The Problem With Honesty, Er, Transparency

This month while researching an article for Hospitality HR Update entitled “Social Networking: Boon or Bane for Hospitality Employers” I kept coming across strict guidelines for employers who are thinking of developing networking sites to facilitate better communication with all employees and Generation Y in particular.

I can handle the “importance of coming across as non-threatening”. The bit about “everyone appreciates common courtesy” sounded fine too. The admonition against trying to appear too “hip” was right up my alley: for anyone under thirty I’m assuming I fit into the demographic of “old fogey” and that’s just fine. Old is old and trying to be new when you’re old is so, well, old.

But then there was a line about the importance of being transparent. Lacking a better definition I was fairly sure that the sought after transparency was not the legalistic variety that you’d find in, say, a company’s Sarbanes-Oxley policy. Nor would it be the type of sheen delivered by an auto polish, a sparkling lacquer-like coating through which a car’s colors are enhanced and brightened, rubbed to a blinding gloss by the weekend warriors who own 1956 Chevrolets. No, not that kind of transparency.

Then it hit me. Looking again at all of the other ideas for coming up with a nifty social networking policy I could now see where it’s all heading; this new style of communicating, that is. The transparency desired by our Generation Y employees is of the “tell me the truth, and tell me why it’s the truth” department. I could just about hear a twenty-something restaurant manager politely Tweeting a co-worker in the cocktail lounge: “After they tell me the truth, I’ll make up my mind about whether it’s really the true truth. I’ll let you know.” The bar manager’s reply would be: “If it’s the truth I’ll be shocked. Or perhaps a slightly altered riff from Five Easy Pieces: ”They don’t think we can handle the truth.”

Now we see this gaping hole we’ve dug for ourselves with all this cozying up to social networking. The truth must be told about – everything. Everything that was once sacrosanct will be up for discussion. We’ll need to come clean about why employees don’t all earn the same, why seniority isn’t what it used to be. Why some managers are nice and others mean. Why HR gets stuck with explaining a lot of things that really should be explained by the boss.

So, honesty, er, transparency is to be the new norm, eh? Generation Y has served notice: tell us the whole truth, or else nothing you say will be considered important or, worse, trusted. The fancy explanations that don’t really answer employee questions will be called out, dead on arrival. The decisions made in the board room will have to be dissected and explained in ways that we aren’t accustomed to explaining, except to our bankers or external auditors. Ignoring requests? Forget it. Transparency means action and actions are the currency of the Twitter-er .

Oh, and no more saying things like, “We’ll study that and get back with you.” Get back with me now, they’ll be saying to us. “I’m off tomorrow. Just Twitter me.”

Yeah, right. I’ve got major learning to do before I can get back to you. First I have to figure out how to Twitter. Then I need to send some practice messages; you know, to see if I am speaking the Lexicon of the Millennium or falling back on my old ways.

Then there’s that bit about transparency. Ultimately that’s going to be my biggest hurdle. Being an old HR guy I am definitely not used to putting things succinctly. One former boss, often frustrated with my loquacious explanations, put his foot down more often than not: “Get to the point”, he’d say and then I'd have to truncate my thoughts or he'd boot me out of his office.

Ah, but perhaps that’s timely advice after all. Honesty, clarity and brevity. So, exactly how do I say “No” in fewer than the 140 characters Twitter allows?

Be honest and be well.

Copyright 2009 by Charles A. Conine and Hospitality HR SolutionsVisit us on the Internet at www.hospitalityhrsolutions.com View our hospitality industry HR newsletter at www.hospitalityhrmedia.com