The findings of the studies suggest that there is less learning activity (in terms of education, training or self‐development activities) being undertaken by these participants than may be expected. While participants generally believe that they should take charge of their own learning and career development, they are less sure what actions to take. Signals from the organization are still an important prompt for learning for those in employment; for those outside the lack of support and specific reasons to learn leads to a lack of formal or structured learning activity and a tendency to rely on previously learned skills.
There is evidence from a variety of sources that employees often do not feel comfortable speaking to their bosses about organizational problems or issues that concern them. We show that on the types of issues that employees are reluctant to raise, and identify why employees sometimes decide to remain silent rather than voice their concerns. We interviewed 40 employees and found that most had been in situations where they were concerned about an issue but did not raise it to a supervisor. Silence spanned a range of organizational issues, with several of our respondents indicating that they did not feel comfortable speaking to those above them about any issues or concerns. The most frequently mentioned reason for remaining silent was the fear of being viewed or labeled negatively, and as a consequence, damaging valued relationships. From our data, we develop a model of how the perceived consequences of voice contribute to silence, and a model of how the social and relational implications of speaking up can take away employees’ ability to have influence within an organizational setting.
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