first consider the concept of psychological safety. Psychological safety is an environment where people feel safe discussing their thoughts, opinions and views without being judged by management, other members of senior staff or colleagues. Examples of psychological safety include:
- Employees feeling it is OK to sometimes make mistakes
- Fostering a growth mindset where employees are inspired to learn
- Encouraging people to ask for help
- Being comfortable to highlight issues without being judged or ignored
- A culture of trust and respect
Speak-up culture also uses the notion of ‘impact’ alongside psychological safety. A speak-up culture has a high impact when people feel that their contributions will make a difference to their workplace. Low impact means that they feel their views are unlikely to change anything.
When creating a speak-up culture, the goal is usually to create a high-impact, high-psychological safety environment. This means that people not only feel comfortable discussing their thoughts and opinions; but they also feel it will be worthwhile and have a positive impact on the business they work for.
Ways to incorporate speak-up culture into the workplace
Speak-up culture centres around creating a psychologically safe environment where people feel empowered to voice their opinions in a way that has a meaningful impact. However, this is just the first step towards encouraging this culture across the organisation.
Finding ways to integrate speak-up culture into different business processes can make it more sustainable in practice. By creating clear policies and putting them into effect, businesses can ensure that their speak-up culture principles are adhered to and sustainable in the long term.
Encourage regular team meetings
One of the most simple and effective ways to encourage speak-up culture is to engage employees in regular team meetings. While team meetings may not be the right platform for reporting disagreements between staff, they can provide good forums for employees to share ideas about workflows, business processes, project progress and the delegation of responsibilities.
Businesses might especially benefit from an Agile approach to team meetings, as it can also increase transparency and accountability among employees. This can include discussing obstacles in the way of a project’s completion, as well as being honest about what’s working and why.
Introduce an open-door policy
Open-door policies can help reduce the divide that sometimes arises between managers and employees. This type of policy is usually applicable to businesses that use a traditional top-down management structure, meaning it can be a good option for organisations that seek to increase transparency without resorting to a horizontal management approach.
Open-door policies create an environment where employees feel safe to confide in managers or senior leadership about their concerns. These might be concerns about a line manager, the way a team is approaching a project or their career progression opportunities.
Lead by example
One main way to introduce speak-up culture is leading by example. Business leaders play a key role in demonstrating that transparency and openness are valued by the business. When business leaders consistently show that they are receptive to new ideas from their employees, it encourages staff to speak up and share their thoughts again in the future.
Leadership plays an important role in shaping business culture in general. Adopting a gentle leadership approach can help build an environment of trust, which is essential for fostering psychological safety. Being encouraging and supportive of employees who are brave enough to discuss their views helps inspire others to do the same.
Using anonymous feedback software
Some employees might be more confident giving feedback if they know their response is truly anonymous. Using anonymous feedback software, therefore, can be a good means to ensure that there is no way a person could be identified by their message. Consider using tools that have built-in privacy options that prevent someone’s name and IP address from being shared, as well as any other personal data that may identify them.
Combining with a distributed leadership approach
As we found, distributed leadership styles are often an effective way to empower employees and reduce anxiety. While this model can help give employees the resources, autonomy and accountability to take initiative for themselves, some employees may still need support and guidance to help them navigate decision-making processes. Introducing a ‘speak-up culture’ can integrate well with distributed leadership styles, as it involves opening up accountability and responsibility to all employees.
Taking a soft approach to human resources management (HRM)
A soft approach to HRM often helps foster a speak-up culture. This approach involves investing more time and money in staff and treating them as valuable assets to the business. Used as a means to improve employee retention, soft HRM often works best for small to medium-sized teams who work together under a distributed leadership or horizontal management approach. Employees are encouraged to engage in two-way conversations with management, talk about their personal and professional goals and give suggestions on how to improve business processes.
Being vigilant about toxic workplace culture
In our guide to toxic workplace cultures, we found that toxic workplace culture can manifest in many ways, such as messages, jokes and unwanted behaviour. When encouraging a speak-up culture where employees are open to sharing their ideas and views, it is important that people ensure that discussions do not cross over into bullying, harassment or discrimination. Reminding staff members about your diversity, inclusion and anti-discrimination policies can help keep discussions within the bounds of what is fair to people from all backgrounds.
