Employee Engagement: Be boldly transparent

What are the New Rules of Engagement?

The New Rules of Engagement℠ are, put simply, a diagnostic tool. They act as levers to help managers with improving the commitment and performance of their employees and give managers the ability to look at employee engagement in a different way, conducive to the conditions of today’s dynamic workforce.

In the first segment of this series, we talked about how to build a foundation to drive commitment and performance among employees. 

What comes next in strengthening employee commitment and performance?

There are no more secrets; everything about a company is public, or will be. Behave accordingly.

Are there secrets in your company? Hopefully not. Because, being a company that has nothing to hide has never been more crucial.

As mentioned in our previous post, this rule ties in directly to our last rule, make it cool. Both rules focus more on culture and, as we discussed, being honest and open (boldly transparent) makes companies cool.

Something else to think about: Companies that bet on innovation are more likely to have leaders who communicate about the future backing them and have the cool factor. 

How can a company be ‘boldly transparent’?

In order for employees to feel the company they work for is transparent, they need to be able to say:

• I trust the leadership of my organization
• Everything this organization does is honest and ethical
• The leadership of the organization has a compelling vision for the future

Where does Canada fit in?

Data from a recent (2014) survey BI WORLDWIDE conducted shows that in Canada, ‘Be boldly transparent’ is ordered 6^th most important in driving commitment among employees and9^th of the 12 rules in driving performance.

Less than half of Canadians surveyed agree that to the statement ‘everything this organization does is honest and ethical.’ Less than half. Everything an organization does should be honest and ethical, don’t do it half way.

Just over half agree that the leadership of the organization has a compelling vision for the future. And, exactly 50% of respondents trust the leadership of their organizations. Take into consideration this also means exactly 50% of this group does not feel confident enough in their leadership to say they trust them.

The New Rules of Engagement are the subject of a book called Widgets: The 12 New Rules for Managing Your Employees As If They’re Real People.                         

To learn more about how we can help your company with employee engagement or the New Rules of Engagement survey, we welcome you to get in touch at: canada@biworldwide.com.

If you are new to BI WORLDWIDE Canada’s perspective on employee engagement, check out our first post of this series here.