Open door policy (business)

Last updated

An open door policy (as related to the business and corporate fields) is a communication policy in which a manager leaves their office door "open" in order to encourage openness and transparency with the employees of that company. As the term implies, employees are encouraged to stop by whenever they feel the need to meet and ask questions, discuss suggestions, and address problems or concerns with management. An open door policy is typically intended to foster an environment of collaboration, high performance, and mutual respect between upper management and employees.

Contents

An open door policy means, literally, that every manager's door is open to every employee. The purpose of an open door policy is to encourage open communication, feedback, and discussion about any matter of importance to an employee. [1]

Benefits

Open door policies exist to encourage employees to offer suggestions and ideas, provide or solicit feedback, seek personal or professional counsel, or address concerns within the company. The policy establishes an environment of trust and mutual respect between the employer and employee. The practice is viewed as a morale booster by letting employees feel as if they are able to openly speak with their employer about issues face-to-face, rather than through e-mail or voicemail. In essence, an open door policy serves to empower employees, knowing that their voice is heard and issues are quickly addressed and resolved. [2] [3] Trust in the company tends to improve and grow, when employees understand that they are welcome to confide in senior management, when immediate supervisors are unavailable. [4]

Disadvantages

Open door policies tend to endorse the practice of bypassing the normal management structure, risking uninformed or suboptimal decisions that can also undermine line managers.[ citation needed ] While open door policies intend to encourage and instill a sense of transparency and openness, some employees hesitate to speak their mind or be honest, for fear of intimidation, criticism, and censure.[ citation needed ] Management personnel may tend to communicate the willingness to hear suggestions, while belittling the suggestions when unaccompanied by solutions.[ citation needed ]

Open door policies have also been seen as a way for companies to discourage the formation of labor unions. Formal, written policies may encourage openness, however, the response received in attempts to engage are often seen as threats to the authority or management style of the individual working in a supervisory or management capacity. [5] The policy, in essence, allows employees to forgo meeting with their immediate supervisors, choosing rather to engage in communication with their senior managers to discuss their employment or personal issues.

A process of open communication and transparency allows employees to bypass their supervisors to engage with senior management. This may inadvertently lead to tension and strife between employees and middle management. Supervisors may either see this as an implication that they are the primary issue of concern, or they may feel threatened, suspecting the employee of undermining him in an attempt to cause problems between him and senior management. [4]

Other uses

In other examples, commonly in college dorms,[ citation needed ] an open door policy means everyone's door must remain open. The idea remains the same, that having the door(s) open will make for a more comfortable and social school or work environment.

Government officials at the local, state, and federal level often implement an open door policy for the purpose of meeting with constituents. In Salt Lake City, mayor Ralph Becker maintains an open door policy every Wednesday to meet with residents one-on-one to discuss issues, concerns, and suggestions involving the city. [6] The Democratic Caucus of Orange County, New York has maintained an open door policy for over ten years, where all individuals, regardless of political affiliation are welcome to attend the meeting. [7] In 2011, in an effort to introduce a more open and transparent government, Governor Andrew Cuomo of New York extended an open door policy to members of the public. A lottery was introduced that allowed for 300 New Yorkers to visit Gracie Mansion following the inaugural festivities. The following week, for the first time in the history of the State of New York, a lottery was held to open the State of the State Address to additional members of the public. [8]

See also

Related Research Articles

Human resources (HR) is the set of people who make up the workforce of an organization, business sector, industry, or economy. A narrower concept is human capital, the knowledge and skills which the individuals command. Similar terms include manpower, labor, or personnel.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mentorship</span> Guidance relationship

Mentorship is the patronage, influence, guidance, or direction given by a mentor. A mentor is someone who teaches or gives help and advice to a less experienced and often younger person. In an organizational setting, a mentor influences the personal and professional growth of a mentee. Most traditional mentorships involve having senior employees mentor more junior employees, but mentors do not necessarily have to be more senior than the people they mentor. What matters is that mentors have experience that others can learn from.

A performance appraisal, also referred to as a performance review, performance evaluation, (career) development discussion, or employee appraisal, sometimes shortened to "PA", is a periodic and systematic process whereby the job performance of an employee is documented and evaluated. This is done after employees are trained about work and settle into their jobs. Performance appraisals are a part of career development and consist of regular reviews of employee performance within organizations.

Communications management is the systematic planning, implementing, monitoring, and revision of all the channels of communication within an organization and between organizations. It also includes the organization and dissemination of new communication directives connected with an organization, network, or communications technology. Aspects of communications management include developing corporate communication strategies, designing internal and external communications directives, and managing the flow of information, including online communication. It is a mere process that helps an organization to be systematic as one within the bounds of communication.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Office</span> Room where administrative work is performed

An office is a space where the employees of an organization perform administrative work in order to support and realize the various goals of the organization. The word "office" may also denote a position within an organization with specific duties attached to it ; the latter is an earlier usage, office as place originally referring to the location of one's duty. In the adjective form, the term "office" may refer to business-related tasks. In law, a company or organization has offices in any place where it has an official presence, even if that presence consists of a storage silo, for example, instead of a more traditional establishment with a desk and chair. An office is also an architectural and design phenomenon, including small offices, such as a bench in the corner of a small business or a room in someone's home, entire floors of buildings, and massive buildings dedicated entirely to one company. In modern terms, an office is usually the location where white-collar workers carry out their functions.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Internal communications</span>

Internal communications (IC) is the function responsible for effective communications among participants within an organization. The scope of the function varies by organization and practitioner, from producing and delivering messages and campaigns on behalf of management, to facilitating two-way dialogue and developing the communication skills of the organization's participants.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ecological Society of America</span> Ecological professional association

The Ecological Society of America (ESA) is a professional organization of ecological scientists. Based in the United States and founded in 1915, ESA publications include peer-reviewed journals, newsletters, fact sheets, and teaching resources. It holds an annual meeting at different locations in the USA and Canada. In addition to its publications and annual meeting, ESA is engaged in public policy, science, education and diversity issues.

Participatory management is the practice of empowering members of a group, such as employees of a company or citizens of a community, to participate in organizational decision making. It is used as an alternative to traditional vertical management structures, which has shown to be less effective as participants are growing less interested in their leader's expectations due to a lack of recognition of the participant's effort or opinion.

Management consists of the planning, prioritizing, and organizing work efforts to accomplish objectives within a business organization. A management style is the particular way managers go about accomplishing these objectives. It encompasses the way they make decisions, how they plan and organize work, and how they exercise authority.

In business, open communication is the ability of anyone, on equal conditions with a transparent relation between cost and pricing, to get access to and share communication resources on one level to provide value added services on another level in a layered communication system architecture. Simply put, open access plans are to deregulate oligarchy of telecom operators in a bid to give consumers more choices for equipment, services and service vendors or carriers. It will also provide some breathing room for the controversial net neutrality that has been the central issue between mobile carriers, like AT&T, Verizon and Sprint Nextel, and web media moguls, like eBay, Amazon.com and Google. True open communication is where employees are encouraged to share their thoughts and concerns, both good and bad, without the worry of retaliation from management when the feedback is bad.

<i>Maverick</i> (book)

Maverick! : The Success Story Behind the World's Most Unusual Workplace is a business autobiography by Ricardo Semler published in 1993 by Warner Books. The book relates the management succession and increasingly unorthodox ethos of Semco, which grew to become one of Brazil's largest conglomerates.

ISO 26000:2010 Guidance on social responsibility is an international standard providing guidelines for social responsibility. It was released by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) on 1 November 2010 and its goal is to contribute to global sustainable development by encouraging business and other organizations to practice social responsibility to improve their impacts on their workers, their natural environments and their communities.

Organizational dissent is the "expression of disagreement or contradictory opinions about organizational practices and policies". Since dissent involves disagreement it can lead to conflict, which if not resolved, can lead to violence and struggle. As a result, many organizations send the message – verbally or nonverbally – that dissent is discouraged. However, recent studies have shown that dissent serves as an important monitoring force within organizations. Dissent can be a warning sign for employee dissatisfaction or organizational decline. Redding (1985) found that receptiveness to dissent allows for corrective feedback to monitor unethical and immoral behavior, impractical and ineffectual organizational practices and policies, poor and unfavorable decision making, and insensitivity to employees' workplace needs and desires. Furthermore, Eilerman argues that the hidden costs of silencing dissent include: wasted and lost time, reduced decision quality, emotional and relationship costs, and decreased job motivation. Perlow (2003) found that employee resentment can lead to a decrease in productivity and creativity which can result in the organization losing money, time, and resources.

A functional manager is a person who has management authority over an organizational unit—such as a department—within a business, company, or other organization. Functional managers have ongoing responsibilities, and are not usually directly affiliated with project teams, other than ensuring that goals and objectives align with the organization's overall strategy and vision.

Employee monitoring is the surveillance of workers' activity. Organizations engage in employee monitoring for different reasons such as to track performance, to avoid legal liability, to protect trade secrets, and to address other security concerns. This practice may impact employee satisfaction due to its impact on the employee's privacy. Among organizations, the extent and methods of employee monitoring differ.

Workplace deviance, in group psychology, may be described as the deliberate desire to cause harm to an organization – more specifically, a workplace. The concept has become an instrumental component in the field of organizational communication. More accurately, it can be seen as "voluntary behavior that violates institutionalized norms and in doing so threatens the well-being of the organization".

Employee silence refers to situations where employees withhold information that might be useful to the organization of which they are a part, whether intentionally or unintentionally. This can happen if employees do not speak up to a supervisor or manager.

Within organizations people often have to make decisions about whether to speak up or remain silent - whether to share or withhold their ideas, opinions, and concerns ... [The problem is that] in many cases, they choose the safe response of silence, withholding input that could be valuable to others or thoughts that they wish they could express.

— Frances J. Milliken and Elizabeth Wolfe Morrison, Shades of Silence: Emerging Themes and Future Directions for Research on Silence in Organizations

Likert's management systems are management styles developed by Rensis Likert in the 1960s. He outlined four systems of management to describe the relationship, involvement, and roles of managers and subordinates in industrial settings. He based the systems on studies of highly productive supervisors and their team members of an American Insurance Company. Later, he and Jane G. Likert revised the systems to apply to educational settings. They initially intended to spell out the roles of principals, students, and teachers; eventually others such as superintendents, administrators, and parents were included. The management systems, established by Likert, include "Exploitative Authoritative, Benevolent Authoritative, Consultative, and Participative ."

In an organization, communication occurs between members of different hierarchical positions. Superior-subordinate communication refers to the interactions between organizational leaders and their subordinates and how they work together to achieve personal and organizational goals Satisfactory upward and downward communication is essential for a successful organization because it closes the gap between superior and subordinates by increasing the levels of trust, support, and the frequency of their interactions.

References

  1. ↑ What Does an Open Door Policy at Work Mean? - The Balance
  2. ↑ "HP Diversity: Open Door Policy". Hp.com. Retrieved 2012-01-28.
  3. ↑ "Baltimore's Top Workplaces: InfoTeK Corp.: Open-door policy - Baltimore Sun". Articles.baltimoresun.com. 2011-11-30. Retrieved 2012-01-28.
  4. 1 2 "Open Door Policy in Business | Small Business - Chron.com". Smallbusiness.chron.com. Retrieved 2012-01-28.
  5. ↑ "Is Your 'Open Door' Policy Silencing Your Staff?". CBS News. 2010-04-20. Archived from the original on 29 October 2019. Retrieved 2012-01-28.
  6. ↑ "Open Door Meetings with Mayor Ralph Becker at City & County Building". Cityweekly.net. Retrieved 2012-01-28.
  7. ↑ "My View: Democratic Caucus maintains an open-door policy - Opinion - recordonline.com - Middletown, NY". 2015-09-24. Archived from the original on 2015-09-24. Retrieved 2023-08-27.
  8. ↑ "Cuomo Extends Open Door Policy To Governor's Mansion". NY1.com. 2010-03-30. Retrieved 2012-01-28.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.