Forum: Workers will speak up when it is safe to be honest

An advertisement on employment practices appeared on my screen recently, encouraging workers to report workplace bullying. It was well intentioned, but it prompted a question the advertisement did not answer. What happens to the worker who reports a case?

Not in terms of process, but in terms of consequence. On Monday morning, when he returns to the office, the person he reported is still there, and the people who decide his next appraisal, his next project and his next contract renewal are still there. What protection exists for that worker between the moment he makes the report and the moment the institution decides how to respond?

Leadership consultant Crystal Lim-Lange observed at a recent Wellness Day event that Singaporeans do not speak up at work, not because they are disengaged or have nothing to say, but because they have made a clear-eyed assessment of what speaking up is likely to cost them. The worker who stays silent has correctly read the room. This silence is not apathy. It is an accurate reading of an environment that has not yet made honesty safe.

Workers who were once told they were the organisation’s greatest assets now find that the language around them has gradually shifted. Psychological safety is spoken about in leadership circles and featured in company values statements. But translating a genuine concern into meaningful change is rarely straightforward. Feedback gets received, acknowledged, and sometimes quietly set aside as other priorities take over.

What makes this harder is that one voice is rarely enough. The worker who sees something wrong looks around the room and finds colleagues who share the same concern, the same knowledge and the same silence. Not because they do not care. But because they are doing the same calculation. The same performance review. The same fear of being the one person who spoke out while everyone else stayed quiet. One voice in a room full of silent agreement is not a cultural problem; it is a structural one.

Lim-Lange named something real and important. But naming a problem, however publicly, is only the beginning.

Perhaps the better question is this: Will another workshop change anything, or does the answer lie in legislation?

Foo Siang Yee