Essay
Voice Mechanisms
Voice Mechanisms
Open door policy is one of voice mechanisms that I experienced for quite a long period of time at my previous work place.
Open door policy is a policy within a company that is lead by top managers or CEO it is a kind of communication with employees when the door of the boss’s office is “open”. It is needed to develop and maintain transparency and openness within one team.
This method helps employees to meet with the boss when they need, to ask questions, to discuss suggestions, to address concerns and problems. It provides better collaboration, higher performance, and respect between all the layers of organizational structure. The main aim of any organization is achieving and improving efficiency and productivity and what is moreover a corporate standard of ethics.
The first question to be answered is did the mechanism protect the identity and confidentiality of employees? Could it be used anonymously? If not, was the identity of those using the mechanism protected?
The answer is yes. Open door policy protected all the employees and their confidentiality if they came to the CEO office. They had brilliant opportunity to share the ideas and to discuss them and the CEO had the opportunity to think them over before taking this or that decision.
Such a method could not be used anonymously within our company at least. But the identity of everybody was protected. If concerns and problems mentioned by this or that employee were just suspicions, they were not discovered for all the team.
The second question is the following: Did the people feel protected from retaliation when using the mechanism of open door policy?
Yes, people feel protected. The key concept of this method is not to blame but to suggest and respect and find the ways out from the situations that were brought for the discussion.
Yes, it was authentic. After introduction of this method to a whole company it seemed that nothing was changed and nothing was discussed and solved and nobody was ready to use open doors.
All the problems of every department were discussed only within their boundaries and CEO seemed to have lack of information to find out best and right ways in order to achieve prosperity and effectiveness. But the first step anyway was done and when the result was estimated and seen by all the employees, everybody saw the openness of CEO and readiness to help and it soon brought fruitful results.
And the fourth question: Was the mechanism consistently administered?
It was consistently administered but not from the very beginning. As everything new in our life this method as well was needed to be adopted through several tries and fails.
Consistent administration of open door policy usually brings qualitative feedback, personal and professional counsel. Moreover, it helps to feel mutual respect and to create environment of trust. Open speak is a good assistant in any disputes. Face-to-face communication is the best that is done to every person and open door policy is a good way to bring it to practice.
As a conclusion, it is worth saying that the use of open door policy method is smart idea that is fruitful and what is more important the results may be seen sooner than you think.
