The 44th Annual

Northern Ohio Human Resource Conference (NOHRC)

March 12, 2010

I-X Center • Cleveland, Ohio

Truth and Transparency: The Keys to Increased Productivity

Learning Objectives:                   

1) Identify the five key areas in an organization where lack of truthfulness and transparency often exist, and can therefore negatively affect productivity (as employee engagement decreases).  The key areas which I will be focus upon are external recruiting, performance reviews, promotions / succession planning, compensation, and customer service / sales.   

2) Analyze the financial impact of the lack of truthfulness and transparency in several key areas (noted above) in an organization.  I will present the business case about how a lack of truthfulness and transparency in an organization causes a reduction in trust between employees and their leaders.  This lack of trust reduces employee engagement, which will lead to reduced productivity and decreased financial results.  In a challenging economy, where external forces negatively impact a company’s financial success, the organization should strive to eliminate internal forces negatively impacting financial results.    

3) Provide the recommended solutions to increase truthfulness and transparency in an organization, which in turn improves employee

engagement, productivity, and financial results.  For each of the five critical areas discussed, I will provide specific action steps for the HR team and leaders to implement within an organization to lead the organization to improved financial prosperity.

Every organization is interested in improving the productivity of its workforce.  As employees become more productive, the organization’s short-term financial results improve, as well as the prospects for future growth.  One of the most important drivers of productivity is employee engagement.  The more employees are engaged with the company, and with their fellow employees, the more productive those employees will be.  Many factors drive employee engagement – their belief in the company, their excitement about the work they are doing, their relationship with their supervisor and fellow employees, as well as several others.  However, there are two important underlying factors that drive employee engagement: whether I trust the company I work for and the employees I work with, and whether the company and employees are transparent in the information they share with me.

Employees want to work for a company they believe in and with employees they trust.  We all want to receive truthful information in our personal relationships; this same desire holds true in our professional relationships.  Employees who trust their leaders will work extremely hard to help the company succeed, because they are fully engaged with company.  Once employees stop trusting a company, their engagement level is reduced.  Their productivity also decreases, since they are now working in a job, for themselves, rather than working on a career, for their company.  Trust often evaporates when employees do not believe their leaders are being transparent with the information they share.   Too often, employees believe leaders are only sharing some of the information with them, rather than the whole story.  Of course, there are many times when a company can only share a portion of the information to employees for confidentiality reasons.  However, if employees do not believe they are getting the “real reason” about a situation, their trust in the company is diminished, and their engagement diminishes. 

The good news is that trust can be restored, as leaders become more transparent with their employees.  Employees want to know the truth, so they can help the company overcome challenges or take advantage of opportunities.  This session will focus on five areas that HR leaders should focus on within their company to ensure the company and its employees are being truthful and transparent:  recruiting, performance reviews, promotions / succession planning, compensation, and customer service / sales.  This session will analyze the business case to improve employee engagement, as well as providing specific recommendations to improve the truthfulness and transparency within an organization.

BIO - Tom Tomasula

Tom Tomasula is Senior Vice President, Executive Search. He is responsible for the day to day operations of the Retained Executive Search practice and oversees a variety of Retained Executive Search models that allow clients to select the offering that best matches their search needs based on budget, time, internal resources available, and criticalness of position. Tom leverages his experience in recruiting, training, and consulting to support organizations in effectively and efficiently attracting, selecting and retaining top performers. His areas of expertise include direct recruiting, staffing strategy development, college recruiting programs, recruiting process assessments, behavioral interview skills training, orientation/on-boarding, succession planning and other employee retention programs.

Tom has a diverse professional background that includes 17 years of business experience in senior accounting, operations, human resources and recruiting roles with Arthur Andersen, Indiana University, Cole Vision Corporation and Employers Resource Council. His clients represent a wide range of industries including manufacturing, healthcare, technology and financial and professional services. Tom is an expert on the subject of talent acquisition and is a major draw for speaking engagements at the annual Northern Ohio Human Resources Conference, local SHRM chapters, Ohio SHRM Conference, Employment (Staffing) Management Association meetings, Cleveland Accounting Show, Akron CPE Day, HR Star Conference and the Business Emergency Planning Association Conference.

Tom holds a Master of Arts in Business Administration from the University of Michigan and a Bachelor of Business Administration with a double major in Philosophy from the University of Notre Dame. He is a Certified Public Accountant (inactive status) and maintains membership in the Ohio Society of Public Accountants and the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, as well as the Society for Human Resource Management.