The Bar Most Organisations Haven’t Cleared: What a Safe to Speak Culture Actually Requires
Prabha Nandagopal, Founder & CEO, Elevate Consulting Partners
There is a question I return to regardless of sector or organisation size.
Does the person with the least power in your workplace make the same calculation about speaking up as the most senior leader does?
When a casual worker, a person on a visa, or a graduate three weeks in can weigh the cost of telling the truth and reach roughly the same conclusion as someone with tenure and title - that is a safe to speak culture.
By that measure, most Australian workplaces have a significant distance to travel.
Why silence is rational
Around 90 per cent of people who experience harmful behaviour never make a formal report. Not because they don’t know how. Because they’ve watched what happens when others do, and they’re not convinced the system is on their side.
Under-reporting is not a failure of courage. It is a rational response to organisational conditions. That distinction matters, because it means the solution is systems design, not awareness campaigns.
The piece organisations consistently miss
Most invest in one element - training, a reporting pathway, a revised policy - and wonder why culture hasn’t shifted. These systems are not independent levers. They form an end-to-end experience for the person coming forward, and that experience is only as strong as its weakest point.
The question is not which system to invest in. It is whether your systems hold together for the person who needs them most.
Where to start
The AHRC’s positive duty framework exists precisely because this requires a comprehensive strategy, not a piecemeal one. The organisations making genuine progress have stopped asking “do we have the box ticked” and started asking a harder question: would someone actually feel safe using what we’ve built?
That shift - from compliance to genuine design - is the difference between a speak up policy and a speak up culture.
To discuss what a genuine speak up culture and respect at work requires in your organisation, contact success@elevateconsultingpartners.com