By David Banks …
The employee experience is defined by feedback. You do good work, you get a thumbs up. You do bad work, you get a thumbs down. You do great work and people lift you up on their shoulders and put your picture on the wall. This is the feedback we associate with the work that we do. However, there is another type of feedback that defines the context in which we do that work – company culture.
CULTURES ARE NOT DEFINED BY WHAT COMPANIES SAY, BUT BY THE FEEDBACK LOOPS CORPORATE ACTIONS PERPETUATE.
Company cultures can be ethical, permissive, encouraging of speaking up or rewarding of silence. These cultures are not defined by what companies say, but by the feedback loops corporate actions perpetuate.
Feedback inside and outside the workplace has several characteristics. It can be quick, slow, forceful or subtle – the mixture of which defines the saliency of the feedback. Quick, forceful feedback provides solid confirmation, whereas slow, subtle feedback is more dubious.
This creates a significant challenge for organizations trying to create strong workplace cultures. Positive corporate feedback must be formulated, accurate and approved and is therefore usually slower and broader. However, negative feedback can be swift and poignant and often only requires one bad actor. This is most evident in the case of workplace retaliation.
According to ECI’s 2018 Global Business Ethics Survey, retaliation happens and it happens fast. Almost three-fourths (72%) or those who experienced retaliation in the workplace said that it took place within three weeks of the initial report. Forty percent said it happened within one week. As far as workplace feedback goes, that is very quick.
Furthermore, “Of those who observed abusive behavior, 63 percent of employees reported that the misconduct they observed was committed by someone in management or a first-line supervisor.” That same group also stated that 67 percent of the wrongdoing happened frequently and was ongoing. Seniority, frequency and duration all contribute to the forcefulness of that feedback.
This makes retaliation one of the strongest feedback loops that can exist within an organization.
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