“We do the same things every year and it always goes wrong.”

“We can’t go on like this.”

“Why doesn’t someone do something?”

Despair. It’s an emotion felt by all of us when we see the same things going wrong time and time again, but we feel powerless to act.

We’ve all had that moment where we’ve seen something that isn’t working and feel we have a better way that would improve things. Take a moment to think of an example…

Did you speak up and drive the required change? Or were you like most employees and just sat silently?

Why?

Maybe you’re new to the organisation and still finding your feet. Maybe you don’t have a fancy job title that ends in ‘manager’ or ‘director’ or starts with ‘chief’ or ‘head of’. Maybe it’s imposter syndrome where you just don’t feel good enough. Whatever the reason, there’s something that’s knocking your confidence and preventing you from speaking up.

But remember…

You’re pretty clever – your company did hire you over all the other candidates. You’re probably qualified or have some experience in the role. And I bet you have some great ideas – and some common sense – which means you know WHEN things aren’t working, you probably know WHY, and most importantly, you have a suggestion of HOW to improve it.

And actually…

Leaders really do want your feedback – good and bad. They have a vision and they want to know what’s stopping them from realising it. They appreciate honesty, because it is so rare. And they also recognise they can’t be good at everything, which is why they employ talented people, like you, to help them.

When employee morale is low, you feel powerless. You start to lose your drive, don’t see the point in trying, work your contract rather than putting in the effort, complacency might start to creep in, and ultimately your productivity suffers.

And it’s not your fault…

Experience has shown you that if you try you’re knocked back. That managers are dictating the workload to you, and leaders aren’t doing a great job of empowering you to just get on. You’re annoyed that they don’t see that to get the best out of you, they just need to involve you.

But have you considered that they’re frustrated too…

Perhaps business isn’t turning the profit they’d planned for. Perhaps they were burned by a past employee and now have trust issues. Or perhaps it’s just that the business is their ‘baby’ so it’s tough to relinquish control.

Research from VitalSmarts shows that only 1% of employees feel “extremely confident” when it comes to voicing their concerns in the workplace.

That same survey revealed that it costs an organisation an average of $7,500 in lost time and resource every time we fail to speak up. Not to mention the seven workdays we waste worrying about the problem.

Poor communication is the result of poor process. Surely it’s time to make a change? Stop the workplace tension and start that conversation.

beSlick is simple process management software that reassures managers, empowers you to get on and enables the organisation to continuously improve.

It recognises that people are smart so they need to be involved in creating and improving the way a business operates.

It empowers people to just get on in the best way they know how – even if that means they bypass a step in a process because they can’t / don’t want to.

It captures feedback at the moment the process is being run, so the management team knows where the issues lie, along with your recommendations for workflow improvement.

It reassures managers that everything is running like clockwork so they don’t need to meddle or micromanage.