Can workers be ‘punished’ for having good ideas?

IOWA CITY — Done right, empowering employees to act on their ideas can make for a better workplace. Doing it right can be the tricky part.

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“There’s this balance where supervisors should delegate, but how they delegate matters,” said Daniel Newton, professor of management and entrepreneurship in the University of Iowa’s Tippie College of Business.

Newton collaborated with researchers from four other universities on an “Examination of Voicer Regret Following Supervisor Delegation,” finding many employee “voicers” end up with just more work for their efforts.

“Maybe ‘punished’ is a strong word, but it boomerangs back to them in a negative way,” he said.

“I recently pointed out an issue with a process that was causing problems,” one study participant told the team. “I was hesitant to point it out because I assumed I would be assigned to fix it. I don’t really have any spare time, and I am already working extra hours. As I assumed, I was assigned the task. I felt like I should have not even have brought it up.”

“This type of thing happens all the time,” Newton said. “A nurse may say ‘What about this?’ and the head nurse or doctor might say, ‘Why don’t you do that?’ We’re all trying to manage our workload, but we want to make the workplace better.”

The survey sampled 140 U.S. employees in variety of organizations and businesses, including education, finance, food services, health care, legal services and retail.

“This is broad,” Newton said. “We had high school teachers and people in finance and health care and information technology. We saw that it was applicable to a lot of settings.”

Communication is key to avoiding overworking employees while encouraging them to express their ideas.

“It’s just trying to strike the right balance,” Newton said. “We all have a lot of work to do. How is that work allocated?”

Managers and supervisors must be aware of their employees’ regular duties and what acting on a suggestion would affect them.

“Not micromanaging, but not total abdication” is how Newton puts it. “It’s just having a dialogue with the employee. If somebody makes a suggestion, just ask them ‘Do you want to run with this?’ ”

Realistic, measurable expectations are important, too.

“How doable is this, and what kind of milestones can we hit?” Newton said. “It’s all going back to keeping each other in the loop both ways. Feeling isolated at work is never a good thing.”

That’s especially important for many workers’ post-COVID work-from-home routines.

“The way to counteract that is to have supervisors who are in the trenches with you,” Newton said. “If you’re working remotely and you never see your supervisors, it could be a bit harder to ask for help.”