Photo by Lightmash

If your workplace atmosphere mirrors a certain street vibe in Budapest, you might be in an organization where the best and brightest will bolt at the first plausible opportunity. Do colleagues avoid eye contact, keep faces expressionless, and stare resolutely into the middle distance? Get out the goulash and kohlrabi because your people may feel that they have as much reason to trust management as Hungarians have been conditioned to trust in the benevolence of conquerors.

A few key findings in the Deloitte “2010 Ethics and Workplace Survey”:

• 34 % of employed Americans plan to look for a new job when the economy gets better.
• 48 % of those who plan to look for a new job cite a loss in trust in their employer as a key factor in their decision.
• 46 % of those who plan to look for a new job cite a lack of transparent communications from their company’s leadership as a key motivator.
• 65 % of executives/managers believe that trust issues will be a leading factor in voluntary turnover in coming months
• 48 % of executives/managers believe that transparency issues will be a leading factor in voluntary turnover in coming months.
• 59 % of employees say technology allows their managers to be more transparent than they previously were.
• 92 % of executives ranked transparent communication by leadership among their top three tactics for building employee trust.
• 32 % of employees say transparent communication is the most important way to build trust in the workplace.

What is transparency, and why do executives and employees place such a different value on it? Could it be that executives believe they are being “transparent” when they forthrightly, sincerely, and regretfully announce cut-backs and lay-offs? Employees may understand that they are hearing the truth (at least some of the truth), but is truth alone enough to provide meaningful transparency and build trust? What are leaders giving employees to help them with reduced resources? There is always the time-honored, “We will all need to be as productive as possible.” Translation: “Do more with less.” This is transparent and true, but how does that build trust?

Since we have social media we have transparency, right? Now everyone can receive “real time” news, and maybe even comment on the events of the day with the assumption that their voices will truly be heard. According to the Deloitte report, one-half of executives/managers say using social media builds trust in the workplace, but only one-third of employees agree.  So are those soon-to-be job hunters actually valuing this evidence of transparency, even with the best that technology has to offer?  For transparency to have lasting value and contribute to trust, it not only needs to embrace truth, but also reflect sustainable two-way communication. Those Hungarians need to be ok looking you in the eye, as well as online.

See full Deloitte survey at Deloitte “2010 Ethics and Workplace Survey”