Unemployment is at a low, hitting 4.6% recently. With the job market booming, you can bet your top talent is receiving attractive offers from recruiters. That means it’s more important than ever to create a positive workplace environment and focus on employee engagement.
There are a lot of ways you can approach this, but if I had to pick one, it would be transparency. TINYpulse’s research shows transparency is the most critical factor to engagement. Focusing on transparency will result in better communication of key information that will help your teams make better decisions and understand how they fit into your organization. Plus, transparency is relatively easy to implement and it’s free.
Our 2017 Employee Engagement report demonstrates that employees are looking for transparency more than any other factor. The correlation between employee happiness at rating of management transparency is strong at .57. High ratings for transparency correlates well with strong organizational culture as well.
Think about it: Would you rather have a trusting relationship with management or a ping pong table? Would you rather have open communication at all levels of the company or free sandwiches? Transparency is all about being honest with employees and informing them about the company’s health and direction. A transparent company works with employees toward a common goal.
Here’s a troubling stat: Only 25% of employees feel management is transparent, but 42% of managers believe they’re being open with employees. Managers are also twice as likely to believe that employees have sufficient growth opportunities.
This indicates that while transparency is cheap, it’s not as easy as you think. One survey found that 71% of employees felt management wasn’t adequately communicating with them. Employees think that management leaves them in the dark on important decisions. While no one intends for this to happen, management may focus on other priorities at the expense of communication.
Being transparent requires commitment. For example, it’s best to over-communicate with employees about objectives and strategy. Reinforce key points and don’t be afraid to repeat yourself. It’s just like the rule of advertising—it takes three impressions to make an impact. Providing a clear roadmap and explaining why employees are being asked to do something is crucial.
TINYpulse worked with the global consulting firm Conversion Rate Experts. Senior leadership asked the question “ask us anything” and received a tremendous response to the anonymous pulse survey. As a follow-up, they held a town hall meeting to discuss every response; everything from financing to strategy to compensation. After the meeting, we surveyed employees to find out what they were thinking.
The result was positive outcomes on a variety of metrics. We asked, “How happy are you at work?” These employees rated an 8.3 out of 10, compared to the benchmark of 7.5. We asked if employees would recommend the workplace to a friend, which they rated at 9.5 versus the benchmark of 8. We asked if they expected to still be at the company in a year, which they rated 9.5 versus the benchmark of 8.5. These phenomenal scores were correlated with senior management’s commitment to transparency. Through taking the time to provide employees with the big picture, this company scored better than average across the board.
Unlike some other engagement strategies, transparency comes at zero cost. It’s not difficult to maintain, but it does take focus from senior leadership to accomplish.
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Kevin Nakao is the Head of Marketing at TINYpulse, an employee engagement solution company that offers feedback and performance management tools. Prior to TINYpulse, Kevin was the co-founder and CEO of MeritShare, acquired by TerryBerry in 2014. He is also the former COO and President of WhitePages, Inc. He has served in senior roles and as an officer at publicly traded companies including RealNetworks, Fox, and Universal Music. Kevin has an MBA from Harvard Business School and BA from Whitman College. He is also a guest writer for Mashable, TechCrunch, and GeekWire on marketing and employee engagement. Connect with him on Twitter @knakao