How is a culture of trust and transparency key to successful organizational development? | Punith Iyer | COO | Candere by Kalyan Jewellers

The previous few years have had a massive influence on organizational culture, which has prompted management to review their organization swiftly. The successful businesses immediately took prompt action, embraced novel and creative working methods and grew their operations using technology and data. However, what aspects of organizational culture did these thriving organizations prioritize that made them stand out?

Organizations are revamping their systems, communication channels, and strategies to enhance the culture of trust and transparency. It has been demonstrated to impact retention, engagement, and efficiency. Additionally, it is essential to foster mutual trust between managers and their staff. These criteria have gained importance in a market where skilled talent is highly sought after, and attrition is costly.

Here are some instances of how organizations promote openness and trust to uphold their people-centric culture:

Open-door policy:
These regulations aid in establishing workplace trust, particularly between employees and senior management. The open-door approach shows a strong link between employees and their managers, which is beneficial for transparency, communication, and productivity in the workplace. As a result, employees can communicate concerns, inquiries, and comments without worrying about the consequences since they are free to do so outside their command line.

Effective communication:
Effective corporate communication should be a top priority for organizations to ensure employee happiness and foster good performance. Effective communication practices are a vital management component of any organization since it leads to a more satisfying and efficient workplace. As a result, employees are engaged and productive, their duties and responsibilities are clear, and their working relationships are built on trust and respect.

Empowering employees:
Empowering employees enables companies to give them a position of authority to take action within the organization and make decisions. Additionally, it implies mutual trust and agreement to guarantee that these activities are consistent and align with the objectives of the business.

Having empowered employees encourages them to take ownership of their work and motivates them to help the firm flourish, which also benefits the bottom line over the long term.

Organizational agility:
In the wake of the unprecedented crises of the past few years, organizations are increasingly becoming more agile in their strategies and eager to implement changes. However, organizational agility is a long-term goal that must complement and enhance corporate culture. Therefore, it functions best when grounded on a foundation of openness and trust that embraces the opinions of other teams. It taps into the bottom line of the organizational hierarchy to ignite ambitious thinking and a desire to help others and work together.

Culture of Experimentation:
The culture of experimentation allows an organization to innovate and excel by giving its employees the freedom to experiment. It highly inculcates a habit within the employees to learn more in the process. The inclusivity & involvement of every employee in an organization is a must when fostering a culture of experimentation. Every employee should feel that they have an immense scope of learning. Failures during any investigation should be positively addressed and embraced to motivate the employees in future experiments. The culture of experimentation, therefore, walks parallel to the culture of growth.

Conclusion
Trust and transparency are inextricably linked since a transparent workplace inspires employees to act responsibly and even assists them in taking suitable decisions that are in the company’s best interests. Therefore, the company must make persistent, ongoing efforts to enhance the firm’s work culture to foster a culture of trust and transparency.