Quantcast
Published On: Fri, Feb 19th, 2016

What Businesses Can Do to Improve Transparency at All Levels

Transparency is the number one factor contributing to employee happiness, which can impact your company’s bottom line, according to a survey by Tiny Pulse. However, only 42 percent of employees said they knew their organization’s vision, mission and cultural values. Without cohesive core values and transparent communication, your business is stuck in neutral.

Struggling with transparency isn’t an uncommon issue, whether you’re running a small business or a corporation. Regardless of your business’ size, creating transparency from the top down dramatically impacts everything from company morale to revenue to employee retention rates. Not sure where to start? Here’s what you can do to improve transparency at all levels.

photo/ Winmax IT

photo/ Winmax IT

Own Your Work

Owning your failures and success is one of the first steps in creating a transparent work culture, from upper management to entry-level employees. Ownership leads to accountability and lays a path for open and productive communication in the workplace. It also encourages employees to take more risks and remain confident when hitting obstacles and roadblocks. Owning what’s going on at work also creates trust among co-workers and management, and it breaks down divisiveness.

Switch to a Cloud-Based Accounting Platform

Your accounting and bookkeeping should be straight-forward and leave little to the imagination. In reality, the financial state of your business is often shrouded in secrecy, which breeds mistrust. It’s difficult to know what’s going on behind the computer screens and spreadsheets. Switching to a cloud-based accounting platform makes it simple to crunch numbers, and it can be accessed anywhere. An online accounting software like Sage One comes with custom reports that you can share with your company. It also can link to everything from your bank accounts to credit cards and PayPal.

Provide Support

Foster a culture of support for every level of employee. That support includes ongoing training, career advancement and tools to support your employees’ careers. Everyone should understand their career path and where they’re headed, so they can focus on the necessary work and remain productive. Support also extends to listening to new ideas and offering viable solutions to challenging projects and situations. At the end of the day, think of transparency as an end goal and work backward to create the support steps to get there.

Give Access

Access is key to transparency. Don’t shy away from sharing key information, such as the financial state of the company or new HR policies. Share stats and figures at weekly meetings, and open the manager’s door to invite more conversation and questions. Employees need regular access to feel their company is being honest with them and stay vested in a company.

Offer Privacy

It may sound like transparency and privacy would clash, but the opposite is true. People need privacy to develop and test their ideas and strategies before sharing them with the rest of the office. Allow employees to iron out the kinks of their projects and gather insights. Show them that you trust their ability to work autonomously without micromanaging their process. Forcing full-disclosure on every detail isn’t transparency and will only lead to employees holding back in their work. Meanwhile, giving some space to innovate leads to a fully formed project that can impact your bottom line.

Guest Author: Carol Trehearn

On the DISPATCH: Headlines  Local  Opinion

Subscribe to Weekly Newsletter

* indicates required
/ ( mm / dd ) [ALL INFO CONFIDENTIAL]

About the Author

- Outside contributors to the Dispatch are always welcome to offer their unique voices, contradictory opinions or presentation of information not included on the site.

Displaying 4 Comments
Have Your Say
  1. The rightful way to make an employee unhappy | The Puchi Herald Magazine says:

    […] What Businesses Can Do to Improve Transparency at All Levels […]

  2. Management style, common error to avoid | The Puchi Herald Magazine says:

    […] What Businesses Can Do to Improve Transparency at All Levels […]

  3. Management style, common error to avoid – The Puchi Herald Reblog says:

    […] What Businesses Can Do to Improve Transparency at All Levels […]

  4. The rightful way to make an employee unhappy – The Puchi Herald Reblog says:

    […] What Businesses Can Do to Improve Transparency at All Levels […]

Leave a comment

XHTML: You can use these html tags: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>

like_us_on_facebook

 

The Global Dispatch Facebook page- click here

Movie News Facebook page - click here

Television News Facebook page - click here

Weird News Facebook page - click here 

DISPATCH RADIO

dispatch_radio

THE BRANDON JONES SHOW

brandon_jones_show-logo

Archives