More than one in four (26 percent) UK employees have left a job due to a lack of business transparency.

British bosses adopting “Mushroom Management” is having an adverse effect on employee morale and performance. Four in five (80 percent) employees believe their managers could offer more information regarding the company’s performance and say a lack of data is leading to a culture of mistrust/ Over half (52 percent) of employees are resorting to  their own detective work to discover what’s really going on in their company. Britain’s workforce is experiencing an information blackout at work, causing one in four (26 percent) employees to head for the door, according to new research released today by KPI dashboard specialist, Geckoboard.

The research found that over four in five (80.4 percent) employees wanted their bosses to share more information with them concerning the business, with less than one in ten (9 percent) employees being aware of company progress in real-time and only one in ten (9 percent) believing their boss / manager is data-driven.  This lack of transparency appears to be building a culture of mistrust, with four in five (79 percent) again saying that they did not trust their bosses who failed to share company data. Over a quarter (28 percent) of employees also believed the dearth of company information provided stemmed from their bosses playing power games. This level of suspicion is creating a vicious circle, with half (52 percent) of employees resorting to their own detective work to discover what’s really going on in their company.

With half (50 percent) of British staff saying that company information had a significant impact on how they contributed to the overall performance of the organisation they worked for, data transparency clearly has a great link to productivity and efficiency. In fact, more than nine in ten (93 percent) said they would rather hear bad company news than be left in the dark. Despite this, nearly half (49 percent) of the British workforce only get access to key company data four times a year or less.  British industry appears to be adopting a “mushroom management” approach, which involves keeping employees in the dark on company matters. Paul Joyce (@paulmjoyce), CEO of Geckoboard, comments: “They say no news is good news; however our research shows that this is far from the case when it comes to business management. Without a clear view of the company position, how can we expect our employees to make the right decisions and perform against business KPIs to drive business growth? Ditching the style of mushroom management and instead adopting a clear, transparent data position with staff will not only boost morale, but will help a business get the most out of its employees.”

Launched in 2010, Geckoboard has thousands of global customers making them the leading wall-mounted  KPI dashboard provider. Geckoboards continue to transform businesses by making their most useful data available and understandable. To find out more about how data communication can drive performance through better monitoring and unite teams within an organization, visit www.geckoboard.com.

1.   HR – 74 percent

2.   Arts – 66.7 percent

3.   IT – 59.8 percent

4.   Professional Services – 59.4 percent

5.   Legal – 58.2 percent

6.   Travel and Transport – 55.2 percent

7.   Finance – 52.5 percent

8.   Manufacturing and Utilities – 48 percent

9.   Education – 47.8 percent

10.  Architecture and Engineering – 47.6 percent