Skip to content

14 August, 2022

Subscribe Advertise About Us
  • My Account
  • Register
  • Log In
  • Log Out

Board Agenda

  • Governance
  • Strategy
  • Risk
  • Ethics
  • News
    • Categoriess

      • View All
      • Board Moves
    • News round-up: this week in governance

      PwC fined for BT audit; greenwashing sanctions; cost of living crisis; $300m pay deal; US...

    • Twitter Elon Musk Twitter drops due diligence bombshell

      The high-profile lawsuit brought by Twitter against Elon Musk raises an issue close to all...

    • short selling investors How to beat short selling activism

      What would you do if your company was targeted by short-selling activist investors? Communication is...

  • Insight
    • Categories

      • View all
      • Governance
      • Strategy
      • Risk
      • Ethics
      • Board Expertise
      • finance
      • Technology
    • short selling investors

      How to beat short selling activism

      What would you do if your company was targeted by short-selling activist investors? Communication is...

    • ESG debate

      The ESG debate needs to be more nuanced

      The issues boards face are rarely straightforward, and ESG is no exception. It is time...

    • AI

      How to ensure governance of artificial intelligence (AI)

      An ISO standard issued this year gives guidance to boards on the governance implications of...

  • Comment
      • View all
    • global warming

      ESG is not a ‘distraction’

      We must not let ESG become a scapegoat for the systemic failure of our society...

    • Man with magnifying glass The 30-year itch: time to ditch the UK Corporate Governance Code

      Now that governance has come of age, businesses should be able to innovate within the...

    • notebook on boardroom table The UK needs a code of conduct for company directors

      A formal code of conduct for company directors would signal their willingness to apply high...

  • Interviews
      • View All Interviews
      • Podcasts
      • Webinars
    • Board members discussing ESG Stakeholder pressure increases urgency on ESG

      Experts say pressure to act on ESG is coming from regulators, investors and a new...

    • Empty boardroom Many executives ‘fail to understand the role and value of boards’

      A recent webinar on board effectiveness discussed the mix of competence and courage required from...

    • Businessman looking at stormy sky Disaster or disruption? Crisis management requires clear definitions

      Identifying and categorising crises, and developing a methodology to deal with them, can help boards...

  • Careers
      • View all
      • Selection
      • Board Moves
    • News round-up: this week in governance

      PwC fined for BT audit; greenwashing sanctions; cost of living crisis; $300m pay deal; US...

    • US boards diversity US boards slow diversity with poor retirement policies

      Only 6% of organisations have term limits for directors, and there is reluctance around mandatory...

    • News round-up: this week in governance

      Tory leadership contest; Grant Thornton fined; Norwegian insider dealing; virtual AGMs; US environmental disclosures; diversity...

  • Resource Centre
      • White Paper Downloads
      • Book Reviews
      • Corporate & Advisory Services
    • Stakeholder Engagement: A Roadmap for UK Plc Boards

      This guide aims to provide directors and their colleagues with advice on how to ensure...

    • Board Duties in Ensuring Company Engagement with Affected Stakeholders

      This guidance note gives a brief overview of the role of corporate boards of directors...

    • C-Suite Barometer 2021

      At the end of 2021, Mazars surveyed over 1,000 executives around the world for its...

  • Events
  • Search by topic
    • Governance
    • Strategy
    • Risk
    • Ethics
    • Regulation
    • ESG
    • Investor Relations
    • Selection
    • Board Expertise
    • finance
    • Technology
  • Magazine
      • View All
      • Sustainability Works
      • Tomorrow's Leaders
      • Renumeration Tightrope
      • Governance Ascendance
      • Sense In Sustainability
      • Invisible Enemies

If you want employees to speak up, show that you will listen

by Katherine Bradshaw on August 6, 2019

Effective speak-up procedures help boards to understand and improve their organisational culture. But employees won’t come forward unless they feel supported.

meeting, employee engagement, workers, speak up

Image: KreativKolors/Shutterstock

Corporate scandals have highlighted the need for appropriate oversight by boards seeking to ensure the stability and sustainability of the businesses they run. Indeed, the new UK Corporate Governance Code cites this as a core principle: “The board should establish the company’s purpose, values and strategy, and satisfy itself that these and its culture are aligned.”

In a recent survey, the Institute of Business Ethics (IBE) asked boards how they were currently assuring themselves that they understood their corporate culture. At number one position in their response was “speak up and whistleblowing data”, highlighting its importance as a significant potential source of information about behaviour, culture and fraud.

The freedom to raise concerns is a core component of an ethical business culture where employees are confident they will be supported to “do the right thing”. Effective speak-up procedures will help boards to understand and improve their organisational culture, but it is not always easy to tell whether the arrangements are effective. In terms of raw data, the numbers of calls to the system may fluctuate for a number of reasons.

Reporting a concern can require courage, particularly in an unsupportive environment. Employees won’t take the risk if they believe that nothing will be done about it

Increased anxiety by employees that they may face reprisals for speaking up will cause the volume of calls to fall, but the same effect might be felt as a result of a more open culture in which employees did not feel the need to call the hotline and issues were dealt with satisfactorily by local management. The volume of calls may fluctuate in line with employee familiarity with, and confidence in, the process, or in response to an awareness campaign.

Reporting a concern can require courage, particularly in an unsupportive environment. Employees won’t take the risk if they believe that nothing will be done about it. Where local whistleblower protection is poor or lacks definition in legal terms, it is good practice for organisations to establish their own higher protections for employees who speak up, whatever the local legal requirements.

Ethics starts where the law ends and as more organisations realise the benefits of encouraging an open culture, they are looking into better ways to protect those who speak up.

Complex emotions

Speaking up should not be a life-changing or career-limiting event; rather it should be something which occurs in the course of working life, part of business as usual. Being able to raise concerns should be a natural part of our conversations with managers, with teams, with each other.

But as human beings, it’s not that simple. We are complex and contrary creatures. Speaking up feels personal, because it goes to the very heart of our social interactions with one another.

The emotions involved in speaking up cannot be underestimated, which is why the IBE has devised the Speak Up Toolkit. It is an app which acknowledges the complex emotions one might feel when faced with an ethical concern. It offers practical suggestions to help employees prepare in raising issues, in order to minimise the fear of the unknown.

But an app cannot solely be the answer to the speak-up conundrum. While it can go some way to answer employee questions and alleviate their worries, it will not help in an organisation with a culture of fear and blame. If employee experience is that their voice is not welcomed, they will not speak up, no matter what tools are available.

Questioning behaviour or policies may feel disloyal, threatening the status quo. We may doubt ourselves (“surely they know the right thing to do?”), we may even feel we will be the ones seen as the troublemakers (as a third of those who witness misconduct and don’t speak up do, according to our European Ethics at Work survey).

It is natural for humans to feel threatened by their mistakes, especially in organisations where there is a hierarchical deference to those in leadership positions

Noticing a problem and speaking up about it is just the beginning. For speaking up to be part of business as usual, organisations need to listen, and take action. And that can be the hardest part for business leaders.

Sometimes it can be hard to hear feedback; it may feel like criticism, like “we are being undermined”. It is natural for humans to feel threatened by their mistakes, especially in organisations where there is a hierarchical deference to those in leadership positions. This is where training managers in how to receive employee concerns can be key to promoting an open culture.

A speak-up procedure provides a mechanism for employees to raise concerns about anything they find unsafe, unethical or unlawful. If companies do not offer meaningful support to their employees, or only pay nominal lip service to it, concerns that are not dealt with may become a crisis or the next scandal. For directors therefore, it is a vital indicator of the ethical temperature of their company.

Katherine Bradshaw is head of communications at the Institute of Business Ethics.

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Google+
  • LinkedIn
  • Mail

Related Posts

  • Speak up: how to encourage whistleblowing in your organisation
    April 11, 2017
    Red whistle

    Corporate malpractice is damaging to a company and its reputation, but many employees are unaware of whistleblowing procedures, or they fear retaliation if they do speak out.

  • UK to beef up corporate crime law
    January 14, 2017

    "Failure to prevent" economic crime at heart of Ministry of Justice consultation to reform corporate law.

  • European Central Bank urged to beef up governance
    March 29, 2017
    European Central Bank

    The European Central Bank is increasingly political and not technical, and needs to be more transparent about its decision-making, says campaign group.

  • Board networks: who you know contributes to what you know
    September 13, 2021
    network of pins and string

    Each link in a boardroom network can facilitate both learning from the rest of the network and information diffusion to the network.

For thoughtful journalism, expert insights on corporate governance and an extensive library of reports, guides and tools to help boards and directors navigate the complexities of their roles, subscribe to Board Agenda

corporate culture, employee engagement, ethics, Katherine Bradshaw, Speak Up, whistleblowing

Search


Sign up to our Newsletter

Receive independent news, thoughtful journalism & expert insights about leadership, corporate governance & key boardroom issues straight to your inbox every week.

SIGN UP

Follow Us


 

 

 

 

 

Most Popular

  • Twitter drops due diligence bombshell
  • Ben & Jerry’s governance tested in court
  • ESG is not a ‘distraction’
  • Virtual AGMs fall out of favour
  • The ESG debate needs to be more nuanced

 


 

Featured Partner Profile

Diligent

Diligent

Diligent Corporation, which was founded in 2001, is headquartered in New York, NY with a European HQ in London. Diligent’s modern governance platform empowers leaders and teams at every level of the organisation to digitally transform and create ...

Featured Partner Resources

Board Transformation 2021: Leadership in Transition

There can be little doubt that the global Covid-19...

Digital Boards: How Technology Adoption is Driving Culture Change and Resiliency

Digital tools proved their worth to boards during ...
EQ 2021 AGM Season report

2021 AGM Season: Successful AGMs in the Pandemic and Beyond

With the impacts of Covid-19 hitting just as the s...
Leadership in AI report

Leadership in AI 2021

This report from Board Agenda and Mazars, in assoc...
Creativity in a Crisis: a Boardroom Map for Innovation

Creativity in a Crisis: a Boardroom Map for Innovation

In the uncertain times at the height of any crisis...
Board Directors Guide to D&O Liability Insurance - November 2020 - AIG & Board Agenda

Board Directors' Guide to D&O Liability Insurance

Directors face liability over a range of new threa...
Leadership-in-Risk-Management-Board-Report

Leadership in Risk Management: Board Report

Board Agenda, in association with Mazars and INSEA...
Director's Guide to Internal Investigations

A Director's Guide to Conducting Internal Investigations

An internal investigation must be handled meticulo...

Global Business Complexity Index 2021

The Global Business Complexity Index 2021 provides...

 


 

ADVERTISE – FREE CORPORATE LISTING

FREE - Add your company profile to our Corporate & Advisory Directory.
ADD

ADVERTISE – PROMOTE YOUR REPORTS & WHITEPAPERS

FREE - Add your company profile to our Corporate & Advisory Directory.
Add Resource

Register Free

Register to receive free article views, selected resource downloads, and all the latest news alerts straight to your inbox. Register


  • Editors & Contributors
  • Corporate & Advisory Services
  • Media Marketing Solutions
  • Contact Us
  • Careers
  • Board Director Network
  • Terms & Conditions
  • Privacy Policy
  • Cookies
  • Sitemap
|