Employee benefits in a modern workplace have gone beyond the likes of health insurance coverage, paid holidays, meal breaks or other fringe benefits and perks. Workplace transparency demonstrated through communication, respect, honesty, admitting wrongs and regular feedback are of more significance to employees lately in any corporate culture, having grown tired of surprises and hazy future in their careers. This is in a bid to assist them to establish avenues of promotion through personal development and in planning their future positions while enjoying job security.

It is now clear to accept that people are willing to protect themselves irrespective of their employer’s decision. And as such, offices stand the chance of losing top-talent if the employees’ demands are not met – this results in higher employee turnover which is a major factor that dents productivity, efficiency and service delivery as the companies struggle frequently to rebuild new intakes. Transparency is no longer a quality to overlook in any corporate culture or leadership qualities. We would have a clearer picture of what transparency could have achieved in the past if it was not neglected by many organizations by trying to access the number of talents that would’ve been harnessed and salvaged.

A major reason why most leaders shunned transparency in the past is that they accepted transparency as a means of depicting weaknesses and to lose complete authority. They believed that transparency will take away the efficacy, gravitas and leverage of the credentials they have worked hard to attain. But this is a complete negligence of the existing reality, which has been recognized as a major problem with most leaders in the past.

Employees are motivated to know that they are not the only ones having personal issues to overcome. They desire to have more understanding of their leaders in as much as the social media has provided more space to overstep many boundaries previously enjoyed by leaders. This has changed a lot by rubbing off the choice of leaders; whether to be transparent or not. Leaders are now expected to be more human, a bit vulnerable and less perfect no matter their positions or level at work. The digital age has also called for people to prefer video messages to voice where they can access facial expressions to strike a balance with information received.

Workplace transparency demonstrated by a leader means putting up a human face, which is a tool that has proven to be more effective in employee motivation and retention than paying huge salaries. We will look at some positive business milestones and employee benefits that can be achieved through workplace transparency as we access if it’s a must-have leadership quality in our recent corporate environment.

BETTER EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT

Transparency at work helps the employees to have a clearer understanding of its goal and vision. And that provides a broader knowledge of their responsibility, having known what needs to be achieved by the firm to make progress. Employees are also enabled to develop better ways to be engaged towards achieving the set goals without fears of arriving at results not required by the organization. Lack of transparency at work confines the employees to their understanding of the business models established by the firm and limits their creativity and personal contribution which is required for the success of every team.

The likes of LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner believes in employee engagement through workplace transparency. To foster it as a model for building his company, he holds bi-weekly meetings with the company employees where suggestions and company matters are effectively discussed. On a practical note, 70 percent of employees that participated in a survey by Harvard Business Review in 2013 on employee engagement say they are most engaged when they are continually informed about company strategies and updates by their leaders.

PROBLEMS ARE SOLVED FASTER

Every leadership role calls for a continued implementation of measures to solving business challenges using the employees. Solutions to problems modeled by every leader stand a chance of not being very effective if the implementing employees have very little or no end knowledge of why they are carrying out a task or designing a model. Employees respond more effectively and faster when they learn more about their commitments and also work faster in providing solutions by aligning better with the leadership view to seeing the bigger picture in the employer’s mind through the strategies, responding efficiently to deadlines and necessities without yielding to delays or burnout.

PROMOTE ACCOUNTABILITY

We have severely seen situations where senior staff take total credit for employees’ achievements and still refer to them as unproductive while also rating them low in performance appraisals or directly blame them for their own failures. These and more are resolved when a workplace adopts transparency. Efforts or performances are recognized appropriately since challenges are highlighted and assigned with trust. A transparent leader frequently communicates the employees on how much they have achieved and this results in credibility in the workforce and function distribution. It allows the employees to understand how they are performing, where they need to improve from sincere reviews and new strategies they can adopt to set good records. This is a huge benefit and motivation every employee wants to have.

EMPLOYEES BECOME EASIER TO MANAGE AND RETAIN

Workplace transparency makes the employees be aware of what they have at stake. Hence, it unifies them easily, forcing everyone into a team determined to beat their fears. It helps the leader to communicate better when there’s need to motivate the employees as a need to work hard is already on everyone’s desk. It will also allow employees to share their opinions and perspectives which is necessary for every team. It also allows a strategic plan to match some individuals to handle certain assignments based on the job requirements without having others grumbling why they were not chosen or been overlaboured. This gives job satisfaction as a major benefit to the employees as they are able to contribute while understanding their workflow and achievements. Every work team mature together when they are able to deliberate on individual profiles, concerns, performance expectation, and results, it’s the most successful ways to develop the required creativity and to discover the best combination to discharge pressing responsibilities.

SMOOTH WORKPLACE RELATIONSHIP

Employees in a workplace with transparency find it very easy to build work relationship knowing fully about what they are set to achieve. It is a lot easier to blend individuals from different departments to work as a team in such an environment as they have no doubts or fear about each other’s performance and goal. They just build an authentic relationship instantly having full confidence and trust as they are poised to respond based on the superseding corporate culture.

PROMOTE TRUST IN LEADERSHIP

Trust is an essential quality of leadership. Employees are less motivated to work if their leader cannot be trusted. They simply would not take the leadership style serious, disregard policies and see every leadership move as a means to oppress or take advantage of them. Employees hesitate to take instructions and afraid to get involved deeply in the business with thoughts they may be invoked if there’s any legal charge against the company in the future. Transparent leadership style gives the employees the opportunity to investigate every doubt they have and show them gain full trust in both the company, future plans and the leadership style.

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