A company that’s committed to workplace transparency creates a more engaged workforce. Seventy percent of employees say they feel more connected to the company when their managers and leaders keep them apprised of matters impacting the company’s strategy and direction. Still, many employees feel that their companies come up short in that regard. In fact, a lot of employees simply don’t trust their employer. Only half believe they are consistently open and upfront with them.

While rigorous transparency is essential within the capital markets, employees don’t necessarily need to know everything that’s going on in and around the business. In fact, many experts argue that unabridged information can confuse and overwhelm workers. Employees don’t need to know every detail that goes into a business decision, just the ones that impact their roles, their jobs, their performance and their livelihoods.

In fact, three factors (transparency, clarity and feedback) should mesh to create the ideal employee information set. They combine to address an employee’s need to understand why their work is important and why it’s valued.

So how can companies provide levels of transparency built on clarity and feedback that meet an employee’s need to know inside the workplace? What role can your recognition solution play in doing just that? Here are 4 ways that social recognition helps.

       1. Through “democratic” information sharing.

Organizations that encourage interactions across colleagues and peers are not only perceived as being more mutual workplaces, they are viewed as work environments where employees feel more committed and engaged. Companies that provide the means for managers to talk more with employees, and for employees to do the same with their peers, are in a better position to elevate engagement levels.

Transparent enterprises are marked by democratic information sharing, the very type that takes place within a social recognition system. The interactions that occur there help to foster employee relationships; they create stronger organizational alignment and they provide the type of information exchange that helps employees to feel more informed, more up-to-date and more connected with one another.

       2. It aligns effort, impact and emotional investment.

Transparent enterprises are not only committed to explaining how big picture objectives depend on individual contributions (clarity), they also take tangible steps to share how specific efforts complemented the plan (feedback). Why? They know that keeping all employees abreast of what they (and others) have done and how those efforts contributed to the broader mission of the firm is the best way to secure their workforce’s emotional investment now and in the future.

      3. It strengthens a sense of connectivity with the dispersed            workplace.

Transparency, clarity and feedback can all get muddled within the remote landscapes that make up the modern-day workplace. After all, it’s hard to stay socially connected when you don’t work face-to-face. That’s one reason why it’s considered a best practice among companies committed to employee transparency to get people talking, sharing ideas and participating in collective challenges.

When people connect and interact, it is as if distance hurdles don’t even exist. Productivity spikes, accountability rises and creativity is unleashed. But it also serves another purpose. It builds and sustains trust and that makes feedback more powerful.

       4. It widens the feedback loop.

By expanding the range of avenues employees have to exercise their voice, businesses are broadening feedback loops. Employees crave feedback. The problem is they don’t get nearly enough of it. Social recognition provides the most viable mechanism for manager and coworker commentary. Here everyone has the opportunity to see just how their efforts complemented the company plan and that reinforces the clarity employees need while providing the feedback they crave.