FROM THE HR: Giving employees power to challenge management

Today we look at the role HR plays to assist employees have the ability to dare challenge management and share ideas in meetings and other forums organised by management.

Most times staff will go into the meeting and decide to keep quiet and not ask any questions.

They will not raise issues that are affecting their work or the environment in which they operate.

This may be emanating from a cultural belief that managers should not be challenged.

However, the same staff will have an informal meeting along the corridors to discuss issues they would otherwise have raised in the open forum.

This is a common phenomenon and it hinders employee growth since the ideas they have are never shared. These could be the ideas that make the company the “next big thing” in its specific industry.

What if there is dissatisfaction amongst the workers with the way management is treating them? If all the staff do not raise it as an issue, the dissatisfaction will continue and in the long run may affect the morale and the productivity of the staff. This can directly impact on the success of the company.

I happened to be managing a culture project and there were forums organised for staff to share their ideas on what kind of values would make the company a better place to work for. It surprised me that only a handful of staff were contributing to the discussions in the formal meeting. During break, I decided to walk to different groupings to network, I was surprised when I found one gentleman sharing in a loud voice the values he thinks would improve the organisation. He also had great ideas on how the values can be rolled out to the rest of the organisation. Yet during the formal meeting the gentleman only nodded but uttered not even a single word. I engaged him in confidence to understand why he was silent throughout the session, and his response was that he was not comfortable discussing in the presence of one of the staff who is his supervisor.

The point I want to emphasise is that staff do not decline to contribute because they don’t know. It is sometimes for fear of reprisal from their managers.

HR has a critical role to play to alleviate this fear and reassure the staff of protection from bullish managers and supervisors.

The most critical one is engaging managers and supervisors and to educate them on why they should create an enabling environment for their staff to challenge them and share their ideas in forums.

They need to understand the impact this has on the overall job satisfaction for the employee as well as success to the organisation.