Exclusively written for TheFranchiseWoman.com

By: Rashel Jezra

If you want your business to succeed, you need to maintain transparency. As reiterated in a previous Ask Beck And Liz episode, transparency can build trust, not only to the people that you work with, but also the people you want to attract and collaborate with.

Forbes defines business transparency as the process of being open, honest, and straightforward about various company operations. When you’re open and honest, you’re also more likely to energize your business, resulting in success.

Luckily, the path towards transparency isn’t complex. Here are some steps you can take to achieve it:

Have regular meetings

Meetings can sometimes serve as a bottleneck in the company’s workflow. Yet, Business.com notes that having too few meetings can be a bigger problem. It’s imperative that you conduct company-wide meetings with mid to high-level employees across departments to convey the state of affairs and inform everyone about the company’s performance. It would be best if you developed a meeting strategy to enhance communication and prevent wasting time. And as your business grows, re-evaluate the meetings and change them to suit different needs. For example, there may come a time where you only really need to meet with department heads, so it would make sense to limit attendance so that the rest of your team can focus on their tasks.

Perhaps the most important thing about conducting meetings is being honest with your colleagues. Not only should you report your company’s highs, but they have the right to know of any negative issues as well. This fosters a greater level of trust.

Rethink your business structure

While every business exists to generate revenue, how a company is organized and run is equally important. There are some business structures that can improve transparency through requiring operating agreements and articles of organization. A limited liability corporation (LLC) happens to be one of the few structures that facilitates greater transparency, as it requires the members to set agreements for seamless operation, accountability, and fairness.

If your current business structure doesn’t offer this advantage it may be best to consider changing. The good news is that switching to an LLC is not difficult. A guide to becoming an LLC by ZenBusiness points to the fact that it can be done in 5 steps. These include coming up with a name, appointing a registered agent, filing articles of organization, building an operating agreement, and applying for an EIN. Once you’ve complied with the requirements, you’ll have established an LLC and will be able to run a business with transparency at its core. Something both your employees and customers will approve of.

Maintain open lines of communication

The last thing you want is for people to feel that you’re not approachable. If you want to be truly transparent, you have to make everyone feel that they can communicate with you, even in a candid manner. After all, great ideas can originate from anybody, and something that can greatly benefit your business can come from one of your more introverted employees. Your team has a good understanding of what works and what doesn’t, and they can do wonders for your organization if you allow them to be open about their ideas. It is also crucial now to have avenues where people can lodge confidential issues and complaints. As workplaces strive to become safer places, you must have systems in place that support your employees.

To help everyone feel comfortable when speaking their minds or raising concerns, Devin Mercier recommends encouraging your employees to give feedback. Collecting, embracing, and acting upon the given feedback will help improve communication, increase morale, and elevate their output. It’s also worth looking into hosting monthly Q&As where you can discuss multiple matters, or hold regular check-ins to allow for a more intimate dialogue. Make feedback a continuous and important part of your business to increase collaboration within the team, leading to a better and stronger company.