No Place Like the Frontline: A Qualitative Study on What Participant CEOs Learned From Undercover Boss

Abstract

Through an inductive study of 13 CEOs participating in the reality television program Undercover Boss, we unravel senior leaders’ interactions with frontline employees focusing on what CEOs learned about their employees, themselves, and the direct effects of these interactions on HRD policies and practices. These vertical interactions helped CEOs institute more responsive HRD policies and practices, and address operational deficiencies on the frontline. A core contribution of this study is the identification of vertical interactions between senior leadership and frontline employees as a meaningful concept for HRD professionals to pursue. We encourage vertical interactions between CEO and frontline employees as an important mechanism for improving communication and information exchange, as well as a learning opportunity for the CEO. HRD professionals can play an important role in developing such interventions that can facilitate high‐quality exchanges between senior leaders and lower echelon employees. These interventions can help foster a positive climate and enhance employee morale, as well as improve the efficacy of HRD policies and practices.

Organizational Social Capital: Ties Between HRD, Employee Voice, and CEOs

“…However, even when CEOs believe in the value of feedback, they may not know how to facilitate open channels of communication with workers. Therefore, it is incumbent on HRD professionals to help CEOs foster internal networks (Cumberland & Alagaraja, 2016) not only with senior leaders but with other employees who work on the frontlines of the organization and who typically have limited to no access to senior leadership.…”

“…Recent research suggests a far more complex picture of what organizations can and must do to create lasting HRD value. According to HRD scholars, the strategic advocacy for HRD must come from the CEO (Alagaraja & Egan, 2013; Alagaraja, Egan, & Woodman, 2017; Cumberland & Alagaraja, 2016). Furthermore, CEOs have perhaps the more important role of integrating HRD with the business strategy as a part of OD efforts and also positioning HRD contributions as critical for driving the business.…”

“…These scholars concluded that CEOs’ behaviors, evidenced through communications and role modeling, influenced employees’ perceptions of their own work. In a study of what CEOs learned by working on the frontlines, Cumberland and Alagaraja (2016) found CEOs’ vertical interactions with employees facilitated rich interpersonal exchanges and led to workplace changes that affected employees’ lives. Finally, most directly connected to our conceptualization of voice is Adelman’s (2012) case study involving CEOs at four award-winning health care organizations.…”

“…Thus, these interactions can be viewed as creating additional demands on their time, energy, and focus. We offer specific ways CEOs can engage with employees through nontraditional networks: for instance, unpublicized but regular management by walking around (Pincus & DeBonis, 1994), taking on a non-CEO role for a day at a branch or distant company location (Birkinshaw, 2013; Cumberland & Alagaraja, 2016), social media (Berman & Korsten, 2014; Men, 2015), informal team talks or “listening programs” (IBM, 2015), face-to-face communication with senior leaders (Men, 2015), and upward appraisal systems where employees rate the CEO and senior leaders (Tourish & Robson, 2006). HRD initiatives that focus on getting the CEO out of their office and interacting with employees, having the CEO listen, and helping the CEO distill critical feedback and information can offer immense help.…”

Dissent in Reality: A Commentary on Representations of Organizational Dissent on Undercover Boss

“…Critical analyses of Undercover Boss have interrogated the construction of the ideal worker identity (Meisenbach & Feldner, 2019), neoliberal values and class (Aho, 2016;Winslow, 2016), corporate personhood (McGlothlin, 2014), and corporate persona (St. John, 2015). Cumberland and Alagaraja (2016) interviewed past undercover bosses about how their experiences on the show positively changed them and their organizations. These studies explored and critiqued the staged and experienced benevolence and empathy of bosses, stratified portrayals of class and work values, and noted the importance of upward feedback.…”