In The Key to Effective Workplace Transparency? Privacy, I explore the balancing act between workplace transparency and privacy:

Engagement at work is the center of the relationship between a company and employee and is reflected in employee retention, motivation and positive business culture. In this article, we will explore the balancing act between open communication — the information shared publicly between employers and their employees — and what might be better kept outside the glaring floodlights of total transparency.

I draw attention to the inherent surveillance built into transparency:

Almost every communication tool has two sides. First, the primary function — such as Salesforce being used for the selling process — but also a secondary capability: keeping track of what people do at any time of the workday. In the name of “productivity,” companies have set up surveillance systems:

I would like to erase the word ‘productivity’ from our discussions. Oftentimes when we’re talking about productivity, it’s coming down to monitoring… we’re tracking how many times have you logged in, how many emails you’ve sent, are you green on Slack? That idea is rooted in the industrial revolution; it’s not modernized to represent actual business results or employee output. Do I believe that employees should be measured on results? Absolutely. Do I think productivity is the best way to think about it? No. To me, ‘aligned,’ ‘motivated,’ and ‘clear on results and impact’ are far more important than ‘productive.’

| Katie Burke, Chief People Officer, HubSpot

In particular, I drew on research from Ethan Bernstein:

In 2014, organizational psychologist Ethan Bernstein published breakthrough research on the need to create ‘zones of privacy’ within open environments after determining that fully transparent organizations leave employees feeling vulnerable and exposed. As he characterized his findings,

Here’s the paradox: For all that transparency does to drive out wasteful practices and promote collaboration and shared learning, too much of it can trigger distortions of fact and counterproductive inhibitions. Unrehearsed, experimental behaviors sometimes cease altogether. Wide-open workspaces and copious real-time data on how individuals spend their time can leave employees feeling exposed and vulnerable. Being observed changes their conduct. They start going to great lengths to keep what they’re doing under wraps, even if they have nothing bad to hide. If executives pick up on signs of covert activity, they instinctively start to monitor employee behavior even more intensely. And that just aggravates the problem.

I think it’s a good piece.

Here are other articles from me at Reworked.