As in any relationship, companies and employees have a responsibility to each other. At the minimum, an employee is required to put in a number of hours of work per day, and their company is required to pay them a predetermined amount of money as fair compensation.

Any relationship, however, can be pushed to a higher level when both parties refuse to settle for just the minimum. When everyone involved decides to give more than what’s expected, that’s when a relationship deepens and grows.

This is something that Vitalstats Creative Solutions (VCS) understands and strives to embody in its operations. VCS is dedicated to going beyond the minimum and cultivating a workplace culture that takes pride in two-way communication and transparency.

Last February 18, 2022, VCS had it’s first face-to-face company townhall meeting in two years since the pandemic. This was a chance for all TeamVCS members to interact outside of the usual online meetings, and for each department to share a snapshot of their progress in the past year. This includes reporting on figures, total sales, the different wins and losses of each department, and growth goals for 2022.

This level of transparency between company management and employees isn’t the norm or even required across companies of many industries. But VCS believes that this transparency is one of the creative agency’s best kept secrets for its continued success. Here are 4 reasons why instituting company transparency through events like town hall meetings benefits your employees and helps grow your business:

1. It brings the whole team up to speed and ensures that everyone is on the same page.

Whether someone is a weathered veteran of the company or a new hire, workplace transparency ensures that everyone knows the real picture of the company’s current situation.

“The whole experience was an eye opener for me mainly because I got to see how VCS lays out its plans and strategies on a deeper level,” says Senior Graphic Designer Jay Quillanita, who joined VCS just this January2022. “It gave everyone a clear understanding of what to expect this year, and how everyone’s tasks are part of a bigger vehicle that will lead to the marketing agency’s success. When all legs are moving, it’s very important to know which direction every leg is moving towards.”

Business Development Executive Caren Espinosa, who joined VCSinJuly2021, agrees. “The reports gave me valuable insight on what has worked and what hasn’t for every department in the past year,” she says. “Because I was focused on my own responsibilities in my first few months working in VCS, it was interesting for me to learn about the rest of the team’s ways of working.”

“In my first town hall meeting in 2020, I remember feeling overwhelmed and experiencing culture-shock,” says Mix Villalon, Associate Creative Director for Copy who joined VCS in May 2020. “When people were reporting on the creative agency’s total earnings, I was wondering if this was something that I should be hearing as a creative. The reports showed the break down of how much money goes into operation expenses, salaries, utilities, overhead costs, etc. This lets me see beyond just my work and helps me understand what’s happening behind the scenes.”

“I’ve lost count of how many town hall meetings I’ve been in, but this townhall differs from the ones before in terms of focus,” says Creative Director Jan Agulto who has been with VCS since 2015. “The reports of every department now have more tangible goals that contribute to the growth and success of this creative marketing agency.”

2. Engaged and motivated teammates make stronger teams.

Each employee has their own set of tasks and responsibilities. In their daily labor to accomplish these tasks, it is easy to miss the forest for the trees. Employees who can’t see how they fit in the big picture of the company’s progress may feel demotivated, and at worst alienated from co-workers and the rest of the company.

By laying out all the workings of the marketing agency, VCS aligns the team with each departments’ work and responsibilities, how the departments synergize with each other, and where the company is headed.

“The town hall meeting made me more aware of my contribution to the overall success of VCS,” says Jay. “It showed me how my actions will affect other team members and the entire creative agency. This helps me become more open minded and focused about my work.”

When employees understand how their individual efforts fit in the overall operations of the company, and how their work is integrated with other co-workers and company departments, it emphasizes their importance to the team. Motivated employees in turn help develop better synergy between departments. “Every department within VCS does not operate alone,” emphasizes Jan. “What one department does will surely affect another. Hearing other people’s reports and insights allows us to align with each other. So we can better support each other, and so we can adjust and address challenges together.”

3. Transparency fosters trust-- between individual employees, departments, and management.

Trust and transparency are hot buzzwords in describing workplace culture, but does our company establish regular opportunities to embrace this core value, or is it just lip service?

“Town hall reports allow for a two-way conversation between management and the rest of the team,” observes Caren. “I think it’s important to always close that gap.”

Regular activities like town hall reports are a way to substantiate transparency as a value in VCS. It establishes a regular event for when employees can expect to hear the real picture of the company’s situation, and gives them an avenue to raise their own concerns in an official setting.

“The key factor is in having an official or formal company-wide event,” says Mix. “All team members are involved in preparing their department report. It takes thought and preparation-- so we know that all the information we will hear isn’t baseless or crammed. This is the opportunity for any team member who has an issue to raise it with their department head or include it in the department report, and then present this to the entire team during the town hall meeting. The official-ness of the event ensures that any concerns will be taken seriously, as opposed to chatting privately with another teammate.”

4. It aligns the team on HOW TO WIN.

Our creative agency’s vision-mission statement is important, especially for clients who want to see what our brand is about.

But internally, does our team know HOW we can achieve that vision-mission? Beyond vague platitudes and promises, workplace transparency is an opportunity to assign measurable goals that will be the step-by-step game plan for our team to win.

“Information is always good. The more we know, the better our decisions are,” says Jan. “If we regularly look back on our data and use this to formulate our approach going forward, that will give us a better chance for success.”

“Preparing for the town hall report gave me time to review the Business Development Department’s current situation in detail,” says Caren. “This guided me in setting higher but grounded and realistic Key Performance Indicators for 2022.”

It’s not enough to rally the troops and get them motivated to keep striving forward. Instead, workplace transparency helps the entire team breakdown nebulous concepts like “success” and “innovation” into more achievable goals like “decrease frequency of creative work revisions by 2%” or “increase sales leads by 5 per month.”

Workplace transparency can do wonders in terms of individual team member’s sense of purpose and motivation, inter-department synchronicity, and the entire company’s general direction for the year.

By ensuring that the creative marketing agency has official avenues for team members to experience workplace transparency, VCS is able to tackle challenges head on, solve issues even before they become larger problems, and create achievable step-by-step goals that contribute to the company’s overall growth.

4 REASONS WHY WORKSPACE TRANSPARENCY BENEFITS YOUR EMPLOYEES AND HELPS GROW YOUR BUSINESS

1. It brings the whole team up to speed and ensures that everyone is on the same page.

2. Engaged and motivated teammates make stronger teams.

3. Transparency fosters trust-- between individual employees, departments, and management.

4. It aligns the team on HOW TO WIN.