Brian Halligan, CEO of HubSpot, a Boston-based unicorn that sells marketing software, was recently voted one of the most popular CEOs in tech by his staff on Glassdoor.
Since its inception, HubSpot has touted the value of creating a “transparent” organization as a way to boost employee confidence – and in the process – improve productivity.
Let’s look at why fostering an open, transparent environment with communication as a number one priority works so well to improve team confidence within the organization.
Trust
As we know, trust is one of the most crucial components of any business relationship. And none more so than in the employee-employer relationship. If your employees do not trust you – to look after them, to make good decisions, to guide the company to success – then they will not be as willing to give a hundred and ten percent of themselves to their job.
Trust is a two-way street of course, and employers also need to trust their employees to do their jobs, and do them well. It’s clear to see that small, often unspoken elements of distrust can creep into employee-employer relations. If left undiscussed, feelings of distrust and resentment can snowball.
Ensuring your employees feel that they can talk to you about anything – professional or personal – is key to nipping underlying, unaddressed issues in the bud.
Knowledge
Knowledge is power. Often, senior staff will only share information about strategy or company news on a need to know basis. This has the result of creating a knowledge-hierarchy, where only managers or directors and above get to be “in” on the important discussions.
This can cause friction between management and lower-level staff who feel that they are being told that they are not important enough or not trustworthy enough to be informed of the the company’s direction, let alone have an influence on decisions.
What happens to employees who feel they are disengaged by their line managers or senior staff? They disengage, too. Disengaged employees tend to put less into their work, and will eventually leave the organization for one where they will be granted more knowledge-equity.
With recruitment costs as expensive as ever, simply creating a culture of communication, where all levels are brought into the knowledge fold, could reduce churn and ultimately help the bottom line.
With employees venting their frustrations about their jobs and rating CEOs on Glassdoor, it’s essential that your organization is the first in line to hear about those frustrations. This way, management can address issues before they become public online.
Employees will only feel comfortable coming to you first, if you let them know they can.