How transparent business strategy can build trust

 

Businesses and company leaders will often place a lot of stock in their ability to be trustworthy, building a positive rapport with both staff and the wider public. Trust is also something that is easily lost, with disillusioned employees representing a real challenge to the ongoing profitability of a company.

Corporate strategy is one area where trust is important and where this relationship with staff can be made or broken. After all, if an individual within your company is unaware of the direction and developments that your company is pursuing until these directly affect them, they may lose respect for the whole company.

So how can companies be sure that their strategy is working towards building trust among staff? The answer is transparency.

By giving staff members easy and regular access to information about a firm’s direction and ongoing goals, they will have a much greater levels of trust in overall company management.

One way to do this is through strategy management software. This gives employees an insight into the overall progress of a company and how their individual projects and KPIs fit into this goal.

While there are certainly advantages to being upfront with staff, failing to provide a transparent insight into the direction that a business is heading in can also lead to ambivalence among staff. In severe cases, employees may find themselves actively distrusting the direction and projects that a company is embarking on.

While a transparent strategy is one start for companies that are concerned about their operations, it is also important to follow through and act on company strategy. If your company regularly pursues projects that do not fit into the image that they have conveyed to staff, then trust in management can quickly be eroded.

By taking a transparent approach to corporate strategy, companies can ensure that employees understand and trust senior management and the decisions they make.