Report on How Business transparency and access to information leads to employee engagement?

The company size belonging to any industry has some vital needs which include transparency and access to information. On a global scale, this practice of human resource has been proven to be essential in regards of employee engagement. Employee engagement works with trust in management and in the future of company. It is the right of employees to know what they are working for and what long term goals the company has adopted and what role they will be playing in achieving those roles.  Transparency and trust across all the departments of an organization fosters communication and the degree of flexibility that rewards with high level of employee engagement. If the employees will always keep wondering about their existence in the organization and what they are doing in there then it’s time to realize that your organization lacks transparency and access to information. The human resource department should make all the employees know about the organization which will make them respect and value you and your organizational goals and be clear to them what the firm is planning to move ahead with. The first step towards fostering business transparency is denouncing old practices in the HR department of reshaping information considering it the hierarchal information being passed on while keeping the real strategic decisions hidden. Some other initial steps include:

·         Communicate about changes in company or its vision and values

·         Involve employees actively in decision making

·         Make all the data available to employees including financial data

1.2 Consequences of business transparency and access to information:

This practice of HR can imply change of habits such as modes of communication. Using emails for employee engagement has always been a workplace essential tool but the modern world is attracted to social media more than mailing apps and they tend to engage themselves more onto social apps so the organizations should make themselves available for the younger employees on social media to interact with them and the prospective employees to have then in future. Discussion apps and personalized chats are more engaging and flexible and moreover, fun to use for employees. Your company may require a change in communication pattern to incorporate transparency as you engage more people with you for your business modules and discussions that prove to be more engaging and effective. No matter what technology you opt for better engagement, just make sure that you provide relevant information and updated information. Even if you are using email as a tool then there should be measures to revive manage how many employees respond actively to your emails and what are their behavioral patterns to your emails. (Clapon, 2020)

1.3 Overview of Business transparency and access to information leads to employee engagement:

Several companies use business transparency as a tool to gain social media attention by providing all the detailed information about the organization online including employees salaries and financial reports. But sometimes, such acts does do not gain that publicity rather backlash that why would an organization du such stunt to attract new employees. Rather, the simplest tool would have been them engaging their current employees more actively into their business decisions and deals.

Organizations can adopt transparency principle to keep the employees informed and involved and these principles can be applied in any company regardless of what it does and its size but having an organized human resource department. The principles to adopt can be the following:

-    Make it clear to all the employees that transparency applies to everyone including all the departments and the teams; from the CEO to the junior level employee, transparency should be made a two way communication.

-    Asking for suggestions from the employees to make improvements so that they think creatively and feel involved in problem solving.

-    Make the goals of company transparent and visible to all the employees so each employee can work individually for the betterment of the goals and to attain those goals.

-    Make yourself available as a business owner so that employees can reach out to you whenever they have any query.

1.4 Importance of business transparency and access to information:

Employing business transparency and access to information provides an organization with many benefits and makes you realize that your employees are really the backbone of your company. An organization is nothing without its employees and their engagement and their productivity. Although, workforce keeps on changing but no matter who you hire, they’d always want to know what they are working for and what is the mission and vision of the organization. Below are few reasons why an organization should incorporate transparency and make information accessible to its employees:

-    Business transparency increases trustworthiness and makes the employees open and upfront about their views that lead to engagement and productivity.

-    Communicate with your employees as much as you can as it will provide clear visions.

-    Business transparency builds relationships between employers and employees. Make open door policy so that workers can feel comfortable to approach you.

-    Access to information increases productivity as when you let your employees know about your mission and vision, they tend to work more actively so don’t keep your values in a dusty manual and rather take the time to visit your employees and appreciate them for their productive inputs. This also evaluates performance and feedback so that you can analyze the actions of your employees. This allows employees to work on their values that add more to the productivity of the organization and they also get motivated.

-    Business transparency and access to information boosts innovation as the employees become able to handle bigger and more complex problems once you make them open to all the information. This can be achieved simply through allowing employees to share their views and present solution to problems, then the employees will use all their minds to come up with innovative solution. More minds lead to more innovation.

Sharing information allows the company to get new perspectives, new opinions and better insights for sure. Employers and even owners will be able to solve problems even faster having so many ideas coming to them and more efficient ways of tackling problems by more innovative ideas. This leads to insights how managers can trust their employees with the company’s information. And they can easily evaluate that with few precautionary measures like;

o   taking stock of current policies and processes

o   giving control wisely

o   controlling a little at a time

o   sharing  information

o   invest in employee learning and development

o   enforcing  team efforts

o   opening up and being honest

o   keeping employees in the loop

o   keeping open door policy

Hence, being honest and transparent with your employees is certainly not a bad thing and certainly not outdated as well. (Heller, 2020)

  CRITICAL REVIEW of Business transparency and access to information leads to employee engagement

There can be a negative effect of client-contact and employee attribution on the client-supplier relationships and the most obvious problem has to be the within knowledge availability in intensive-service industry that created loss of employees and greatly impacts the client relationships with the companies causing them to detach themselves with the significant company. According to the clients and their perspectives, uncertainty arises due to employee attribution over perceived quality of service that ultimately results in loss of valuable assets and tacit knowledge form the provider of information. This study firmly studies and evaluates how organizations can manage their clients and relationships with them having threats of employee attribution. Active transfer of knowledge and information between the employees of a company and even the suppliers can overcome such issues as it allows the suppliers to trust the organization they are working for and it can reduce client’s perceived uncertainty and promotes the implementation of succession plans as well as the timely intervention by the management, hence a fortifying and trusted relationship with the provider increases the firm’s stability in the market and in between business-to-business relationship to be carried out smoothly. (Kumar, 2016)

Sharing of information causes dual effects, firstly, it conveys the positive meaning to employees that the organization trusts them and they feel comfortable working with the firm and secondly, having all the informed knowledge requires the employees to have access to the critical information as well that might the company not be willing to share with anyone but just to achieve their certain goals and visions they have to go with the flow and achieve that level of trust of their employees. Employers should communicate the day-to-day information with the employees to keep them posted and updated and to improve and develop their yearly mindset for longer run and this also causes the employees to be good at their work so that they can earn good value for the money they receive as salary from the organization. If they will never receive any feedback or evaluation about their work then  it will become difficult for them to acknowledge all the proceedings of work and they will feel less motivated and sometimes they may perceive that they are working satisfactory while in real they might not because of not getting any feedback to their work. When the employees have access to all the information, the turnover rate also reduces to a great extent rather forges synergistic relationships at work among employees. There is always a positive association between sharing of information and profitability and on the other hand, a negative association with labor cost. Not all the companies incorporate this HR practice of sharing the information widely as some feel reluctant to do that because they feel it will turn out to be critical for them to have their all information available to all the employees whereas this approach is wrong to many levels and they feel that they might lose their control just because of this HR practice and they don’t want to lose their hold as being at superior positions. It evaluates perceived information and unit of analysis for transferring information outside and decreases employee motivation and greater organizational rewards. (Vlachos, 2008)

Business transparency and access to information is par-amounting critical matters to administration and management and proves to be a very powerful principle and it’s indeed a factor that has way deep importance and without which HR practices can be nothing. An organization cannot claim its accountability and bench in the market without employing most important HR practices including transparency to information and allowing its employees to have access to all the matters of the firm. Without incorporating this practice, a firm cannot lead to success. As transparency to information provides empowerment to the employees to work efficiently for the organization and also gives the company power to rule in the market with authoritative measures and without discrimination among its values and ethics. In order to successfully manage HR management and its concerns, the incorporation of transparency is important and fully needed. (Kalokora)

2.1 Future of Business Transparency and Access to Information:

Businesses will be able to retain their employees with easy implication of HR practices that can make their employees trust the organization and can improve their overall productivity in HR and related management. It is impossible for this particular HR practice to fade from organizational market as it is the basis of firm working authentically and providing employees the motivation to work. Rather, the demand to transparency might increase in future as it holds great importance from employee’s perspective. And to make the firm more connected to its workers, so your business needs to be prepared for such HR implications.

2.2 Suggestions and Recommendations:

1.      For maximum development, firms need to invest in their employees first and ongoing people on board

2.      Establish trust and truthfulness with your current policies and procedures

3.      Leverage employee’s strength strategically

4.      Empower team with trust and full management

5.      Share information upfront

6.      Be proactive and not reactive

2.3 Strategic Implications of Transparency HR Practice in Workplace:

Transparency is more than just a logistical change into the workplace. It ensures that all the employees become aware of what is going on in the organization through the management and it is another way of making employees understand that what they are doing and why they are doing. It is treated as a new currency at workplace and it is easier said than done. Below down are the implications of this HR practice at workplace:

Ø  Give employees full authoritative access to information

Ø  Delegate authority

Ø  Empower employees to take decisions

Ø  Encourage open communication

Ø  Honor your organization’s commitments

Ø  Hire like minded people

2.4 Benefits of transparency and access to information as an HR practice:

This HR practice has so many benefits of making your business grow from whatever the level you are at, to high achievers and bringing out the most productive side of your hidden talent. Some of the benefits of incorporating business transparency and access to information include:

Ø  High bonds of trust and honesty

Ø  Expanding relationships among employers and employees

Ø  Up-scaled level of confidence among employees

Ø  High levels of productivity in employees and workers at the workplace

Ø  New and transformed visions, missions and goals

Ø  Strengthening innovations

 CONCLUSION of Business transparency and access to information leads to employee engagement

Higher level of loyalty and stronger relationships are to be seen at companies and workplaces that have more transparent and easily accessible information readily available for their employees to gain awareness and knowledge about their organization. Their employees tend to engage more actively and bring in more innovative ideas and solutions into the HR practices of the organization.

 REFRENCES of Business transparency and access to information leads to employee engagement

Kalokora, A. M., & Lekule, C. S. Transparency in Higher Education Human Resource Management: Benefits and Challenges.

Vlachos, I. (2008). The effect of human resource practices on organizational performance: evidence from Greece. The international journal of Human resource management, 19(1), 74-97.

Kumar, N., & Yakhlef, A. (2016). Managing business-to-business relationships under conditions of employee attrition: A transparency approach. Industrial Marketing Management, 56, 143-155.

Heller, M., 2020. 4 Reasons Why Transparency Is Important. [online] Business 2 Community. Available at: https://www.business2community.com/human-resources/4-reasons-transparency-important-01979294

Clapon, P. and Clapon, P., 2020. Why Business Transparency Is Key For Employee Engagement. [online] Hppy. Available at: <https://gethppy.com/company-culture/business-transparency-is-key>