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Transparency in the workplace is the latest buzzword that permeates every conversation.
Every webinar panelist will espouse its importance, and no one will come out against it. But practically applying transparency in the workplace in a transformative way is extremely hard.
What does transparency mean? And is it easier or harder in a digital workplace?
What is transparency in the workplace in a digital sense?
Transparency in the workplace comes down to access to information. Who has access to information about your company strategy? Salaries? How decisions are made? What was discussed in meetings?
Transparency is usually thought of as flowing from a leadership team to everyone else. But it also exists inside teams. Are most conversations in private 1:1 conversations, or are they available for everyone to see? On hybrid teams, when a decision is made after a quick discussion in the office, are distributed team members informed?
Transparency can be about the willingness to share information and also about the existence of information. For example, with salaries, the data exists, you just have to decide who has access to it. But if the sales team needs to see the product road map for the next six months, you have to first assume that such a road map exists.
What level of transparency do I need?
Exactly how transparent you should be is a matter of opinion, and yet another of practice. Most leaders will promote transparency in the workplace, but will come up to limits.
Are you willing to make the transcripts of all your leadership meetings public?
Do you share all the financial information of the company?
Do you make salary information public?
Do you inform everyone when layoffs are possible?
Do you let people know why someone has taken a leave of absence?
Every company will take a different approach to this. Netflix allows access to all financial information, even though it is a public company, trusting employees to keep information confidential. Buffer publishes openly the salary of everyone in the company.
Privacy also plays a vital role in company culture. When you or your employees feel overly exposed due to transparency, your behavior or workflow may subconsciously change. Instead of being transparent, you’ve suddenly transformed the company into “Big Brother.” This is the point where transparency breaks down.
Every company will draw the line in a different place depending on management style, but it’s worth asking Ricardo Semler’s famous question: Why?
Why do we need to keep salaries private? Why do we not want employees to find out what we were talking about at the offsite? Why do we feel the need to protect someone’s private affairs?
If there are legitimate reasons, it’s reasonable to keep some information classified. But more often than not, the answer comes back “We don’t trust people to be adults with this information.” If so, you might have the wrong team in place anyway.
What requires transparency in the remote workplace?
Once you’ve chosen the degree of transparency, knowing when to use it and when to err toward the side of privacy is the next logical step. Again, each one of these scenarios are a case-by-case basis and may not require total transparency within your organization. But seemingly being aware of certain situations that may require it will provide a more dynamic approach to adjustment and overall success of digital workplace transparency.
Decision-making processes
In traditional workplaces or old-school leadership styles, unilateral decisions were common. The next evolution was explaining why you made a decision. Today, involving others in the decision-making process is essential for full transparency.
By involving others in the decision-making process, you can bring transparency full circle. It’s more than bringing others into the fold for the sake of doing so; collaboration can actually produce better overall choices for the company based on multiple input factors — and more importantly — factors you may never have thought about.
Financial topics
Financial topics are almost always a touchy subject, but more so when a company is going through a tough stretch. However, the job security and financial well-being of each individual hinges on these factors.
Providing internal financial reports to employees then becomes essential in times of burden. But in times of prosperity, it’s equally as important. Transparency in financial statements allows employees to see both the fruits of their labor as well as the natural ebb and flow of business revenue and profitability.
Communication channels and collaboration
Another polarizing part of transparency in the digital workplace centers around communication channels. If you use messaging or communication platforms — and you absolutely should — how do you determine which channels, files, and support materials are dispersed company-wide or are held private to a select few?
There’s no simple answer to that question. But an argument could be made that this should be the most transparent part of your business, as communication breakdown can plague remote workplaces and cause unnecessary lapses in productivity and workflow.
According to a Trello study, 60% of remote workers missed an integral detail to a project simply due to information being sent via one-on-one direct message instead of a group forum. Furthermore, over 50% of remote employees didn’t share a file with a coworker because they either couldn’t find it or thought it might be difficult to find.
These two figures illustrate the importance of transparency in communication and collaboration and the impact they have on your company. If there was one place you should focus on to begin with, this is it.
Barriers that prevent transparency in the digital workplace
A seemingly strange aspect of transparency in the digital workplace is its link to productivity. According to a new study, 80% of leaders and management saw an increase in employee productivity at the expense of transparency and communication.
When you’re a leader, productivity appears like a reasonable baseline for measuring the quality of a company. But transparency remains a desirable aspect to both employers and employees for the sake of communication, morale, and engagement.
Barriers, even subconscious ones, can hinder a transparent workplace. So if you’ve been building a transparent workplace to no avail, check for these roadblocks in your digital workplace.
Unconscious bias
Even in a digital workplace, favoritism and cronyism is almost always bound to rear its head. The problem is that you’re probably unaware you’re doing it, which can make it all the more difficult to identify.
Within this unconscious bias becomes a breakdown of transparency. As a leader or manager, you may communicate with one employee five times more than another, even though they’re at the same management level. Or you may downplay the accomplishments of one employee and praise the sole achievement of your favorite employee.
Either way, it’s bad for business.
If possible, implement some sort of unconscious bias training that can help every level of your company avoid it.
Blame culture
Blame culture is another barrier or pitfall of a supportive, transparent culture. In a blame culture, each person points the finger at another if the company has a monetary shortfall or fails to deliver on a deadline. Because information is so readily available, it’s easy for someone to point the finger.
Instead of allowing this type of culture, you need to build an emphasis on learning from mistakes, especially with the availability of information across your organization. When someone makes a mistake, work with them to improve the situation. As they improve, you can share a “success story,” further illustrating how even somewhat negative transparency can turn into positivity.
Reaping the benefits of transparency in the workplace
Transparency is the lifeblood of any organization in the modern world. Yet despite the obstacles of moving it from an onsite forum to the digital workplace, success is merely a result of effort. The more transparent you are, the more your employees will resonate with your company culture. With the boost to morale and employee engagement, your transparent, open-door policies just might open doors in their own right.
Photo by Charles Deluvio on Unsplash
Transparency in the workplace is the latest buzzword that permeates every conversation.
Every webinar panelist will espouse its importance, and no one will come out against it. But practically applying transparency in the workplace in a transformative way is extremely hard.
What does transparency mean? And is it easier or harder in a digital workplace?
What is transparency in the workplace in a digital sense?
Transparency in the workplace comes down to access to information. Who has access to information about your company strategy? Salaries? How decisions are made? What was discussed in meetings?
Transparency is usually thought of as flowing from a leadership team to everyone else. But it also exists inside teams. Are most conversations in private 1:1 conversations, or are they available for everyone to see? On hybrid teams, when a decision is made after a quick discussion in the office, are distributed team members informed?
Transparency can be about the willingness to share information and also about the existence of information. For example, with salaries, the data exists, you just have to decide who has access to it. But if the sales team needs to see the product road map for the next six months, you have to first assume that such a road map exists.
What level of transparency do I need?
Exactly how transparent you should be is a matter of opinion, and yet another of practice. Most leaders will promote transparency in the workplace, but will come up to limits.
Are you willing to make the transcripts of all your leadership meetings public?
Do you share all the financial information of the company?
Do you make salary information public?
Do you inform everyone when layoffs are possible?
Do you let people know why someone has taken a leave of absence?
Every company will take a different approach to this. Netflix allows access to all financial information, even though it is a public company, trusting employees to keep information confidential. Buffer publishes openly the salary of everyone in the company.
Privacy also plays a vital role in company culture. When you or your employees feel overly exposed due to transparency, your behavior or workflow may subconsciously change. Instead of being transparent, you’ve suddenly transformed the company into “Big Brother.” This is the point where transparency breaks down.
Every company will draw the line in a different place depending on management style, but it’s worth asking Ricardo Semler’s famous question: Why?
Why do we need to keep salaries private? Why do we not want employees to find out what we were talking about at the offsite? Why do we feel the need to protect someone’s private affairs?
If there are legitimate reasons, it’s reasonable to keep some information classified. But more often than not, the answer comes back “We don’t trust people to be adults with this information.” If so, you might have the wrong team in place anyway.
What requires transparency in the remote workplace?
Once you’ve chosen the degree of transparency, knowing when to use it and when to err toward the side of privacy is the next logical step. Again, each one of these scenarios are a case-by-case basis and may not require total transparency within your organization. But seemingly being aware of certain situations that may require it will provide a more dynamic approach to adjustment and overall success of digital workplace transparency.
Decision-making processes
In traditional workplaces or old-school leadership styles, unilateral decisions were common. The next evolution was explaining why you made a decision. Today, involving others in the decision-making process is essential for full transparency.
By involving others in the decision-making process, you can bring transparency full circle. It’s more than bringing others into the fold for the sake of doing so; collaboration can actually produce better overall choices for the company based on multiple input factors — and more importantly — factors you may never have thought about.
Financial topics
Financial topics are almost always a touchy subject, but more so when a company is going through a tough stretch. However, the job security and financial well-being of each individual hinges on these factors.
Providing internal financial reports to employees then becomes essential in times of burden. But in times of prosperity, it’s equally as important. Transparency in financial statements allows employees to see both the fruits of their labor as well as the natural ebb and flow of business revenue and profitability.
Communication channels and collaboration
Another polarizing part of transparency in the digital workplace centers around communication channels. If you use messaging or communication platforms — and you absolutely should — how do you determine which channels, files, and support materials are dispersed company-wide or are held private to a select few?
There’s no simple answer to that question. But an argument could be made that this should be the most transparent part of your business, as communication breakdown can plague remote workplaces and cause unnecessary lapses in productivity and workflow.
According to a Trello study, 60% of remote workers missed an integral detail to a project simply due to information being sent via one-on-one direct message instead of a group forum. Furthermore, over 50% of remote employees didn’t share a file with a coworker because they either couldn’t find it or thought it might be difficult to find.
These two figures illustrate the importance of transparency in communication and collaboration and the impact they have on your company. If there was one place you should focus on to begin with, this is it.
Barriers that prevent transparency in the digital workplace
A seemingly strange aspect of transparency in the digital workplace is its link to productivity. According to a new study, 80% of leaders and management saw an increase in employee productivity at the expense of transparency and communication.
When you’re a leader, productivity appears like a reasonable baseline for measuring the quality of a company. But transparency remains a desirable aspect to both employers and employees for the sake of communication, morale, and engagement.
Barriers, even subconscious ones, can hinder a transparent workplace. So if you’ve been building a transparent workplace to no avail, check for these roadblocks in your digital workplace.
Unconscious bias
Even in a digital workplace, favoritism and cronyism is almost always bound to rear its head. The problem is that you’re probably unaware you’re doing it, which can make it all the more difficult to identify.
Within this unconscious bias becomes a breakdown of transparency. As a leader or manager, you may communicate with one employee five times more than another, even though they’re at the same management level. Or you may downplay the accomplishments of one employee and praise the sole achievement of your favorite employee.
Either way, it’s bad for business.
If possible, implement some sort of unconscious bias training that can help every level of your company avoid it.
Blame culture
Blame culture is another barrier or pitfall of a supportive, transparent culture. In a blame culture, each person points the finger at another if the company has a monetary shortfall or fails to deliver on a deadline. Because information is so readily available, it’s easy for someone to point the finger.
Instead of allowing this type of culture, you need to build an emphasis on learning from mistakes, especially with the availability of information across your organization. When someone makes a mistake, work with them to improve the situation. As they improve, you can share a “success story,” further illustrating how even somewhat negative transparency can turn into positivity.
Reaping the benefits of transparency in the workplace
Transparency is the lifeblood of any organization in the modern world. Yet despite the obstacles of moving it from an onsite forum to the digital workplace, success is merely a result of effort. The more transparent you are, the more your employees will resonate with your company culture. With the boost to morale and employee engagement, your transparent, open-door policies just might open doors in their own right.
Photo by Charles Deluvio on Unsplash
