Communication throughout the ranks

Welcome to Discuss HR, the HR blog written by Human Resources UK. 

Our regular writer Jill Hart-Sanderson returns today to make her maiden post of the year (Ed Scrivener)

Communication throughout the ranks:

Never underestimate the input from front-line workers

When the senior management team have a difficult problem to solve where do they look for the answer?

In the early days for my career I spent some time working with a customer service team, dealing with orders of specialist high value medical equipment. The company had recently spent a lot of time and money investing in a new computerised ordering system, of which they were very proud of. When I started I found the system to be slow and difficult to navigate. This resulted in customers not receiving the information they needed ‘first call’ and order queries taking a long time to answer. I expressed my concerns and was told ‘well that’s just the way the system works’.

                                                                                                                                                                                     

I was becoming quite frustrated with the system when one day the department was visited by the director Mike Woodford*, who often conducted a company walk around every month or so to all departments. He walked over to me, recognised that I was new to the company, and asked for my opinion on the new computer system. The team looked on in horror as I gave him an honest answer explaining where I thought improvements could be made and the impact the current system was having on the customers. He looked quite shocked at my frank reply and promised to look into my concerns.

What followed was an excellent example of when can be achieved when senior management listen and act on what they hear. Suddenly I was part of the computer project team. I was asked to provide my ideas and suggestions which were quickly applied. From that day on until I left I was always included in ongoing system improvement communications. The customer services team could see that they had been listened to. They were able to improve their overall performance, felt more engaged and had a direct way of controlling the way they worked. Without the director’s walk-around the conversation would not have happened and improvements would not have been made until the problems had escalated to a much higher level.

Of course good communication across all positions doesn’t just give the opportunity to find innovative creative solutions. It can also prevent bullying, enforces employee engagement, and builds a culture of mutual respect across an organisation.

How do your senior management team communicate ‘across the ranks’? How can we improve communications so the whole organisation feels they have an input? Would this provide results, and how do you prevent it from turning into just a PR exercise?

The next time you consider ‘who should be consulted on this?’ remember all employees regardless of their rank have a vital role in an organisation’s success.

*Mike Woodford went on to become the president and chief executive officer of Olympus Corporation and one of the most highly placed executives to turn whistleblower in exposing the Olympus scandal.

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Discuss HR is the HR blog written by members of Human Resources UK, the 10,000 member strong LinkedIn group dedicated to the HR professionals in the UK.  Discuss HR is published twice weekly and looks to take an insightful, informative and sometimes irreverent view on the world of HR – all with the purpose of generating a discussion.

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