Staff speaking the truth good for firms

In a letter to his employees, Ren Zhengfei, founder of Huawei Technologies Co, said he has promoted a staff member who reported the misconducts of his supervisor, in order to encourage all employees to speak the "truth". Southern Metropolis Daily commented on Saturday:

The Huawei founder's 160-word letter touches upon a sensitive subject: Whether it is okay to report an errant senior to the management. That Ren's letter triggered heated discussions and the "truth-speaking" employee has been transferred to another department to avoid possible personal attacks, to some extent, indicates it is not easy to dig up dirt on errant colleagues.

While submitting a report to the senior management, one is tempted to withhold some "troubling" details, which he or she believes would create "unnecessary waves" at the workplace and risk inviting retaliation from those who have been reported against. On their part, the decision-makers would love to hear some truth about the employees rather than receive plain work reports.