Transparent Metrics Create Employee Buy-In

Photo by Procsilas Moscas
Photo by Procsilas Moscas

How transparent is your company? Do your employees know how well your business is doing? Sharing your metrics lets employees know you trust them, and that’s a powerful motivator. And once they understand where the bar is set, they’re better equipped and inspired to achieve and even exceed it. So what can you do to demonstrate transparency and trust?

  • Present the “State of the Company” at your staff meetings. We hold quarterly staff meetings, and in addition to kicking off new incentive campaigns and creating community, we also get a good sense of how healthy Ruby is and whether we’re on track for the year.
  • Hold a Daily Huddle. Brief standing meetings are great for many reasons, including better cross-communication between departments and motivation for or help finishing a big project. Try reading a few of your departmental metrics as well — it’s a great way to keep the whole company informed on what’s going on on a day-to-day basis. For example, at 10:10 every morning, we look at how many clients we have, call statistics, and revenue goals, just to name a few.
  • Host a “Fun with Financials” class. It’s one thing to have open books, but what if your employees aren’t familiar with how to interpret balance sheets and expense reports? Each quarter, Ruby CEO Jill Nelson leads a two-hour class, introducing some basic accounting practices and shows Rubys our actual books.

Best of all, when your employees are informed about the health of your business, they’ll be more invested in its success!