Natasha Kehimkar has spent more than two decades inside HR and talent acquisition teams across tech, biotech, life sciences, and consumer products. As CEO and founder of Malida Advisors, she now helps innovative companies redesign the infrastructure that quietly shapes whether equity and inclusion become real or remain talking points. Her conversation on the Reimagining Company Culture podcast turned to a phrase every employee handbook still carries, but few employees fully trust: the open door policy.
The open door is supposed to signal accessibility. In practice, Kehimkar argues, it often functions as a way for leaders to claim listening without having to build the systems that make listening safe. When employees walk through that door and nothing changes, or worse, when they are made to question their own perception of events, the policy stops being an invitation and starts looking like gaslighting. This post unpacks why so many open door policies fail, what HR can do about it, and how employee relations teams can build feedback systems that earn the trust the door alone cannot.
Why the Traditional Open Door Policy Falls Short
The promise of an open door is simple: any employee can walk into any leader's office and raise a concern. The reality is more complicated. Power asymmetry, fear of retaliation, and a lack of consistent follow-through mean that most concerns either never make it through the door or evaporate once they do. As Harvard Business Review has documented, even well-meaning leaders struggle to make open door policies actually work because employees rarely raise the issues that matter most until those issues have already become crises.
SHRM research finds that an open door policy can promote an unintimidating workplace where concerns get settled quickly, but only when paired with consistent action and visible accountability. Without those ingredients, the policy becomes a defense mechanism for the company and a trap for the employee. Kehimkar's frame, gaslighting, captures what happens when an employee raises a real concern, the door listens politely, and the response makes the employee feel as though the problem was theirs to begin with. That experience teaches the rest of the workforce to stay quiet, which is the opposite of what the policy was designed to achieve. Companies serious about psychological safety need to treat the open door as a starting point, not a finish line, and pair it with structured channels that protect the people willing to use them. AllVoices works with HR teams on exactly this gap through our employee relations solution.
What Gaslighting in HR Looks Like
Is dismissing a complaint the same as gaslighting?
Not always. Dismissal is one symptom; gaslighting is broader. It happens when an employee's concern is reframed as a misunderstanding, an overreaction, or a personality flaw. The employee leaves the conversation doubting whether the event even occurred the way they remember it. Over time, that doubt erodes trust in the entire HR function and silences future reporting.
Why does it happen even when leaders mean well?
Many leaders are conflict-averse and trained to "manage" complaints rather than investigate them. When a complaint threatens a high performer, a friend, or a manager the leader trusts, the path of least resistance is to soften the story. Without structured intake, defined timelines, and an independent reviewer, that softening can shade into invalidation. A clear grievance procedure protects everyone involved, including well-intentioned leaders who would otherwise default to informality.
What Actually Works: Replacing the Open Door With a Real System
Make intake structured, not heroic
An employee should not need courage to be heard. Structured intake means multiple, clearly documented channels (anonymous reporting, named reporting, third-party hotline, manager escalation) with published response timelines. When the path is predictable, the employee does not have to gamble on which leader will take them seriously. Predictability also protects the company by creating a defensible record of how each concern was handled.
Close the loop, every time
The single biggest failure point in employee voice programs is silence after the report. Even when a company cannot share details, it can confirm receipt, provide an expected timeline, and follow up with a closure note. That basic discipline does more for trust than any handbook language. SHRM emphasizes that when trust is high, information flows, opinions are aired, and disagreements are resolved rather than buried.
Protect against retaliation in writing and in practice
Reporters need to know that raising a concern will not affect their performance review, their assignments, or their relationship with their manager. A documented anti-retaliation policy is the floor. The ceiling is a culture where retaliation is monitored, manager behavior is audited after a report, and leaders who retaliate face real consequences. The legal stakes here are significant; the EEOC reports retaliation as the most frequently filed charge year after year.
Where Employee Relations Fits
Modern employee relations teams have moved past the open door as a standalone tool. They run intake channels, case management, and analytics together, so a single concern can be tracked from first report to resolution and trends across the organization become visible. AllVoices supports this work through purpose-built tooling, including our whistleblower hotline and broader HR platform for employee relations, which give teams a defensible, consistent process from intake through closure.
ER drill-down: turning data into prevention
When intake is structured, patterns emerge. A spike in concerns from one department, repeat reports about a single manager, or a cluster of complaints tied to a recent reorganization all become visible long before they turn into lawsuits or resignations. That early visibility is what separates reactive HR from preventive employee relations. It also gives leaders the credibility to tell employees that the door is open and the room behind it is safe.
Frequently Asked Questions About Open Door Policies and Gaslighting
What is the difference between an open door policy and a grievance procedure?
An open door policy is an invitation; a grievance procedure is a process. The policy says employees may raise concerns with leadership. The procedure defines how those concerns are intaken, investigated, decided, and communicated back. Companies need both, and the procedure is what gives the policy real weight.
How can HR tell if its open door policy is working?
Look at three indicators: the volume and source diversity of reports, the time from intake to first substantive response, and the percentage of reporters who say (in exit interviews or pulse surveys) that they would use the channel again. Low volume from a large workforce usually means fear, not absence of concerns.
Does an anonymous channel undermine the open door?
Used well, no. Anonymous channels surface concerns from employees who would otherwise stay silent, and they often act as an early warning system. Used poorly, they signal that the company expects retaliation and pushes more concerns underground. The combination of named and anonymous channels, with clear handling rules for each, tends to outperform either alone.
How should leaders respond when an employee raises a concern in person?
Listen, take notes, confirm understanding, and explain the next steps before the conversation ends. Avoid promising confidentiality the policy cannot guarantee, and avoid evaluating the concern on the spot. The goal is to make the employee feel heard and to route the concern into the structured process where it can be investigated properly.
What role does training play?
Manager training is non-negotiable. Most concerns reach a frontline manager first, and how that manager reacts in the first sixty seconds shapes whether the employee ever speaks again. Training should cover active listening, neutral questioning, escalation paths, and the legal basics of whistleblower retaliation protections.
The Bottom Line for HR Leaders
Natasha Kehimkar's critique of open door policies is not an argument against listening. It is an argument for taking listening seriously enough to build the systems that make it real. An open door without structured intake, defined timelines, anti-retaliation enforcement, and visible follow-through is worse than no door at all, because it invites trust it cannot honor. The fix is not more posters in the breakroom. It is a deliberate operating model for employee voice, with named owners and measurable outcomes.
HR leaders who want to move from policy to practice can start by auditing what actually happens after a concern is raised. Where does it go, how is it tracked, who decides, and what does the reporter hear back? If those answers are fuzzy, the door is decorative. The work of fixing it is unglamorous, but it is also where culture is built. According to SHRM analysis of open-door policies, the practices that actually move the needle are the ones that pair access with accountability. Additional reading is available on the AllVoices blog, including a deeper look at what an open door policy means in modern HR practice.
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