7 Steps to Creating a Transparent Workplace

Transparency at work can take an employee experience from bad to good and good to great. Our employees don’t expect everything from us, but a few small tweaks to make your company more transparent will create a thriving company culture your employees rave about.

1. Start With Transparency From The Beginning

How will your employees ever trust you if the basis of your relationship with them is built on a lie? Be honest about your company and the workload during the hiring process with a detailed career page and job descriptions. Hire authentic and transparent employees so they will value the transparency you are trying to uphold in your company.

2. Do What You Say You Will Do

One of the easiest ways to build transparency in your company is to do what you say you will do. This simple principle is easy to follow and will continuously help you show up for your employees. Don’t make promises you can’t keep, and keep your employees informed as you make progress on commitments.

3. Communicate With Employees Often

Open communication builds transparency in organizations. Whether you are having a weekly standup meeting or sending out a newsletter to your employees every month, you need to communicate with your team. Communicate, get feedback, ask questions, and create the transparency your team needs to thrive.

4. Loop Employees Into The Money Side Of Your Business

In 2020, millions of people lost their jobs due to the impact of the pandemic. Many of those employees had no idea how their companies were doing, so the layoffs came as a surprise. If you are open about your business’s money, your employees will always be prepared and taken care of during trying times.

5. Practice What You Preach

Your employees are watching what you do, and they are imitating it. Practice what you preach so that your employees feel comfortable doing the same. For example, if you have an unlimited vacation policy, but you never take a vacation, your employees won’t either. Be honest about what those policies mean and how you expect others to practice it (including yourself.)

6. Survey Your Employees And Act On The Results

Are your employees getting survey fatigue? Survey fatigue comes in many shapes, and one of the most dangerous shapes is apathy. If you are continually sending out surveys, but you never act on the results, you’ll get fewer survey results. You should always use an agile feedback approach and close the feedback loop on whatever survey you send. What are you going to do with the results? What changes are you making or considering based on the survey answers?

7. Be Honest When You Make A Mistake

We all make mistakes, but your employees need to hear it from you. Transparency happens when we can own up to mistakes or ways that we’ve been a bottleneck to our organization. Own up to what you did and how you intend to fix the issue and stop making the same mistakes.

Final Thoughts

Creating a transparent workplace is imperative. Your employees want to have confidence in you and the decisions you are making as a leader. Introducing these small tweaks to your company can make all the difference in your employees’ lives and how they see you as a leader. Start small and be consistent if you want to build a company your workers love.

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