Getting the right talent is one thing. Getting them to perform to the best of their abilities is something else. What makes it happen is not merely their remuneration, designation, or the enabling infrastructure. The trust that leadership places in employees get them to excel.
While trust has always been a crucial factor for productivity, employee engagement, and innovation, it has acquired greater significance during the pandemic. While improving productivity in the short term, remote work has also been stressful for workers, with many feeling alienated.
Their sense of belonging has been severely compromised by the isolation and the purely transactional nature of work as it happens during the pandemic. This isn’t good news for organizations. Burdened with an acute loss of work-life balance, employees are losing their sense of belonging to the company.
As Anthony Klotz of Texas A&M University warns us, “The Great Resignation is coming.”
What can stem the tide is an organizational outreach based on trust. Leaders now have the responsibility of proving to their employees and business partners that they trust them to handle their responsibilities. Here are six best practices that will help business leaders do that.
Be empathetic
The conventional approach to management is organization-centric which puts organizational objectives above the needs of employees. This decreases employee engagement and, eventually, productivity.
The solution to that is an employee-centric approach based on trust. For that, leaders must see things from the point of view of their team members. While everyone agrees that the past year and a half have been challenging, leaders shouldn’t assume – and proclaim – that everyone’s on the same boat.
That’s an insensitive and reductive assessment. Different people have different obstacles. Not everyone carries the same burden.
Get qualitative feedback
To build trust, you have to listen first because trust is an outcome of your ability to make the other person feel heard.
The feedback mechanism in organizations is usually designed to meet the larger objectives aligned with the company’s goals of growth, talent acquisition, and retention. A more meaningful approach to build trust should aim to understand the emotional state of the employees.
Leaders should also note that the hierarchical order of challenges could be different for C-Suite and others. What may seem trivial to management could be vital to the workforce. You will only find out those when you listen to your employees.
Use fair processes
One of the biggest reasons for the lack of trust is the perceived unfairness of management. Employees feel that no matter what they do, the actions of the leaders will be unfair, biased, and not meritocratic. This is how the brightest employees feel disillusioned and exit companies.
From reporting systems to project allotments to promotions to incentives, the processes should be demonstrably fair and based on merit. Beyond instituting the mechanism, management should be transparent about it. Lack of transparency, when combined with system-wide unfairness, is a potent combination to create employee disgruntlement.
Fairness has the added advantage of creating reciprocal trust in employees. Employees will feel motivated to work in systems that appreciate and reward talent without inherent prejudice.
Share the truth
Truth builds trust. Even when it’s difficult and frightening, employees would confront reality rather than take shelter in lies. Leaders need to acknowledge this.
Communication from leaders tends to be intentionally ambiguous or misleading to employees. The primary reason for that is the latent fear that the truth might be disconcerting to most people. Unfortunately, that’s an overly patronizing method that’s evidently counterproductive.
If the short term looks difficult, employees would be interested in knowing that. If there are headwinds, recognizing them in advance would help them prepare better. Hiding behind jargon is limiting and self-serving.
Being open can also make the management seem vulnerable and therefore, amiable. That will encourage employees to be candid in their feedback. Openness will reveal hidden inefficiencies and improve productivity. In the long term, it will also build a culture of credibility.
Be accountable
Management is often cited as a mechanism for sharing “convenient truths.” This means that whenever the results are suboptimal, information that places responsibilities on workers is more easily shared. In other words, credit for success often has limited takers but the blame for failures is widely distributed.
This exceedingly self-centered trait is common to the owner or founder-led companies and has grave consequences for productivity and innovation. It also signals to existing and future employees that the organization has no accountability.
Creating a culture of accountability begins at the level of management. Leaders who can admit to mistakes, whether it’s missed opportunities or inferior products, will gain respect from their employees. Instead of being a one-off event, it should be institutionalized for greater participation.
Don’t micromanage
The most insidious way to show your employees you don’t trust them is through micromanaging. This is particularly common and problematic when working either remotely or in a hybrid system. Micromanagers tend to be overactive when they can’t be physically around their employees.
Micromanaging will only lead to needless interruptions and subpar outcomes. Employees will be more interested in reducing interactions with their leaders rather than focusing on their projects. It will also lead to outcomes intended to please managers instead of productive contributions.
An effective way to build trust is to give the necessary freedom to employees. They should be given the flexibility to create solutions without constant supervision. Leaders need to concentrate on the outputs rather than be stringent about the processes employees use.
In short
Trust is another name for respect and empathy. It’s vital to a culture of employee engagement, productivity, and innovation. If business leaders want to build trust for better results, they should recognize the fact that the process starts with them. Importantly, they should also realize that trust has to be earned, through diligent and honest hard work.