The best way to prevent a crisis? Employee feedback

Listening to and involving employees in company issues could save your company from a deadly PR disaster.

Who knows more about what’s going on inside a home: The people actually living within its walls, or neighbors, friends, Facebook friends and LinkedIn contacts?

The people who live there, of course.

The same goes for an organization: Is it the employees who are best-informed about the company, or the customers, investors, regulators and the media?

There again it is the employees, at some level, who know the story first and better than “outsiders” do.

Internal stakeholders (read: employees) know what’s going on in the company. They also care—a lot—because their sustenance depends on things going well at work.

It is not only stupid, but organizationally suicidal to ignore what employees have to say. Don’t punish them for constructively and appropriately trying to communicate information that can save the organization from itself.

When I was a kid I lived in a house with a winding staircase. You could sit at the top of the stairs and listen to what was going on downstairs without anyone seeing you. When my parents argued over things—like where we would live or what type of school I should go to—you can bet I sat at the top of the stairs and listened very hard.

To read the full story, log in.
Become a Ragan Insider member to read this article and all other archived content.
Sign up today

Already a member? Log in here.
Learn more about Ragan Insider.