Workplace Trust: Why Trust Is Important In The Workplace

When it comes to the issue of employee performance in an organisation creating a sense

of trust is one of the key factors to be considered. Trust forms the basis of all
relationships and interactions. It is just as important in professional relationships as it is
in personal ones.

A company that is able to create a strong sense of trust in the workplace is better able to weather
the storms throw up by the competition and have a clearer vision of what the company stands for.

Why Is Trust Important In The Workplace?

Successful businesses are built on relationships. Relationships between employers and
employees, staff and customers, internal stakeholders and external stakeholders. At the
foundation of all relationships is trust. There may be times where some people may not see eye
to eye, but if people treat each other fairly and can get their ideas across without feeling belittled
of discriminated against, then trust can be build within the workplace. You don’t want it to resort
to the use of an employment lawyer, but if it becomes too much where they feel victimised, then
this may have to be an option. Without each party trusting one another the ability to come to an
agreement or consensus on an issue is always going to be compromised.
If a workplace is able to foster a strong sense of trust within their organisation they can see a
number of benefits including:

 Increased productivity amonst staff

 Improved morale amongst employees and staff
 The ability to work more effectively as a team, rather than individuals
 Reduce the time to make and discuss key issues as each individual trusts in the
judgement and expertise of their colleagues.

How To Build Trust In The Workplace?

Trust is built through actions not words. As a Manager or Leader in an organisation you can’t
just say you “trust” a particular employee or team, you need to show that you do through the
actions you take on a daily basis.

In addition to the trust you show to your team you must also enable trust to flow between
employees, teams and departments. You can help build trust in the workplace by:

 Empowering staff to “own” their day to day responsibilities.

  Allowing teams to make decisions and put together their own proposals that they
believe benefit the business.
 Being open and transparent on key decisions/ changes to business process or
procedure.
 Refrain from treating anyone or any team more favorably than another. Call out
success when it is warranted by don’t anyways focus. the attention on one particular
person or team.

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Finally you should understand your employees expectations of you. It is easy for a lack
of trust to develop when an employee feels as if an employer has unrealistic
expectations of them and they don’t believe they are ever able to achieve the objectives
set for them.

How To Rebuilt Trust In The Workplace?

Trust between people within an organisation can be lost within an instance. Rebuilding that trust
isn’t always an easy process. What this really highlights is how important it is to maintain trust
with one another once you have it. If however, you find yourself in a situation where you have
lost the trust of your employees how do you regain it?

The most important thing to do in order to rebuild trust

is take ownership of the mistake or issue. You need to
clearly articulate that you understand why your
employees have lost trust in you and acknowledge the
mistakes you made.

To make sure this is understood by everyone involved

you should communicate clearly and openly with
everyone and preferably in person. Essentially you
need to take responsibility for mistakes made.

After you have got past the acknowledgement phase you need to show how you are going to
rectify the situation and put in processes to ensure it won’t happen again in the future. Some
common ways to assist with this process are:

 Creating an open door policy where staff can communicate with you about their
concerns without any fear of judgement or retribution.
  Taking proactive action to involve yourself in understanding the issues that led up
to the loss of trust between you and your team.
 Seek the counsel or other managers or leaders in the business and have them
mediate between the various affected parties.
 Show that you have changed your management or leadership style in wake of these
developments. Action always speaks lower than words.
Finally, depending on the level of trust loss or the underlying issue you need to acknowledge that
some staff may feel angry or aggreved for some period of time. You may not just be able to say
sorry and get straight back to where you were before. Don’t rush the process, give your staff and
team time and if you are sincere in your approach eventually you will regain their trust.

Why Trust Matters in the Workplace

The need for trust in the workplace is a fundamental building block of any organization and can be
regarded as so important as to make issues pertaining to trust capable of making or breaking an
organization's culture. Yet, despite the importance of encouraging and developing it, trust is a
difficult attribute to measure and a delicate dynamic to maintain.

It varies by degree, from leadership to employees, from employees to superiors, from department to
department, and from coworker to coworker. Trust takes a long time and much effort to develop,
but only one event to diminish it or eliminate it completely.

Unfortunately, many employees are predisposed to mistrust managers as fallout not only from
restructuring and downsizing but also as a result of bad experiences with managers at other jobs in
other companies. Nevertheless, earning employees' trust is a key component to being a successful
leader in a successful organization and is the product of daily practice and numerous decisions that
leaders and managers make every day. It means leaders must be conscious of their daily practices
that either make or break employee trust.

In his book The Speed of Trust, Stephen Covey describes trust in basic terms: "Simply put, trust
means confidence. The opposite of trust - distrust - is suspicion. When you trust people, you have
confidence in them - in their integrity and their abilities. When you distrust people, you are suspicious
of them - of their integrity, their agenda, their capabilities, or their track record. It's that simple."

Why does trust matter and what are the benefits of a trusting workplace?

Here are some points to consider:

1. Trust is good for morale and motivation.

2. Trust builds teamwork and collaboration.
3. Trust produces increased speed, improved efficiency and hence, decreases costs.
4. Trust empowers ethical decision-making.
5. Trust increases loyalty and the willingness to stay with a company.
 6. Trust decreases stress levels and hostility in the work environment.
7. Trust overcomes resistance to change.
8. Trust breaks down corporate silos and isolating behaviors.
9. Trust is a gateway to persuasion, sharing and developing ideas.
10. Trust is a key ingredient to coaching and improving employee performance.

Are you building a culture of trust?

Conduct a personal inventory by answering the following questions.

1. Am I listening to my employees and seeking their ideas, suggestions and opinions?

2. Am I open to employee ideas and including those ideas in the decision making process?
3. Am I setting and communicating consistent expectations regarding team and individual
performance objectives?
4. Do I tell employees the truth and follow through by doing what I say I am going to do, even
when it is difficult?
5. Am I treating everyone with the same dignity and respect that I expect and would like to
receive, without revealing bias, judgment or personal favoritism?
6. Are my own career goals or a personal agenda interfering with my team's performance and
my commitment to my employees' success?
7. Do I demonstrate concern and caring for each individual employee, work group and
department?
8. Do I set a good example and conduct myself in a manner consistent with the mission, vision
and values of the organization?
Using these questions as a guideline to assess personal behavior will help to create an awareness
of the daily practices that encourage a culture of trust in your workplace that will create a better work
environment and do wonderful things for your company.
Do your employees trust that your employee survey is anonymous?
If you use an in-house or DIY tool to conduct surveys, there is a very high likelihood that your
employees will mistrust it. If there's even the perception that a survey is not anonymous, you won't
get honest feedback, and without honesty, the results won't paint am accurate picture of your
wokplace culture. Worst case scenario, the survey will arouse fear of retribution, engender mistrust
and ultimately make things worse.