Sales managers keep their reps up to speed throughout the year on how their individual performance rates, but how well informed are they on the performance of the company as a whole? Recent research by Geckoboard, creators of software to harvest and make sense of key performance indicators (KPI), indicates four in five employees want management to share more information with them about business performance.
The research shows that employees most commonly only see company KPI data once a month, with more than one in four seeing it less than every three months. “This is particularly concerning in an age where data should be more available to businesses than ever before,” says Simon Whittick, vice president of marketing at London-based Geckoboard.
The consequences of “mushroom management,” the term given to the practice of keeping employees in the dark, are clear, the Geckoboard report states. Without it, it’s difficult for employees to have the drive and motivation to get their work done. One in four survey respondents said they, or someone they know, has left an organization because they felt left in the dark about the performance and direction of a company.
When employees were asked why they thought their organization might hide information from them, many were suspicious. Over a quarter felt that their bosses were playing their own power games with them, citing that “information was power.” Just under a quarter suspected that bosses didn’t want to share positive company performance data to keep a lid on staff costs. Not exactly a vote of confidence. A quarter of employees believe it’s due to the time it takes to share data, presumably because a system isn’t in place where data can be shared quickly and efficiently.
More than half of employees surveyed said there is a significant positive impact on their productivity when bosses openly share information, even if that information is not as positive as desired. More than 90 percent of those polled said that they would rather hear bad company news than be left in the dark.
A link to the full Geckoboard report, “Mushroom Management Leaves Employees Headed for the Door,” can be found in the Additional Web Resources box at SalesandMarketing.com.
