Whether you are an entry-level employee or an executive, your workplace is where you spend the majority of your time; and the people you work with become part of your daily life. From a leadership standpoint, you want the people that work for your organization to feel comfortable, involved, and always ready to put their best foot forward. This can be done by promoting a transparent workplace. A transparent workplace fosters employee development and knowledge while maintaining open lines of communication about all things involving the organization. Improve your company’s internal culture by following a few of these valuable steps:
Open the Floor for Q&A
Your employees are at the forefront of your business. Depending on their role, they’re likely to have an abundance of knowledge, customer insight and internal expertise. Give them the opportunity to share their insights and experiences with you and the rest of your organization. Encourage opinions and ideas, as well as questions. Your employees don’t want to be kept in the dark about your company’s current progress or future endeavors – they want to be engaged. Keep them involved, address their questions honestly, and listen to their feedback.
Information Access
One of the main aspects of promoting transparency in the workplace is providing access to company information, good or bad. It’s not uncommon for specific company information to only be available to management and executives, but employees want to be just as informed. With that said, you don’t want to open the floodgates and overwhelm or intimidate your staff. Find out what they want to know, and provide the necessary information to keep all team members on the same page.
Provide and Ask for Constructive Feedback
Employee reviews and other meetings of the same nature are often set in place to review an employee’s performance, provide them with feedback on how well they’re doing and where improvements can be made. Use this opportunity as a time to help your employees develop and grow. If there are areas for improvement, constructively make them aware and devise a plan on ways improvements can be made. Additionally, performance feedback isn’t only important for employees to hear, but upper management as well. Promote a transparent workplace by asking your team for feedback, instead of only providing it. You can get a lot of valuable information this way, and it can potentially help you improve different areas within your organization.