How to Develop a Successful & Sustainable Speak Up Culture

What is a speak up culture?

A workplace where people can speak their minds is the cornerstone of healthy and progressive organisations. So what does ‘speak-up culture’ mean? In a nutshell, it’s an environment where employees feel empowered to share their thoughts and feedback on the experiences they’ve had within your organisation.

This culture of openness is built on a foundation of psychological safety. Employees must feel valued and know that their perspectives are taken seriously. When learning how to develop psychological safety and a speak-up culture, it’s crucial for leaders to champion trust and respect, lead by example and, importantly, reward transparency.

Why a speak-up culture is important

Promoting a speak-up culture within organisations breeds innovation, problem-solving and long-term success. In fact:

• Employees in a speak-up culture are 3.5 times as likely to contribute their full innovative potential
• Having a speak-up culture in organisations improves engagement and lowers turnover, with employees who speak up being 92% more likely to want to stay 
• 90% of North American CEOs and CFOs believe that improving their corporate culture would boost financial performance

Another reason why a speak-up culture is important is because without it, bad conduct becomes normalised. Culture Shift’s own research shows that two in five employees experience culture damaging behaviour – but only 53% of victims report it, according to the CIPD. 

As an employer, it’s up to you to remove as many barriers as possible.

How to create a speak-up culture

Assess your current organisational culture

You won’t know how to create a speak-up culture at work without first understanding your existing culture. It may be set out in your values and mission statements, but these don’t always align with reality. Here are five steps on how to assess your current culture:

• Let employees tell you, anonymously. Giving negative feedback is never easy, but anonymity can help employees gain a voice they wouldn’t otherwise have. You can do this through surveys or an online platform that’s always accessible.
• Gather both quantitative and qualitative data and insights. Quantitative data, like surveys and forms, will paint you a picture of what your culture looks like, but qualitative feedback tells you the story. Combining both will get you closer to understanding where you are starting from.
• Analyse performance data and metrics. Don’t just look directly at the problem. The absence of a speak-up culture can lead to an increase in turnover rates, absenteeism, engagement and so on. Look at sources of data that demonstrate these, such as HR platforms and internal comms engagement.
• Assess how your leaders communicate. Alarmingly, 43% of workers lose trust in leadership due to poor communication. Never underestimate the impact clear communication has on reporting – or on your organisational health.
• Observe. Assess how well your organisation’s values align with actual behaviours. Identify discrepancies between how your culture looks on paper and how it functions in real life.

Establish clear policies and procedures

Establishing clear, accessible policies is fundamental when creating a culture where employees speak up. Your policies should explicitly outline the organisation’s commitment to non-retaliation, providing a safe environment for employees to voice their concerns.

Ensure communication expectations are articulated, including guidelines for delivering constructive criticism. Regular communication, transparent decision-making and consistent enforcement of policies reinforce a culture where speaking up is respected.

Lead by example

If you want to know how to encourage a speak-up culture effectively, you must understand that it trickles down from the top. Leaders set the tone. It’s essential that they actively demonstrate openness to feedback and a willingness to speak up about concerns.

When employees see leaders consistently exhibiting positive behaviours, they’re more likely to feel supported in speaking up themselves. This not only fosters transparency and a safe-to-speak-up culture, but also promotes a more engaged workforce where employees feel heard.

Train and empower

The best speak-up culture examples are companies with training programs that educate employees. This training should:

• Highlight the importance of speaking up and its positive impact – this is even better if you can use real examples when speaking up has benefited employees in the past
• Educate employees on how to express concerns professionally
• Include role-playing exercises to practise effective communication
• Provide guidelines on how speaking up will be supported and feedback channels to let you know if these standards are not upheld
  Offer resources and support channels for employees

This is really what Culture Shift does well. Our platform offers a clear and consistent process for speaking up about culture-damaging behaviours, and the ability to ensure that it’s maintained from beginning to end.

With our software at the core, you can offer people support however they need it. That might be through resources, direct 1:1 support through your internal services or simply giving them a safe space to raise concerns.

Reporting platforms

Technology-enabled reporting platforms enhance transparency, trust and accountability, fostering an environment where employees feel safe. For example, Culture Shift’s reporting platform plays a vital role in promoting a speak-up culture by:

Empowering employees to report concerns or provide feedback anonymously
Streamlining the reporting process, making it easier for employees to speak up
Helping organisations track and manage reported issues, ensuring timely responses and noticing trends at an aggregated level

Promote & encourage a speak-up culture

When getting to grips with what a speak-up culture is, don’t overlook its role in shaping the collective organisational mindset. It goes far beyond helping on an individual level – it’s a way to future-proof your entire organisation by making employees feel more engaged, valued and loyal.

Here are four strategies you can use to develop and support a speak-up culture:

• Talk about it. At senior leadership level, ensure that you talk about the fact that people speaking up is important.
• Define the role of middle management Your middle management team plays a pivotal role in allowing your culture to flourish. How they respond to employees speaking up, particularly in one to one sessions, sets the tone for how your culture will manifest.
• Demonstrate a commitment to acting on feedback by actively listening to employees. This makes them more likely to continue speaking up.
• Have transparency around action. Clearly communicate when speaking up has driven action and the reasons behind decisions in order to foster trust.

Most importantly, don’t just tolerate speaking up – celebrate it. Recognise employees who demonstrate courage by sharing their ideas. This reinforces the value of speaking up and encourages others to do the same.

Create safe spaces for dialogue

Many employees choose not to report bad behaviours due to a lack of trust in management. For 68% of employees, low trust also hinders their performance, underscoring the importance of creating safe spaces for dialogue.

One initiative you can take is establishing regular forums, such as team discussions. However, this has its drawbacks as many employees find face-to-face feedback channels to be daunting. In fact,  62% of employees are more likely to report bad behaviour if they have an anonymous platform.

Anonymous feedback channels, like suggestion boxes or online platforms, allow workers to voice their opinions without fear of reprisal. This feeds into the idea of psychological safety, which we touched on earlier. Platforms that champion the employee voice also give way to allowing people to report on behalf of others. This cultivates allyship and removes the fear of reporting where a barrier might be that the behaviour doesn’t directly impact you.

Company systems

Technology plays a crucial role in creating a sustainable speak-up culture. Without an effective audit trail, it’s easy to lack accountability and lose track of much of the information you need to enact real change.

For example, Culture Shift’s software offers the following:

• Confidential reporting so that employees can report anonymously
• Streamlined reporting process that makes it easier for employees to speak out
• Automated follow-up actions on reported issues, ensuring timely resolutions

Data-driven insights into communication patterns and areas for improvement

How to improve your speak-up culture

Regular feedback and adjustments

Creating a speak-up culture is an ongoing process that requires continual feedback and adjustments. Only then can you really transform your culture.

Organisations must regularly assess the effectiveness of their communication practices. Gathering regular feedback from employees also provides valuable insights that you can leverage to make data-driven updates to policies, procedures and training programs.

Speak-up culture in organisations: Overcoming challenges

Speak-up culture in organisations isn’t without its challenges:

• Overcoming scepticism is a major obstacle as employees may fear repercussions or doubt your commitment. To establish trust, consistency in how you act and uphold your policies is key.
• Managing negative feedback constructively is another challenge. Culture Shift’s software helps by providing a structured approach with clear reporting channels, accountable case management and data-driven insights.
• Ensuring consistent application across all levels of the organisation requires managers to lead by example, prioritise open communication and hold everyone, including themselves, accountable for their behaviour.

Culture Shift’s new Training Academy is a partner-only service that helps organisations improve their speak-up culture by understanding where they can improve their response strategy to reports of culture-damaging behaviours.

The programme focuses on overcoming key challenges to case management, looking at areas such as first responder training, to remove barriers to reporting and increase the likelihood that as an organisation you hear your people when it matters most.

Interested in finding out more about creating a speak-up culture? Culture Shift can help you tap into the voice of your people all year round. Modernise the old open-door policy of HR teams and request a free demo of Culture Shift’s platform here.