I have been in a few companies that have shared financial information to their employees, my take on it is as follows. In the first company this was seen by st

I have been in a few companies that have shared financial information to their employees, my take on it is as follows. In the first company this was seen by staff as a tactic to enforce an understanding as to why salaries were perhaps below average, and justify some of the recent company decisions/purchases or lack of, the directors assumed it would motivate their staff to try harder now they have a better understanding of the company. In reality staff become concerned about the company financials instead of concentrating on doing a good job, they also might start looking for more secure alternative employment. It really didn't seem to help anything, also this information can get out into the public, which is never good for marketing. The second company was more affluent in their business, however again this had it's problems. Probably the best example was the union backed anual pay negotiation. The company announced a £4million increase in profit and the union argued that staff should therefore be entitled to a 3% increase in base pay in light of the success. However the company then went onto explain how this actually was only a 1% increase in profit and therefore pay should match the percentage. Needless to say there were many months of arguing before a settlement was made, for interest the final solution was a 3% increase. In this example if the company made clear they only made 1% increase in profit it would have been much easier just negotiate the pay, however the details they provided made many people feel the company was "greedy". Unfortunately many staff are not business minded and financial information will be viewed differently by many people, I would share a minimum with all your staff, any probably stick to percentages or similar figures which still leave out key information.