Be it human nature or corporate dogma, the desire to keep information from workers is something that can plague a company, create resentment and uncertainty. While some information - legal, regulatory or classified - should only be shared with key staff, in most cases a business that adopts a need-to-know and don't-ask culture does so at its peril.
Transparency often proves a more uniting and binding force than only keeping a few people in the loop. From business basics, such as hiding or forbidding the discussion of salary and benefits information will only create resentment and a fear that others are being favoured or overlooked. Keeping in-progress project information secret might be "cool" for those in the loop, but being open with everyone does more to help productivity, loyalty and encourages others to be open.
Letting teams know what they are working on, rather than developing Apple-class secrecy, will help provide workers with a focus and sense of goal and achievement. Fostering that team spirit and promoting openness will also help workers share their information and skills. This creates a cascade effect, bringing the best out of people, and encouraging sharing.
Sharing makes information free and people feel special
Workers also copy their company structure, if the bosses clam up during a bad time, then workers will do the same and not talk when they see a problem. Key to sharing is a tool that encourages communication and openness, and can remove the fear of talking that many still have.
Knowledge management allows everyone to push, share and discover information, and in the online age, a tool like Noddlepod provides the perfect way to share information without the message being lost. It can provide a suggestion box that means people can see good ideas rather than them being lost in that office pigeonhole as well as forums for process improvement, sharing key business knowledge and other information.
Users can set up subscriptions to subjects they find interesting, to avoid information overload and engage in conversations, and these records can be kept for future employees to get up to speed quickly. If managers and leaders start sharing, the rest of the company will follow, and by opening up about what may have been taboo issues, the company will cut out the gossip and rivalry that can damage a business.