The CIPD's quarterly Employee Outlook Survey, published today, reveals a worrying deterioration in employees satisfaction with their ability to feed views upwards, particularly in the public sector.
The report revealed just over a third of public sector workers are satisfied with their ability to voice concerns.
It states this is not surprising given that only a fifth (21%) of public sector employees trust their senior leaders, with 53% disagreeing (compared with 43% and 29% in the private sector). It also shows there is a significant unhappiness among staff over the extent to which they are consulted by senior leaders about important decisions.
Just 19% of public sector staff agree they are consulted about important decisions while almost two thirds (62%) disagree (compared with 27% and 50% in the private sector).
Ben Willmott, head of public policy at the CIPD, said: "Strong employee voice supports effective corporate governance and risk management by allowing staff to air concerns over problems, for example, with customer service, patient care, product quality or inappropriate behaviour.
"In some organisations, as in Mid Staffs, lives could be at stake unless employee voice improves; but in countless others the consequences could range from poor performance right up to failures to stop criminal activity and fatal damage to the organisation's brand and reputation.
"Employee voice is also strongly linked to employee engagement and innovation. If employees feel able to feed views upwards, then ideas from the front line - where staff engage with customers or patients - are more likely to inform organisational strategy and lead to improvements in service delivery or product quality."
Willmott added: "For engagement and innovation to thrive, and for whistleblowers to feel protected, it's important to create an open culture where senior managers consult staff about key decisions and employees trust their managers enough to be able to express their views whether asked for them or not.
"If you don't consult staff as a leader you are saying we don't think staff have a valid opinion and that senior managers always know best. Consultation also has to be meaningful, allowing enough time for the effective consideration of employee opinions before decisions are taken.
"Given the importance of trust in senior leaders, we see a need for a fundamental change in the nature of leadership in the public sector. There needs to be a shift away from traditional command and control styles of leadership to a culture in which leadership is distributed across organisations. "
The Employee Outlook Survey was conducted in January 2013 among 2,124 employees across organisations from all sectors and sizes.
