People change jobs like gloves as the world opens to remote opportunities. Many leaders and HR departments cannot understand why employees are leaving. There is no doubt that employee loyalty to the company is more important today than ever and it has an impact on the company’s plans and performance. Lack of communication is a leading contributor to those issues facing many organizations.
Based on a study done by Dynamic Signal, most workers are unhappy and ready to quit their jobs because of ineffective communication within the organization. Three out of 10 employees say their leader doesn’t encourage a culture of open and transparent communication (SHRM).
Many other statistics, studies and surveys show that the path to happy and loyal employees is through the implementation of the principle of transparency at work.
What is Transparency in the Workplace?
Transparency is exchanging information about values and rules, internal business processes, regulations and procedures, prices, and suppliers. But since this is also about honesty, employees must understand the financial performance of the company and see how they can influence it and how this affects them.
Why is transparency in the Workplace Essential?
Many companies strive to establish trusting relationships with their customers. They would like them to share ideas and suggestions for new products and services and suggest how to improve or supplement the current range. They are constantly collecting customer feedback on their services and products while trying to transparently communicate via social media to gain an advantage over their competitors.
Employees expect the same level of transparency from their management and the management team.
Can an organization and its leaders expect transparency from customers while not trusting its own employees? The answer is NO! Transparency and the ability to share knowledge is a cornerstone for building trust in the workplace.
Five Key Benefits of Transparency in the Workplace
There are a lot of advantages to workplace transparency, but we have selected the most beneficial. So, let's discuss them in detail:
- Advanced workplace culture
Proper interaction of everyone in the company is necessary for advanced workplace culture. Therefore, encouraging transparency in the workplace is essential. It is the primary source to help your employees feel valued and respected.
When you ensure the right level of transparency, you will show that you are an honest leader willing to trust your team and communicate openly. And this will also create a healthy work environment where people will feel more satisfied as their feedback is heard.
- Increased engagement
Transparency in the workplace speeds up employee satisfaction and recognition. And it is the main factor of employee engagement that is also a significant element of efficient and productive workplace cultures.
It's a fact that when a person feels that their contribution is important and valued it motivated them to work harder. As a result, they will be more productive, loyal and open with their feedback.
- Improved communication
The culture of workplace transparency gives way to more progressive forms of communication with employees. Today's workers need clear goals, constant feedback, and a collaborative environment that they believe is fair, relevant, and rewarding.
When you are open about everyday successes and missteps, it encourages your team to highlight issues instead of hiding them. In addition, effective communication ensures that people meet deadlines, work together, share essential details, and maintain good customer service.
- Better customer relations
Because of the improved transparency, the employees will focus on their work in a better way to improve the company's performance. They will treat the customers with a higher level of friendliness and provide the best customer support. How the clients are treated by the employees depends on how the team members feel.
- Increased revenue
Last but not least, you can see a clear boost in revenue! Transparency in the workplace results in a domino effect that travels to your bottom line. Effective communication, productive employees, and excellent customer-client relations will help you defeat many obstacles that the organization will face.
Thirty-one percent of employees said that more transparency regarding the overall health of the business would allow them to better understand their employer’s goals. (Kimble Applications)
Last Thoughts
One of the most obvious tools for creating an open and transparent workplace environment is clear communication. Feedback that is not shared is feedback that could never change and improve anything. It will only create dissatisfaction that over time will turn into frustration, which will end in departure from the company.
And we know how one non-transparent and toxic person could ruin great teamwork; one non-transparent and toxic leader could easily ruin a whole department or even a whole company. That is why an integral part of transparency in the workplace is constant feedback. Various online tools now exist to track employee feedback in real-time, respond to comments, and resolve team issues.
But we should not rely only on online tools; weekly (bi-weekly) meetings with employees work even better. Each employee evaluates their performance over the past week (or two weeks) and sets goals for the next period of time; when they are not happy with anything they will provide feedback to you and you will provide feedback to them.
This will create a strong employee-employer relationship and a place where employees will know what their priorities are and what needs to be fixed without wasting their work time.
But this transparency goes two ways; if you are expecting your manager to be transparent with you, you need to be transparent with them. Transparency can also be a differentiator in how effectively you are able to build your teams and attract new employees. Transparency and trust do more for workplace culture than endless lists of perks.
