Effective business communication is a crucial ingredient in both long-term and short-term success. Many workplaces can often fall prey to conventional hierarchies and communication models. This can often disrupt communication or even prevent it entirely, as junior executives may feel too intimidated to talk to a senior VP. Conversely, a senior VP may not be able to break past his or her position in the organizational hierarchy to communicate effectively with their teams or departments. An open-door communication policy can often prove to be a useful means to improve this situation. Read on for more information.
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An Open-Door Policy Can Improve the Workplace
An open-door policy provides one of the best remedies to this fairly common communication problem. It is also very common in many innovative workplaces and modern offices of today. It involves encouraging employees to communicate openly and frankly in the workplace.
That includes being empowered to ask questions or discuss workflow improvements with their line managers or division heads. When backed by a formalized business policy, an open-door policy in the workplace may prove to be an effective tool that boosts team communication and workflow productivity.
Understanding the Philosophy behind This Communication Policy
The rationale behind an open-door policy focuses on two critical workplace needs. With such a policy, an employee has a channel to offer valuable feedback to their direct superior. This feedback can often contain valuable perspectives and innovative ideas that may improve how the workplace operates.
As such, the policy will make it easier for managers or division heads to acquire this information and decide how to act on it. With the right feedback, managers may be able to identify areas for improvement, discover innovative workplace changes, or even find obstacles or bottlenecks to remove.
The benefit of this approach has benefits beyond the managerial level. An ability to communicate concerns, suggestions, or complaints to senior management also does wonders for employee morale. It helps to build a stronger trust factor between workers and management.
When workers see positive changes in the workplace based on their feedback, it adds to the meaningfulness of their employment tenure and encourages them to be more even proactive with their feedback in the future. This multiplies the impact of the policy far beyond a single worker or team. Even more poignantly, as part of your culture, this policy can act as a key-value point to shape your recruitment approach, from working with in-house mortgage recruiters to a specialized staffing agency
Reading Suggestion: Centralized vs Decentralized Recruitment: How to Choose the Right Model for Your HR Department
Conditions That Impair the Results of an Open-Door Policy
The advantages of an open-door policy may manifest differently from business to business, the magnitude of which may not always be immediately visible. However, there is little doubt that measures modeled carefully such as those based on a well-constructed US open-door policy do benefit workplaces, in general.
It is only the conditions that are specific to a workplace and culture, which determine the extent of those benefits. Certain conditions may further amplify the results, but workplace conditions like the following may impair the benefit derived:
Strict Workplaces That Create Uncertainty or Fear
Workplace cultures have a direct impact on how effective the policy will prove. If employees are afraid of speaking up out of an apprehension of the consequences or blowback, managers may be missing out on crucial feedback. Unfortunately, too many employees fear to make effective use of open-door communication for exactly this reason. This is also the kind of workplace culture that impairs your employer brand in addition to the success of your policies.
The Policy Isn’t Implemented in Spirit
Many people know the word “Open-Door” and have a vague understanding of what it means. Very few actually have access to actionable facts about open-door policy, especially when it comes to implementing one. In any scenario, from implementing talent acquisition strategies to anti-abuse measures, managers need to take lead. Moreover, they need to do so in an informed way.
Many line managers or supervisors tend to take the “Open Door” meaning literally. However, simply keeping the door to their office open is not enough. Managers need to be more proactive in soliciting feedback as well as acting on it. The true spirit of the policy comes into play only when workers see the results of their feedback.
Workers May Become Too Dependent on Consulting Managers
Of course, it would not be prudent for managers to ignore the negative effects of their open-door policy. In particular, one of the disadvantages to this policy is workers becoming too dependent on it. Instead of working on solutions themselves, workers can tend to focus only on the problems.
As a result, their feedback begins to impair the constructive element necessary for the process to succeed. Team members may even begin to lose their own innovative potential and problem-solving abilities when they stop actively offering solutions in their feedback.
Employees May Misuse the Policy for Personal Gain
There is always a risk of workers abusing a workplace policy. This is especially true when there is a presence of slightly overzealous workers among an otherwise functional workforce. As a workplace improvement and communication measure, an open-door policy in HR management makes a lot of sense.
But when workers start using it to curry perceived favors or disparage their colleagues only to make themselves look good, managers have a problem on their hands that needs to be addressed. Otherwise, instead of enhancing the workplace in constructive ways, the policy can devolve into a source of workplace toxicity.
Removing these conditions is imperative to the success of your policies. For most workplaces to succeed, there must be clear lines of communication. With the added advantage of increased collaboration success and improvements in developing an innovative solution, the policy usually adds significant value to the workplace. However, keeping certain factors out of the workplace will add to its results.
Frequently Asked Questions:
How does an open-door policy work?
It involves encouraging frank and open communication between workers and their management. It builds trust and improves the workplace continuously.
What was the purpose of the open-door policy?
To allow employees to communicate needs, obstacles, and improvements to managers, and for managers to receive more accurate and actionable feedback.
How can a boss consistently communicate an open-door policy?
The policy needs to be implemented in spirit, not just to the letter. A literal open door is not enough to communicate the policy, more proactive and visible action is required.
