How can you promote transparency?

Let’s look at an example of transparency in the workplace.

Transparency in action

Stack Overflow made efforts to be more transparent about salaries both in the company and throughout their recruiting process. According to Laura Macpherson: “Stack Overflow publishes salary ranges with each job listing.

They found that job listing which included a salary range received 75% more clicks than those that didn’t, demonstrating salary transparency’s broad appeal for applicants.” (1)

Now let’s discuss how you can promote transparency in your sector, organisation or project. Here are some suggested approaches:

Transparency in workplace culture

• Weekly Meetings: share your organisations’ news, both the good and the bad
• Open Forums: create an open online forum
• Feedback loops: encourage honest feedback
• Workspaces: create an open workspace
• Company decisions: highlight clear career paths
• Clear communication: make information easily accessible
• Listening: ask your team what they want or need and find ways to meaningfully respond

Transparency in products, services and processes

• Data: publish D&I data and report on progress (also think back to the places in the other courses in this Expert Track, where you explored data privacy and policy – If data sets are being used are they fully representative?)
• Clarity: make sure the information you disclose is accessible and detailed enough to take action upon
• Recruiting: when recruiting be clear about what salary comes with the job
• Supply chain: publicly disclose supply chain information such as product ingredients and materials, where products come from, and the conditions in which they were produced.

References:

1. Laura Macpherson, 2021. 10 bold examples of transparency in the workplace, FrontPage.

Further resources:

1. Tim Ryan, 2021. Diversity and the case for transparency, PwC.
2. Alexis Bateman and Leonardo Bonanni, 2019. What Supply Chain Transparency Really Means, Harvard Business Review.