Exploring how organisations listen to employees

Who’s listening?

A small scale research project exploring how organisations listen to employees

“Who’s Listening?” features the results of the research that we conducted into the state of organisational listening across EMENA with the International Association of Business Communicators (IABC) and PR Academy.

The report’s insights include:

1. Effective listening to employees is seen to deliver a more competitive organisation, a greater sense of employee engagement and advocacy (reducing reputational risk), more trust in leadership, greater innovation and openness to change, resilience, learning and well-being
2. “Fear” is a major barrier to listening for both employees and leaders.  It is not just speaking truth to power that can inhibit employees.  Some leaders and managers avoid creating important listening opportunities because they fear exposure to uncertainty and questions that they feel they cannot but should be able to answer
3. Listening that focuses on strategic and operational goals will enhance traction for listening initiatives.  In other words, to gain support for listening activities they need to focus on drivers of growth and performance, or on factors that could reduce risk (e.g. how to increase compliance).  This helps build leaders’ confidence in the importance and value of listening.
4. At the same time leaders that create face to face sessions to meet and talk without set agendas build employees’ confidence in leadership and trust in the business
5. Surveys need visible and transparent feedback and response mechanisms that demonstrate the impact that they are having.  Surveys have become common place and in some cases a scorecard rather than a positive tool to increase effectiveness

Download your copy of the report here.